Trick or Treaters

So it was a busy day on Franklin with many a costumed kid and many a costumed adult  as well.

We did have our favorite trick or treaters - of whom we photographed the following

Birds of a feather

Happy Halloween
Our stake had a youth activity saturday
One part food - one part games - one part dance - one part bonfire - one part chill-laxing
The best part clearly was the birds in attendance, of which I had a favorite.

Finishing Fall

Last week we showed the joys of raking. This week the joys of viewing. The colors of fall are ablaze in our neighborhood. Even though we have raked prodigious amounts the trees still hold forth in splendor.

These have long been among my favorite photos back on Vinewood.

But I am equally content sitting in my Franklin living room

I love the colors of fall.

Thursday Visitors

With some regularity we have visitors on every second or third Thursday of the month. I only saw them for a pleasant bit and the assigned photographer forgot the camera at the other activities .

So you have to imagine the fun at chef school and then lunch with the cousins - a grouping of 10 little ones.

Better than it looks

OK
So had we known they were framing us for the key local news photo of the game we would have been standing and shouting and animated in a crazy fan kind of way. The game was actually fantastic . It was demonstrative of all that is delightful in high school athletics: the stands were full, incessant cheering, cross-town rivals, intense competition, close score: (21-25,25-23,26-24) and the good guys came out on top.

A fun side note, is that Mackey who has enjoyed a dynamic season as captain and outside hitter of the JV team has been pulled up to varsity as they expand their roster heading into the season ending play-offs.

how a potential President Romney, also Mormon, may approach the economy.

I just recently read this On Faith column from The Washington Post. I am neither an avid follower of The Washington Post nor of Mitt Romney. I am an avid follower of "Mormonism" as a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. And as such found the insights offered by the article interesting. I hope you do too. Then go out and disruptively innovate in an obedient manner.

Posted at 12:19 PM ET, 10/05/2011

How Mitt Romney’s Mormonism may shape the U.S. economy

By Clayton Christensen

In “Pennies from Heaven: How Mormon economics shape the G.O.P.,” Harper Magazine’s Oct 2011 cover story, author Chris Lehmann writes that “the business side of Mormonism is a curious agent for the faith’s deliverance into the mainstream,” and argues that “the Mormon-style gospel of wealth” is essential to understanding many of our economic debates today.

On Faith asked Harvard Business School professor and one of On Faith’s Mormon panelists, Clayton Christensen, for insight into how Latter-day Saints view fiscal matters, and how a potential President Romney, also Mormon, may approach the economy.

Many of the major innovations in the Mormon Church were initiated by local leaders. Mitt Romney was president of his stake (archdiocese) in Boston. (TIM SLOAN)Some wonder whether certain beliefs and practices in the Mormon Church help its members inordinately contribute entrepreneurship, innovation and management to the economy. Things like honesty and respect for others and their property are taught and practiced in most churches. A few other principles, however - though they can be followed by anyone and are not uniquely “Mormon” beliefs per se - might be followed more consistently in our church than in some others. I’ll summarize just two of these.

The first is a duality that is critical to successful innovation: On one side, the license to innovate must be broadly felt. And on the other side, the instinct to follow their leaders’ guidance is critical to implement or “scale” successful innovations. Few institutions balance this as well as the Mormon Church.

On the one side, we believe that the Lord told us, “For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things. Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will; for the power is in them. He that doeth not anything until he is commanded, the same is damned.” (Doctrine and Covenants, 58:26 - 29; which I have condensed). And on the other side, several times every year, we raise our hands in conference to signify that we will sustain and follow our leaders. We are an innovative but obedient people.

Many of the important programs and institutions in our church, as a result, were innovations developed by local leaders, to solve local problems. As our prophet and apostles have then learned of these innovations and their effectiveness, they have asked every congregation in the world to adopt the innovations - and almost everyone does. Our systems of welfare, teaching our children, missionary program, and our ability to help the unemployed to find work, are examples of this. Responsibility for innovation is dispersed and bottom-up. When a better way is discovered, top-down direction drives broad and uniform adoption.

This duality is rare in our economy. For example, in education many teachers and administrators don’t view innovation as their job. They do their job year after year with little change, even though they are surrounded by evidence that change is badly needed. A few have produced extraordinary innovations in teaching and learning - such as KIPP Schools and Hi-Tech High. But even the best of these innovations scale slowly. Educators instead question the innovations’ effectiveness; muster countervailing data; or hide behind regulation.

Certainly some don’t apply to their professional pursuits what they can observe at church about the importance of this duality of innovation and implementation. But for those who use their membership in the Mormon Church as a graduate school for robust principles, it pays off.

A second example: Two types of innovations affect employment. Efficiency innovations are important for our economy. But they typically get rid of jobs, as innovators find ways to produce more with less. Disruptive innovations, in contrast, are products and services that are so much more simple and affordable that many more people can own and use them. Nearly all of the net creation of new jobs in our economy are rooted in disruptive innovation - innovations that bring higher standards of living to the bottom of the market - and then move up.

Because we have no professional clergy, members care for each other, and there is no hierarchy amongst us. For a time, for example, Mitt Romney was president of the stake (archdiocese) in Boston. Two of his bishops (ministers) who were leaders of two congregations were a professor at MIT and a man who worked the night shift loading and unloading trucks for UPS. When Romney finished his term as president, a policeman took his place. Many of those who join the church are poor - but we all rally to help them improve. It is the job of everyone. Membership in the Mormon Church helps you build an instinct, based upon love and service, for disruption - enabling those at the low-income end of the market, to move up. Our missionary service reinforces this instinct.

Some of the most successful Mormon businessmen built their companies disruptively, by enabling those at the low end to enjoy access to things that previously were too expensive. Marriott didn’t start as a hotel, but as a drive-through restaurant. George Romney transformed American Motors with the Rambler - from the bottom.Dave Neeleman’s Jet Blue followed the same pattern. And this instinct drove former Utah Governor and HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to createWestern Governors University - a very successful online university helping students who otherwise could not get the training to get better jobs.

Again, Mormons don’t have a corner on disruption, by any measure. I simply offer in this essay my personal observation that some of the things that I and others have learned in our church actually are quite helpful in other spheres as well.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and am a professor at the Harvard Business School. The observations in this essay are his own, and are not positions of my church or my employer.

a leaf falls

a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
on
lon
liness 

Create Date	:	Monday, January 13, 2003

e.e. cummings 


So e.e. never saw our backyard with its thousands of leaves. They make for a joyous fall day in Illinois. Sun-shining, leaves falling, Mackey having already played a great volleyball tournament. Dean and Eden were not lonely.

Game On

Truth be told I've been to a fair number of the cousins basketball, volleyball, swim meet, soccer game, track meet in my day. Further truth be told I've enjoyed almost all of them. Little did we imagine that Mackey would have cousins frequent her volleyball games here in Naperville. It's nice to bring your built in cheering squad; great to enjoy the game together. And Mackey did not disappoint-both by playing well and winning.

I think I had a break-through game with Ella: read, played and hangout together

Formally known as Everett

it has been an incredibly beautiful past 5 days here in Naperville. Clear skies, cool breezes , low 80s. Good enough weather that Wednesday, I golfed 18 - which I haven't done in eons; at a  hilly, wooded, lovely Wayzata CC type of course - Cog Hill. One of the many challenging course in Chicagoland. I played Ravines which is one of four courses on the property. My muscles definitely react differently than they use to which added interesting after effects.

Saturday was nice enough to go play but we yielded to the temptation of cleaning the garage and winterizing the abode. Rindy and I were met to work side-by-side. We are efficeient and effective and enjoy  time together. Saturday night was Stake Conference and it measured up to the pre-billing with focus on chosing to be happy and being a friend in terms of doing the right thing, at the right time without delay. An example of the lengths a true friend would go to save a friend was drawn form Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer. If you have a minute go read his story and be grateful for his courage and commitment and challenge yourself to deepen your own commitment to being a friend.

This was all a slow way of getting around to the blessing of Everett Ervin Starks - as seen below.

He reverently held his tongue during the blessing - more aptly clung to his bink, while Josh pronounced a loving blessing on the boy. Another enjoyable opportunity to share a meal and chatter with the Naperville family followed with parental drop-ins of Brad and Mari-Lynn. Indeed an enjoyable weekend.

Conference Sunday

What a beautiful fall day - blue sky, bright sun, cool temp.
What a beautiful day - sleep in.
What a beautiful day listen to the Prophet and other inspired talks providing guidance and insight
What a beautiful day to have cousins over for dinner

Badger Family

 Wisconsin is it delightful - it has some of my favorite hiking and camping sites
But is also has some of my favorite folk living there

Yes they live in Wisconsin
I can accommodate the Red wardrobe, I think the green and gold would be a trifle too much.
We drove up for dinner, a walk to the park, a belated birthday present,

and going to general conference priesthood meeting with at least one son.

Nice