Weight Wars

I came across something really scary: a record of my weight from 2001 through 2003.  I started at 292 in December of 2001.  However I was down to 285 by mid January; only to blossom back up by the end of the year.  My last recorded weight in 2002, early December, was 292.  Then I became my heaviest.  I started 2003 at 298.  That is just gross.  That is the most I have weighed my entire life.  That is 100 pounds above the obese line.  I recorded that by the end of 2003 I was back to 285.  I have continued a mostly downward spiral, with significance periods of getting stuck.  I am half of the way to the obese line--in other words I am 50 pounds lighter than my heaviest with another 50 to go.
What have been the consequences.  I have diabetes and tinnitus, and sleep apnea and high blood pressure.  Weight is a contributing factor in all these areas.  I hope when I am no longer obese--some of these health issues will be resolved.  I would be grateful if just one or two  would improve and I not have to take so many medications.

Rachelle,my Niece, is in Deseret News

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865577681/Amy-Donaldson-Running-saved-Payson-woman-after-accident-stole-her-brothers-life.html?pg=all

Amber, Rachelle and Weldon

My niece was interviewed for an article in the Deseret News.  She has been running for her brother who died in a car accident.  She has gotten pretty good at running.  She came to California to run in a Ragnar (relay that takes all night.)
I wrote a couple blogs about Trevor's passing:
http://billywardlefamily.blogspot.com/2010/12/loss-via-automobile-accident.html
http://whilhelmsthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/12/trevors-last-visit-to-california.html

The History Nut

The History Nut 

http://bwardlehistory.blogspot.com/ 

Maybe I should have studied history in college.  My Dad did, and received his Master's from USU, writing his thesis about the forced move of the Uncompahgre Ute Indians from Colorado to the reservation in Eastern Utah.  He took several trips doing research, and maybe from this began a desire to know more about history.

However my first love of history goes father back than my Dad's travels.  While growing up, we lived in Illinois for a couple of years in Carbondale. A member of the branch had a property with enough open land to have a branch garden.  This property had something else.  It had bomb craters from the Civil War.  You could still see them.  I was fascinated with the Civil War.  But when a teacher offered me a how-to baseball book or a Civil War book I took the baseball book.  I was still a boy, and playing baseball was something I did a lot back then.

I did study some history in college.  I took the history of Cache Valley course, and did a research paper on the History of the Reorganized Church in Cache Valley.  Not many people know that the son of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith III, visited Cache Valley as president of the Reorganized Church, and there was a great debate between the two philosophies in the basement of the Logan Tabernacle.  (The main floor was not completed and the basement was the largest room available in the Valley at the time.)  At one point someone yelled from the gallery, "Don't talk to the son of the prophet that way."  Joseph Smith had a great respect from the people which carried over to his son.  Even so there were not a lot of converts to the church headed by Joseph Smith III.

I also recently delved into WWII history, as I wrote my father's history.  It was good to understand that war a bit better.

I have also studied pioneer history as part of learning of my own ancestors.  More recently I have been learning California pioneer history.  Did you know there was a battle in Santa Clara as part of the Mexican American War?  There are many things with regards to history I enjoy.  I am often reading a historical book.

PS  My Dad's thesis is in the special collections section of the USU library.  The paper I wrote is there as well.