Prince Zachary, the charming?

Zach is on a roll!

Last month he participated in a "mock" audition held by Disney at Zach's school for the purpose of giving the attendees experience in the audition process. Perhaps as a result of that audition, and the resume and photo Zach provided, he was invited to attend a real audition last Thursday and was asked to tryout for the role of Prince Charming in Disneyland's Electric Light Parade. There were so many people trying out for various jobs that Zach did not get home until 1:30 in the morning. What was odd, is that he was not asked to sing or dance. The judges made their decision only by looking at the contestants and had them try on a fancy white jacket with red shoulder epaulets. He thinks he has the job, but is waiting for more details.

As for myself, for the past year or so my employment with Parker Hannifin has been focused almost exclusively on working to help implement a product lifecycle management and collaborative development software tool called Enovia MatrixOne. This has required, and will continue to require, my traveling more than usual, which I do not relish.
http://www.3ds.com/products/enovia/products/enovia-matrixone/products/

Proud parents announce that Zachary makes BYU Young Ambassadors!

Two weeks ago Zachary auditioned for the BYU Young Ambassadors (premiere singing-dancing performance group) and for the BYU Dancer's Company (premiere modern dance performing group). Hundreds of current and incoming students tried out for these groups and any of them would be thrilled to make either of these premiere groups by the time they are Seniors. Zach has been invited to join both groups as an incoming Freshman, a rare accomplishment. Not too shabby! He will only be able to join one or the other. I think its a pretty safe bet that he will chose Young Ambassadors.

http://pam.byu.edu/similarpage.asp?title=Young%20Ambassadors
http://pam.byu.edu/similarpage.asp?title=Dancers

"One, Three, Two"

Back on January 28th of this year while I was still recovering from colon cancer surgery, my son Clayton thoughtfully wrote a poem that combined a story about his daughter learning to count and his feelings when he learned that my November colonoscopy had found colon cancer, which was originally diagnosed at stage 3, then reduced to stage 2 following successful surgery. Clayton called me today to share that he submitted the poem to his Humanities class and it won 1st prize and is being published in the annual issue of the Penn State Medical School magazine.

"One, Three, Two"

"Not polyps," son, "Stage one, at least."
Dad's telephone-voice silenced our feast,
Haunting what-if's tormented me.
And next I heard, "one" became "three."

My daughter, learning to count to five,
Will she know "Gampah," will he survive?
"One…" Yes, child, what's next? She says, "Thwee"
No, darling, what lies in between?

Mom's elated call interrupts us:
News? What corrected diagnosis?

"Of course I know, Grandpa I do,
What comes next?"

Her answer back: "two."

-Clayton Hess

BYU Young Ambassadors tryouts

Zach and his vocal coach (Kim) and our granddaughter Kaylee drove up to Provo last Wednesday so that Zachary could tryout for BYU's premiere singing/dance touring group, The Young Ambassadors. http://music.byu.edu/ya/

We've been told that it is rare for freshmen to make the group. Zach was the best male dancer in his audition group and also sang well. If he doesn't make it this year, it will be because of his youth (he'll be a 17 year old freshman), not his talent. He also tried out for, and made the callback cut for, the premiere modern dance group at the Y, but the callback audition time overlapped with the Y.A. call back times. So, we'll have to see what happens if both groups want him. He was also able to do some vocal recording with a musically talented former member of the Orange Stake who now lives in Utah Valley. Kaylee *loved* playing with their live bunny. We are assuming that Zachary will find out about Young Ambassadors in the next few weeks after the Y.A. Directors analyze the audition videos and pray about their decision. One of the things we all like about the group is that their values and objectives are gospel-centered.

I spent most of last week in Fort Worth, Texas on business. I was awoken early Thursday morning in my hotel room by *wild* weather (severe thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, high winds, etc.). What a show! Reminded me of the news network feeds of the rain and winds as Hurricane Katrina was approaching New Orleans.

I started the day thinking that I was safe from the American Airlines flight cancellation nightmare at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport because my AA return flight was on a Boeing 737, not an MD-80. WRONG! I received a text message that my Thursday night American Airlines flight to SLC was canceled! I was able to escape the disaster by cutting short a training class and taking an earlier Delta flight to SLC where I joined the family in SLC on Thursday evening to spend a long weekend with them and extended family members. I ended up sitting by a very sharp missionary returning from Brazil, Elder Norris, who studied 2 years at the Air Force Academy prior to serving a mission. As it turns out, he was traveling with a sister missionary who was also returning from Brazil. I didn't realize it until I saw them greeting their families at the airport, but the sister missionary was my sister-in-law Lori's niece!

Kim and I were able to see Jayson and Celeste's nearly empty apartment (anybody in the SLC area have any furniture they wanna donate?) and take them out for breakfast. We drove back late Sunday and Monday morning. We managed to miss the record breaking, near 100 degree temperatures on Sunday in Southern California. Quite a contrast from the light snow I experienced on the east bench of Bountiful last Thursday evening.

And...most important of all......(drum roll please).....I finally got my taxes done...with a whole day to mail em.

If you're a music lover, you'll love this website!

http://www.pandora.com/

Thanks to Emily for the tip.
http://readyformycloseupmrdemille.blogspot.com/2008/04/pandoras-box.html

L.A.Times article about Mormons and Muslims

Checkout this interesting article about Mormons and Muslims.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-morlims2apr02,1,2488142.story