Our grandson

Christian Jensen, infant son of Logan native Benjamin Paul ("BJ") Jensen and his wife, Marica Johanna Jensen of Jyvaskyla, Finland, was born on April 16, 2010 in Kuopio, Finland. Christian lived for a few brief but precious minutes and died in his father’s arms from respiratory failure due to premature birth.


He is survived by his parents; his twin sister Melinda Jensen; maternal grandparents Riitta and Reijo Rasanen; aunts Hanalee Valipakka and Anamarie Valipakka; and uncle Jani Valipakka, all of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

He is also survived by his paternal grandparents Miles and Janet Jensen of Logan, Utah; uncles Kevin Jensen (Dayton, Ohio), and Jeff Jensen (Austin, Texas).

Funeral and burial services will be held in Jyvaskyla, Finland.

Doctrine and Covenants 50: 41-44 Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me; And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost. . . . Wherefore, I am in your midst, and I am the good shepherd . . .

Still Lost

OK: I've completely lost track of Ben! Where the heck is the scrawny bug-eyed master manipulator/man behind the curtain/ultimate deceiver?


Although the Sun and Jin reunion was long overdue, I felt it was rather rushed and anticlimactic. How long did it last, 25 seconds, before Zoe ordered them to their knees at gunpoint?


Dang! The casting directors really do an amazing job of casting younger versions of our favorite characters. They're quite believable. Examples: young Ben, young Kate, young Jack. Plus, Jack and his father look like they could definitely be father and son.

I'm also really confused that Hugo meets Libby, a resident at a "looney bin" (his term) in Santa Rosa, but he's never heard of the place? Huh? When he spends time with her, he has flashes of their previous acquaintance, right? Didn't he end up in that same looney bin after winning the lottery, before he ever went to Sydney? How many dimensions of time are we zipping though, discarding, or landing in?


At any given point in time, who knows whom? My scorecard is hopelessly muddled.


OK, Jack is called upon to save Locke who's on the operating table c/o Des, and thinks he's met him. That would be in the lost baggage office at LAX, a place I hope I never have to visit.


But Sun, who's brought into the hospital at the same time (after Jin has gunned down Keamy and friends) has hysterics when she sees stretcher-bound Locke - and theoretically they haven't been on the island together yet either, so why should she recognize him? And why should she be terrified of him? Or did she simply recognize him from the flight?

Who's young David Shephard's mom? I hope we learn who she is. Nice to think of Jack having a great kid. I believe we heard David playing the same classical piano piece that our young future time-traveler Faraday played as a child (before his mother, aka Eloise Hawking, closed the lid on his piano playing days forever). I'm thinking Chopin?


I'm thoroughly confused as to WHEN Des wanders in and out of people's lives: i.e. he's a passenger on Oceanic 815, the one filled with our friends, that does land in LA without crashing. Yet, as we're led to believe since Season One, he was never on the plane that crashed; he was already on the island after his shipwreck, pushing the button every 108 minutes to save the world. But then, he showed up to connect Jack and Claire at the reading of Christian's will and ran down wheelchair-bound Locke in his car - which, depending on how you are feeling about Locke at the moment, might or might not be such a bad thing. He was there on the dock to smack Ben around prior to Ben's return to the island with Locke's body and the Oceanic Six . . .


Anyway, once Des wakes up on the island again, c/o Widmore, and is re-infused with electromagnetic energy, he becomes agreeable and meek as a lamb. In fact, he doesn't suspect that smoke-monster Locke is going to toss him down the well. Even I saw that coming. Wonder how he convinced Sayid not to shoot him, assuming Sayid was indeed deterred from his mission?


Now that Sawyer's gang has been found by Zoe et al, will it be up to Jack to save the day again? He's experiencing temporary hearing loss (we don't know about his memory at this point) at the moment, and at the mercy of Locke's ministrations . . . and have we seen Zoe before?


OK, and really, as creative as the Lost writers are, (this is an old gripe), you'd think they'd find substitutions for all those blue tarps that magically appeared all over the beach as temporary shelters, or at least an explanation for them. There seems to be a plentiful supply of them, plus all the guns and ammo one could EVER need, on the island, along with burlap-wrapped torches. Not to mention dynamite and C4.


Plus, when you tally up the number of head injuries, most of the Losties should be walking around with aphasia, memory loss, and more. A very brief concussion left my #1 son talking funny for hours, and he never did recover his memory of the hour before he was knocked out. Yet the Losties are thumped on the noggins with great regularity and wake up when prompted, always knowing what happened and what they need to do next. Even Sun's temporary loss of spoken English was . . . . . temporary. All it took was one look at Jin's handsome face and it all rushed back. If only it were that easy in real life. 


OK, OK, I know the island is a place where miracles happen. I won't argue with that. But maybe there should be a caveat re all those head injuries. In other words, "we as Losties knock each other out with great regularity. But do not try this at home. Permanent injury and/or memory loss may result."


And as creative/cunning as the island's inhibitants and visitors are, you'd think there would be a solution other than guns for solving all their disputes. Guns are just so.........trite.


Loved the "Burt Reynolds movie set" description of Lapidus' appearance, though many viewers would ask "Burt who?" It was nice to see Sawyer's sense of humor emerge again for a moment.

Good for Hurley for blowing up the Black Rock. Nothing good ever happened on that ship.


Can Sayid and Claire be saved? What will it take to conquer Smokey/Locke? Will Jack ever realize his mission/destiny, now that he's convinced he has one? What's Desmond's new function, why, and will he be reunited with Penny and little Chuck?

Oh, and I wondered where I'd seen George, the driver who took Des around to visit Mrs. Widmore. He's George Minkowsky, the communications officer on the barge, the one who time-tripped and didn't recover. One of the first of several fatal nosebleeds. I KNEW I had seen that face.

I was trying to think of the significance of the "Elizabeth" (the name of Sawyer's boat, the one Jack jumped off of) and then the EW columnist (see link) reminded us that it was Libby's boat. Still, didn't she impulsively give it to Des, and didn't he crash it on the island? OK, I can still buy that "Elizabeth" stands for Libby. Which boat, who knows?


OK, we have gotten an answer or two: the ominous whispers are from souls who remain in limbo due to their mistakes/sins . . . . but is redemption possible for these poor souls? And Smokey/Locke admits he impersonated Christian ("but you needed to find water," he reminded Jack.) Jack and (crazy)Claire know each other as brother and sister when he returns to the island, so I'm wondering why Hurley wouldn't know Libby, as I mentioned before, and a whole lot of other people wouldn't know each other from previous incarnations on or off the island. At least Jack doesn't comment on Claire's continual very bad hair days.


Will the island ever be through with our favorites? James declares he's done with the island. Who else is? Do they get off? And what is post-island life like for them?


How will I feel at the conclusion of the season/ series finale?


I'm betting I'll feel lost and confused, as usual . . . Still, it's been a great ride, and kudos to great writing, characters, actors and storytelling. I suspect some of my confusion is due to the fact that I'm not a sci-fi reader or a time traveler. Still, I'm a fan of great writing, characters and storytelling, and Lost has definitely delivered those.

Click on the title of this post and it will take you to Doc Jensen's analysis. No relation, but he has a better grasp of all the Lost plots and mythology than I ever will.

Where I'm heading

It was great. More details later.

Upcoming Events

All are welcome!

Guest Author Presentation by award-winning author H.B. Moore

Thursday May 6, 2010

1:00 p.m.

Lundstrom Park 1, 2, 3rd Relief Society Room

1260 North 1600 East

Logan

Heather’s latest book is Women of the Book of Mormon (April 2010)

She is the author of the four-volume Out of Jerusalem Series which includes

Volume One: Out of Jerusalem: Of Goodly Parents

Volume Two: Out of Jerusalem: A Light in the Wilderness

Volume Three: Out of Jerusalem: Towards the Promised Land

Volume Four: Out of Jerusalem, Land of Inheritance

She has also published a series on Book of Mormon Prophets:

Alma

Abinadi

Alma the Younger (June 2010)

Light refreshments will be served

Learn more about H. B. Moore by visiting her website and blog

http://www.hbmoore.com/

http://mywriterslair.blogspot.com/

Lost Again . . . and loving it

Ok, first, sorry for the "undefined" title that I can't seem to eliminate. Working on it. I don't want to install a new template!

re "Lost:" Nice to see Desmond back in a storyline! I especially liked the way Daniel Faraday aka Widmore, Charles Widmore, Eloise Widmore aka Hawking, Penny, and Charlie Pace were woven into it. Am I crazy for wanting a happy ending for some of the Losties? Desmond is a great character, and Cusick has the accent, the hair, the eyes, the smile . . . oh, and he's also a good actor. But after last week's promo, I was expecting Amazing Grace on bagpipes, Hurley in the cemetery, a Sun and Jin reunion, Stonehenge, and someone else dying. Huh?

I get confused by the sideways time shifts (is that what they're called?) but love seeing the characters playing different parts. The Dr. Ben Linus episode was especially enjoyable for that reason. I don't know if it solved any mysteries for me, though.

I'm kinda concrete and literal. What I'd like to learn:
1) who is Penny's mum?
2) who the heck are Jacob and the Man in Black?
3) what was the sore on Jack's neck?
4) in the hotel, why did Sun look at herself in the mirror as if surprised?
5) it's perfect for Sawyer to be a cop in another life. Didn't see that one coming. And when you look beyond the dimples and the grin and the seductive voice, Josh Holloway is a fine actor, not to mention good-looking.

6) I really like Terry O'Quinn's portrayal of the Bad aka Smokey guy. He is just brilliant. Scary as all get-out. And who was the scary mother he talked about? He only met his biological mom as an adult . . . . And couldn't they have found a better term than "smoke monster?" I just stumble over that one. It's just so . . Flash Gordon. "Vengeful Column of Black Smoke" comes to mind as a better name.

7) And speaking of brilliant, add Michael Emerson and Nestor Carbonel to the list. I'm glad we finally learned more about Richard Alpert.
8) I miss Juliet. Wonder if there's any chance we'll see her again? After all, Elizabeth Mitchell is doing a show with "Penny" and "Charlie" on ABC . . .

9) Oh, and toothy bad guy Keamy came back. He is really a great bad guy.
10) And as for the female characters - well, we really haven't seen too much of them lately. Let's hear it for the ladies!
11) Anybody else think we've waited too long for Sun and Jin to find each other? And isn't Jin's English remarkable?
12) I loved seeing Bernard and Rose living on the island by themselves - retired to their own bungalow by the sea . . . with Winston.

13) As usual, Kate, Jack and Hurley remain strong characters (and actors).

It's El Paso!

#1 son has been matched to the medical program at Texas Tech in El Paso. He'll spend the next 4 years there. It was his first choice and we're really tickled for him.
Caption: #1 son and Darling Granddaughter open his Match Day letter. She was too shy to say "Texas Tech"  into the microphone, though they had practiced it. She is holding "Focus Bunny." She chose its name.