Arizona update

I'm taken with the desert landscape, the brightness of the sun, the eternal summer of Phoenix. I think I could become a snow bird without any trouble at all. I'd leave Salt Lake on January 1st and return on April 1st. Who needs a winter of poisonous inversion and general atmospheric gloom? That leaves me with enough wet weather to use my new Marimekko umbrella.

I'm almost finished with Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It is a history of how civilizations developed and fell, and why they developed early in Eurasia but not until much later in North America. Diamond makes some complex subjects like plant evolution clear and readable.

The depressing part is that peaceful civilizations always get over run by aggressive eat-em-up types. Wars and rumors of wars. It's our history.

On the airplane, I read a book about a four-year-old boy who went to heaven during a surgical procedure: Heaven is Real. I read these kind of books with great skepticism. At the same time, I want to be convinced.

This is what I learned: we have wings in Heaven, but not Jesus. He goes up and down like an elevator. We wear white with varied colored sashes. Jesus has a horse colored like a rainbow. The young boy met Jesus's cousin and he was very nice. There are more colors in Heaven than there are here. Nobody wears glasses in heaven, and there are no old people. You have to know Jesus to go to Heaven.

I'd like to have wings. Yes, I would.