Happy 30th Anniversary!

30 Years ago today... The our wedding day actually started the night before. Ron Williams and I were up until about 1:00am putting brakes on my Mustang in preparation for our (Jane and I) 5-day honeymoon trip from LA to San Francisco. Ron and I spent the night at my apartment sleeping on the floor, then we got up about four hours later and got ready to go to the temple. The plan was for Ron Williams (my best friend/best man) to drive Jane and I to the temple. When we got to Jane's house, she was not ready, in fact, she was throwing up sick. I remember the ride to the temple, Ron was driving my Mustang, I sat on Jane's left in the back seat, Jane sat in the middle with a bucket in her lap, and her mom (Pearl) sat on the right. I don't remember who was in the front seat with Ron; probably it was Jane's cousin Iris. Once we arrived at the temple Jane calmed down a little (it turned out to be nerves). In 1978 women that were going to the temple because they were getting married generally did all of the preparatory ordinance work on the day they were married, so we had to be there early. I don't really recall much of the stuff prior to the marriage. There are many sealing rooms in the Los Angeles temple; we had the largest, and it was totally packed. My mission president, Royden G. Derrick, who at that time was a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, sealed us. Because he had a Stake Conference he was presiding over in Long Beach, he offered to seal us (actually his wife, Sister Allie O. Derrick made the offer and then asked him...). But because it was going to be a rush job in between conference sessions, he didn't change into whites (he didn't have them with him on this trip). I know that bothered Jane for years that he ruined her dreams of an all white wedding.

After we were married and took pictures outside, we went home to Jane's and I think we had some kind of lunch and then took a nap on Jane's bed. The reception was at 6:00pm at the Crescent Avenue building in the gym. We (mostly Jane and Pearl) sent out 920 announcements. We guess that we had over 600 people at the reception. Compared to most people's receptions today, ours was pretty modest. I think we served cake, nuts, and red party punch. The reception line extended out into the parking lot; we had no idea this many people would come! I think we greeted guests the entire time. I'm sure we had music, but there was no dancing. I think we left around 9:00pm.

We spent our wedding night at a local motel near Disneyland that was owned by Earl Garr, a fairly well-to-do church acquaintance, who gave us our wedding night for free. I recall getting to sleep before midnight, and waking up around noon with the maid knocking. We had slept in much longer than we thought. When we went to check out, we discovered that we had left our room key stuck in the outside of the door all night! Because Jane insisted that I carry her over the threshold, the door closed behind us and I forgot the key. I'll write about the first day of our honeymoon tomorrow, and add pictures once I get Jane to tell me where they are.

Pictured left to right in back: Larry Williams, Brad Carey, Jason Guthrie, Ron Williams, Randy Guthrie, Jane (Peters) Guthrie, Iris Baadsgaard, Annette Peters, Holly Guthrie, Lorna Nakumaru, Pam Peters. In front: Amy Guthrie, Rachel Guthrie, Paul Peters

Graduation Day!

Cue Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance No. 2......
Just for the record, today is my official graduation day from Claremont Graduate University. I printed the following from the student portal. My friend Jeff Ranck once referred to my list of graduate degrees as "more education than any decent person should have". I heartily agree. The actual diploma will take a while to receive. My plan is walk in commencement in May. Date and time to be determined. I'll let family know about it, but quite frankly, I wouldn't wish attending on an enemy, let alone family. Cue Brahm's Academic Festival Overture......


Warning!! The following information has been known to cause drowsiness and loss of consciousness. Do not read while driving or operating heavy machinery!

Abstract of the Dissertation


Audience Directed Models and Software Design: How Developer Mental Models of Users Influence the Design of Enterprise System Features

By

Rand Weston Guthrie

Claremont Graduate University – 2008

Information science research frequently seeks to discover the means by which practitioners can use information technologies (IT) to accomplish their goals. From an organizational perspective, the goal of IT is generally presumed to be an increase in individual and/or organizational performance. A successful implementation of an information technology can therefore be thought of simplistically as one in which the use of the new technology improved performance. Prior research has shown that one determinant of improved performance is how well the functionality of an organization’s information technologies fits with the user’s tasks. Theories relating to IT acceptance, adoption and success suggest a positive relationship between the task the user needs to accomplish and the task the software was designed to accomplish, but little has been done to explain how the IT artifact makes design intent apparent to the user.

This research examines a possible relationship between design intent and fit: namely, how the designer’s mental model of an enterprise system’s intended use influences the design of the functionality and appearance of the application’s component features. Using a positivistic case study methodology, mental models of intended use held by seven teams of enterprise system software developers were identified and classified. These models were then related to the developers’ statements about their specific design decisions. The results confirm that developers’ mental models influence the design of software UI in ways that are apparent to the end-user, and supports theories that suggest that software has a “spirit” that consists in part of an intended use. The research contributes to our understanding of the source of that spirit, and identifies specific ways in which software developers bias features towards a specific type of use.

Medical Procedures Report

Medically speaking, it has been an eventful week. It all started last Monday, when I got a colonoscopy. Jarom was a huge emotional support as I tried to drink two liters of lemon-lime flavored laxative before it all hit. I ended up drinking too fast and threw about half of it up; all while Jarom and Melissa are laughing at me on speaker phone. Apparently it worked enough because as you can see in the photos below, there are no "foreign objects" or as Staci might say "shooting stars" in the picture. At the end of the "procedure" they gave me some color pictures that they took which I gladly shared at first but by popular demand have removed.


Four days later I had surgery to remove all the hardware in my leg from last-year's Christmas "break". After I went skiing two weeks ago the hardware was killing my ankle ie: grinding into the inside of the skin on my ankle, so the very next business day I was in the doctor's office scheduling the surgery to have it removed. They took it all out last Friday January 4th. The picture below shows it all. And before anyone says anything funny; No, the coins were not part of what they removed. I put the coins in the picture to show the scale. Its been 5 days now and I had the stitches taken out yesterday and I can walk on it with only a minor limp. They basically went into the same incisions (there was one on each side of the ankle) so I am dealing with a flesh wound, but the bone is strong and the ligaments are all in place so I can put my weight on it. The plate and seven of the screws was on the left side of my ankle, and two of the screws were on the right side.