A penny for my thoughts?

Don’t enforce the law or else!

2010-04-29T14:55:00.001-07:00

So the other day I was working on a Ponzi scheme that has been operating across state lines when a Provo police officer tried to arrest me. "Not so fast," I exclaimed, "I am breaking a federal law not a state law, you have no right to arrest me." So he apologized for his mistake and let me continue breaking the federal law that he has no power to enforce. I am even considering filing a discrimination complaint with the Provo Police Department because that officer unfairly targeted me because of my skin color; I'm going to make him pay for his audacity to try and arrest me for breaking the law just because I'm a Scandinavian American, we have been persecuted enough.

On that note, Arizona just passed a law essentially saying if you are in the country illegally you will be arrested, jailed, and fined. What a shock, it is illegal to be an illegal alien. Now everyone is throwing a fit saying this law is unconstitutional and it will lead to racial profiling and racism. There are calls to boycott the state of Arizona, the New York governor is urging the MLB to move the All Star game this year out of Arizona, companies are cancelling corporate retreats previously planned in Arizona, and of course Hollywood has jumped on the "hate Arizona" bandwagon. My favorite thing I've read though was an article about illegal immigrants in Arizona who are leaving the state because they don't want to worry about the new law. The funny thing about the article was the people leaving was viewed as a bad thing. I thought that is what the law is going for, to get rid of illegal aliens.

Anyway, I have no problem with people coming to America if they are law abiding people. The problem arises with drug dealers, terrorists, and freeloaders coming across the borders. On a side note, I don't think the third category is that big of a problem, I am more concerned with the millions of freeloaders who are already here.

I am surprised a law like this hasn't been passed sooner. What does Washington expect Arizona to do? The state is being overrun by drug dealers and other illegals and the federal government has all but turned a blind eye to the problem. The issue could be solved very easily, make it a felony to hire illegal aliens. If there are no jobs then people won't come, or at least they will come legally.

Now I don't know how hard it is to get a migrant workers VISA and I'm sure it is pretty difficult; I am all for the process of coming to America being revised to make it more feasible for the poor to comply with the rules and come to this land of opportunity. Perhaps instead of spending billions of dollars on a fence that will never actually be built, and if by some chance it were built would never be that effective. Why don't we spend just millions on revamping the process of coming here and opening more offices in border cities allowing honest people to come to this country. If there aren't thousands coming across, perhaps we can then focus on catching the hundreds coming across the border who actually pose a threat to national security.

Anyway, I would like to hear your thoughts on this hot topic in society today. Feel free to post comments, whether for or against.

A lot on my mind

2010-04-07T07:32:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot on my mind recently (as I'm sure you already guessed based on the title) and I've decided I need to just blog about it in a less than perfect blog rather than keep putting it off because I'm worried I wouldn't do the topics justice.

Issue number 1. Health Care Overhaul

I am vehemently opposed to this bill and it bothers me that there was essentially nothing I could do to stop it. I'm also bothered that popular culture has decided that anyone against it is some right-wing nut job who only cares about keeping "the white man" in power and therefore has to oppose anything the black president does just because he's black. People assume if you are for the new plan you are therefore a very giving person, if you are against it you are greedy and would rather keep your new boat and nice luxury car rather than give to charity and help the needy. Who is the more giving person, the one who wants the government to take care of everyone or the person who would rather keep that money from the government and give it directly to the poor. I could say more about this but I won't. I am bothered that one of the main arguments in defense of all the corruption, bribes, pork, and back-room deals needed to pass the bill was, "well Republicans would have done the same thing." Well then that would be wrong too, maybe their mothers' let them get away with saying, "well he started it" or, "he was doing it too" but mine never did because they are bad excuses. Don't automatically lump me together with everything the Republican party ever did, just because someone from that party did it doesn't mean I would have done it too. I thought it wasn't politically correct to stereotyping. That's another thing that really annoys me but I won't go into it now.

There are some good things in this bill, or I should say I know of some good things that will come from this bill. A couple of them are some of my extended family will be able to get insurance now and people won't get kicked off of insurance once they become sick. But there are so many things that I feel are going to be no fun. One of the big things mentioned as a good thing coming from the bill is that insurance companies won't be able to set life time limits on benefits, well what if I don't want to pay for that coverage? Too bad for me because insurance companies are no longer allowed to charge different people different rates. Imagine if everyone in the country had to pay the same car insurance premiums, what kind of uproar would there be coming from the lower classes (and rightfully so) for having to pay much higher premiums to cover all the sports cars, reckless driving, expensive upgrades, etc. etc. Well, now I will have to pay higher insurance costs because someone else chooses to smoke two packs a day, eat fast food three times a day, and never exercise and will be visiting the doctor once a month, getting a gastric bipass surgery in a couple years, going to the emergency room for the common cold because wait times at the doctor's office will be months whereas at the ER it will only be hours. Tell me where the fairness is in that! I am not a prophet but I am going to make a prophecy; once people realize they are paying more money to cover for unhealthy people there will be an outcry for laws prohibiting unhealthy living, we are already seeing it today with proposed taxes on soft drinks, fast foods, trans fats, and smoking. Once those things start to get taxed and the government has public support for controlling what we eat and how we live then .... I haven't fully thought this through yet, but the first part of my argument makes sense in my mind. And if anyone doesn't think that will happen, please tell me why. A big thing touted by the Democrats in support of the bill is that taxes will only be raised on people making more than $200k, well how about the increase in premiums charged by insurance companies, that will effect everyone. Another thing mentioned to support this bill is that the health care industry in America isn't that great, Americans are the most obese people in the world and our life expectancy is ranked somewhere around 40th in the world. So how will through 32 million more people into the system possibly fix those problems? I have my issues with doctors in general, they are like mechanics in that they act like they know everything and don't consider maybe they are making mistakes. They make plenty of mistakes just like everyone else in every other industry; there can be improvements to the quality of care in the US but this bill doesn't do that at all. Doctors are very useful and I am very grateful for the quality of care we have here.

All of this leads me to the next thing on my mind.

Issue number 2. LDS General Conference
You may ask how these two are connected, I'll tell you. Ever since the health care bill passed I have been so frustrated about everything, some of the reasons I just mentioned. Going into General Conference I wasn't sure what I was going to get out of it; of course I was excited and I knew it would be great but I didn't have any clear questions in my mind. I realize this was my fault but I am very grateful to the Lord for still blessing me with a lot of instruction. The first major breakthrough for me was during one of the talks on Saturday (I don't remember which one without looking at my notes) I had the realization/inspiration that life is great so long as we have the Gospel in it. There have been plenty of people throughout the history of the world who have lived righteous lives and have since gone on to their eternal reward all while living in a much worse political situation than we are in right now. When I had that thought, or prompting, I felt so much more at peace with my life in this country than I had in weeks. All the stuff I mentioned above, I still feel. But I have been given back my ability to put it into proper perspective; everything going on in the country and even the world has no power to take away my ability to follow my Heavenly Father and to uphold my covenants with Jesus Christ. Other notable talks for me during conference were, the talk by Elder Oaks during Priesthood meeting about blessings was fantastic, rarely am I as surprised about learning doctrine as I was when I listened to his talk. My brother Ammon and I had very similar reactions, we looked at each other with shocked faces and asked each other if we knew that. I really need to reread his talk to fully grasp what he was saying. Also, I loved Elder Holland's talk as did so many people. He has a power when he speaks that so few people have, he could have been such a famous, powerful man in the eyes of the world if he had not been dedicated to the Lord his entire life. And Staci and I were both very impressed with how much of a focus on the family there was, it seemed like every other talk was about how to be better parents, and with the baby coming we were both very interested and eager to learn.

Which reminds me...

Issue number 3.
I am getting really nervous about being a father. I am worried that I won't be able to take care of our newborn, that I won't be able to provide adequately financially for my wife and child, or lead spiritually, but most of all, I am terrified that something will cause me to lose my temper and I will take it out on my son. I am ashamed to even admit this has even crossed my mind. But I've seen too many news stories about a father or mother who couldn't get the baby to stop crying so they shook him/her and ended up killing or causing brain damage. I am so worried how I will act when I wake up at 3 in the morning and my son won't stop crying. I have had problems in the past with losing my temper but I have been doing a much better job these last couple years; however, I still can feel those tendencies inside of me. I just hope and pray that I will be able to always control my actions.

And now on a much lighter not,

Issue number 4.
We are buying a house! If you look at our other blog you will see a picture of it and we will be putting plenty of more information about it in the coming weeks. This isn't exactly an issue but it is on my mind. We have been looking for a house since August of last year and there were times I thought we would never find a house. We still haven't heard back about a couple short sale offers we made months ago. Almost everyone I spoke to about buying a house said that now is a great time to buy, a buyers market with historically low interest rates. While I totally agree with the latter, the former I disagree with. I think it is more a banks market, (yes that is a very cynical statement); most of the properties for sale right now are short sales. The banks take a long time to get back on offers, and they apparently don't care about taking a loss; but they do care about saving face and not letting people get a good deal. I say that because some of the houses we looked at were close to foreclosure and yet they still wouldn't come down in price. We tried to get one property for 7k less than the bank wanted and instead of coming down in price, the bank decided to foreclose on the property. The bank will lose a lot more money in the foreclosure process than 7k. The decision made no financial sense. Anyway, like I said, at times I thought we would never find a house, especially in time to claim the first-time home buyer tax credit, but we did and the house has almost everything we were looking for.

About the tax credit, some may criticize me for taking the 8k for various reasons; while I am opposed to most of the stimulus spending that Uncle Sam has been doing the last couple of years, I figure I might as well get back some of the money I will be paying in higher taxes for the rest of my life to the government because of the outrageous national debt levels . If I had the choice of not taking the 8k right now in exchange for a fixed income tax rate of 15% for the rest of my life, I would take that deal in an heartbeat. But since that won't happen I am going to take the money to make up for some of the taxes I paid this year.

I could probably ramble on for a couple hundred more words but I think I'll stop now, but I will try to post more often; I find this therapeutic.

Publicity Stunt?

2010-02-22T15:25:00.001-08:00

I don't know how many of you guys have been following the Tiger Woods story with his recent press conference but I have listened to a number of different opinions about it and I feel like giving my opinion about it as well.

A little background: Tiger Woods has been cheating on his wife for quite a while (the details are not known, there are a lot of speculations and rumors involving call girls, waitresses, etc. etc.) and the story came out back around Thanksgiving of last year.

In his recent press conference he apologized for his despicable behavior, admitted to feeling like he was entitled to do whatever he wanted because of his fame and fortune, he read a bunch of stuff from a prepared statement in a rather monotone voice. His wife was not by his side but his mother was in the room. He also confirmed that he has spent the last 45 days in sex rehab and would be returning for an undefined amount of time.

Some of the more common opinions I have heard are, "because it was a prepared statement it wasn't sincere," "he doesn't owe anyone except his family an apology," "this was just a publicity stunt to try to recover his public image," "sex rehab is a fraud, people aren't addicted to sex, they're just weak," "he's only sorry because he was caught, if this didn't come out he would still be doing it," "everyone makes mistakes, who cares what he does in his personal life, he without sin let him cast the first stone," "why does he even feel so bad, he didn't break any laws, if he were single then he would be the Derek Jeter of golf, his only mistake was getting married so young."

Hearing some people's opinions on the situation casts a very negative light on the state of society. First of all, what he did is despicable and he is 100% percent responsible. Having said that I should also say that I believe in a Gospel of change and although he doesn't share my beliefs (apparently he's Buddhist, something else he said in the press statement) I believe the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are all encompassing; although full forgiveness is only available through baptism by one with proper authority, a certain amount of forgiveness can be achieved by following most of the steps of true repentance. This can be seen through the success of Alcoholics Anonymous, a program that essentially teaches proper repentance. I find it easy to believe that Tiger Woods made the public statement as part of his addiction recovery, and because of his world-wide fame he felt it prudent to "apologize and confess" to the world, or at least to whomever cares and was listening. I don't know if that was the motivation for his statement, but I do think it is a plausible theory.

About sex rehab and sexual addictions, people who say it is a fraud are just showing their ignorance on the topic, there are plenty of accredited studies showing that sexual addictions of many kinds are an actual chemical addiction, and people who have recovered from both cocaine addiction and sexual addiction have said the cocaine addiction was the easier addiction to overcome. However, that doesn't excuse the actions of addicts in the least bit; I do believe, however, it gives them hope knowing there is a possibility of recovery, that although there is something wrong with them, it can be fixed. It is not just the way they were made.

A lot of people seem surprised that he appears to be so motivated to save his marriage and get his life back in order when he still has millions of dollars in the bank and will still most likely be the best golfer on the PGA tour. Possibly, Woods is realizing that money doesn't buy happiness. So in his endeavor to find a truly meaningful life and be more than just the greatest golfer ever I wish him luck.

But in the end my opinion comes down to this; I don't care what he says, only what he does.

Additions

2010-01-25T12:01:00.000-08:00

So I thought of a couple other things that bug me. To illustrate the first point I will tell a story.

As some of you may know, Staci and I are trying to purchase a house; we put in an offer on a great house in Pleasant Grove up on the hill with an amazing view of the valley, a great Trax deck, a rentable basement, and a great kitchen with an even better pantry/mudroom. We put in our initial offer on the house back in October and it took the bank (it is a short sale) until December to respond to our offer and come back with a firm asking price. We checked out the house again and decided it was worth pursuing and put in another offer 2 weeks ago. The bank responded much quicker this time to our offer but their response was absurd. The bank has decided to not negotiate any more and instead foreclose on the house. The reasoning behind that decision is lost to me. Why in the world would the bank decide to spend thousands of dollars to foreclose on a house and then try to sell it rather than accept a couple thousand dollars on a short sale. What the heck!! It bugs me so much. Now the current owners' credit will be even more shot, they will not care about the condition of the house any more, the house will most likely remain vacant for a while and it will get in even worse condition and the bank will probably end up selling it for even less than what we are offering. All well.

Doctors bug me. Not all doctors, but the doctors who act like know-it-alls bother me. They are like mechanics. Most of the things they say, the patient (or customer) has no way of verifying if they are right or making stuff up. Staci was misdiagnosed for 10 years by her doctor, and it wasn't until we suggested a procedure was it discovered that what her doctor has been telling her all this time was completely wrong. Argh! And there is nothing we can do about it.

So, if anyone knows of a good house for sale or of a competent family doctor in the Provo/Orem area, we are in the market for both. (We do feel good about her OBGYN, though).

Things that annoy me.

2010-01-20T14:32:00.000-08:00

People who expect you to let them pull in front of you when they are sitting in the middle turn lane (suicide lane). You're not playing frogger, wait for a gap in both lanes until you try to merge. Don't pull halfway out then expect other cars to slam on their brakes to let you in. (by the way, I am all about being a courteous driver,
Athletes and celebrities who expect people to listen and give credence to their opinions about politics.
Reality TV stars (and I use the term "stars" very loosely).
Pollution
Meteorologist: maybe I am showing my ignorance but how can a collective group of people be wrong so often and still get people to listen to them? Oh wait, that reminds me....
Politicians: if the old "power corrupts" then how is it possible for career politicians to be anything but corrupt. They live their lives making laws and telling people what to do; they are like a parasite living off of everyone else in the country who actually works for a living. An honest politician is an endangered species. Please give us term limits on all Congressmen and Congresswomen, someone should not be a Senator for 30 years.
Taxes: I really don't think most people realize how much they are paying in income taxes every year because everything is automatically deducted from their earnings. And then on top of that we pay Social Security (which is a doomed program, I don't plan on ever seeing a return on that), and a bunch of other taxes that I don't feel like writing about right now.
and last (for now), but certainly not least, by bad attitude. I used to be a much happier person, at the rate I'm going I will be one grumpy old man. I suppose I now have a new year's resolution.

Cruel irony

2009-08-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my other blog, Staci and I visited the Mountain Meadows Massacre memorial in July and I had some thoughts I wanted to share, although I'm not quite sure where this train of thoughts will lead.

The basic history is this. After the saints moved to Utah the US government was getting reports that the "mormons" were building an army and were planning on going to war with the US, and were harassing and attacking settlers moving out west. So the government sent Johnston (I don't remember his rank) with a sizable army to quell the uprising. This started the Mormon War. There was much fear among the saints; they all knew that whenever they started building a temple persecution would come and lead to them having to leave. This had already happened three times coupled with violence, murder, theft, and other atrocities.

At this time there was a group of settlers coming from Arkansas heading for California. Among that group were some who had participated in the extermination from Missouri and boasted about it and talked about how they were going to do the same thing to the saints in Utah.

Some of the community leaders in Cedar City decided that preemptive action must be taken to protect the people in Southern Utah. A plan was devised where and carried out where the settlers were attacked by the local indians then offered protection by the utahns. A condition of them receiving protection was they had to turn over their firearms. While the utahs were accompanying the settlers to Cedar City they turned on them and started killing everyone old enough to be aware of what was going on. They killed men, women, and children.

That is so tragic, and the cruel irony part is that is almost exactly what happened to the Saints in Missouri. The very thing these men wanted to prevent they ended up doing themselves to other people. In Far West, Missouri after the mobs were ransacking the outlying towns everyone fled to Far West. The government of Missouri represented by the State militia guaranteed the protection of the Saints if they turned over all their firearms. After they gave up the only way of protecting themselves and trusted the government, the militia/mob was turned loose on the city and ransacked the city.

This makes me wonder how many other times this has happened throughout history. I have a habit of reading articles on KSL.com and also reading the comments. Without fail, when there are articles about anything about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the comments end up being a mormon bashing and anti-mormon bashing session. Now I am not going to get into all the different things that come up, just one. So many times someone will write, "well if you don't like living in a state with so many members of the Church than why don't you leave?" Now since when is it Christian to kick people out because they don't agree with you. It is really sad that all too often non members living in a LDS majority area feel in a sense persecuted for not being LDS. I understand that there are different reasons why that is, one being no one wants to date them because they want to get married in the temple. But we are smart people and can come up with solutions to these problems that don't have to always be "baptize them". Of course I love the Gospel and I believe it is led by Jesus Christ and that all can benefit from it, but I also have a feeling that right now is not the right time for every single person in the world to join the Church and just because someone isn't interested in the Gospel right now doesn't mean they aren't trying to follow Jesus Christ.

I guess a good summary is we shouldn't be extreme and fanatical. Hugh Nibley wrote an article titled "Zeal without Knowledge" in which postulated on the need to ever be learning, not merely acting. I believe this is why missionaries study so many hours a day, they have plenty of zeal (desire to do good things) but they are young so they need to increase their knowledge so they know what are the best things to do (and of course the more they study the Gospel they more they have the Spirit and the better they can teach so as to give people the best chance to accept the Gospel).

In conclusion, follow the Prophet, follow the Prophet, follow the Prophet, he knows the way.

And if I got any of the details wrong about the MMM I apologize and invite you to correct me as a comment. (oh and I warned you I didn't know where this was going)

Oh and what's with this Health Care Reform going on and the federal deficit forecasts, argh.

Decisions

2009-05-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I was watching the Orlando/Cleveland playoff game and getting pretty emotional about it (I wanted Cleveland to win but they lost), it was getting late and Staci and I were planning on watching a tv show we had recorded before going to bed, also we still needed to read and pray. I had the realization when there were about one and a half minutes left in overtime that I was letting some game happening a thousand miles away control my life and get in the way of things I wanted to do with my wife. So I made the decision to turn off the game before it was over and go spend time with Staci instead. Mind you, this was a big deal for me, the game was still close and came down to the last shot; in the past I would have insisted on watching until the end but I chose not to. Also I resolved to not let some game control what I do with my time. I will not be opposed to watching games and enjoying it but I will most likely spend a lot less time doing so.

Also for anyone not aware, I have a new blog that I'm sharing with Staci where we are posting the goings on in our life. My old blog will be just for posts like this one where I share random thoughts, and the occassional political greivance will be expressed. The new blog is jamonandstaci.blogspot.com

Cheers.

Question

2009-04-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

Did you hear that the taxes on all tobacco products went up a lot last week? The federal tax on a package of cigarettes went from around .50 to about $1.10. This was done for a couple reasons, to fund health care for children, and to get more people to quit smoking. My question is how do you feel about this?

I don't like it, now I am all for people quitting smoking but I don't like the government vilifying a group of people and then raising taxes on them; and if the government really was concerned about our well being why not prohibit alcohol again, it certainly causes more problems than tobacco, how about pornography, a much larger plague on the world than cigarettes. I see this as just one more way the government is squeezing as much money out of the public as possible, and that I am against.

Life Accomplishments thus far

2009-04-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

Instructions: Take the following list and bold the items you have completed or experienced.

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyland

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train (I figure an overnight boat counts too)

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run (whiffleball counts right)

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language (it didn't last too long)

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been on television

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain (hm, I need to do this soon)

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Read the entire Bible

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a lawsuit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

100. Totally copied a post from someone else's blog to your own

49/100

Some thoughts

2009-03-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts from my previous post; I appreciated the advice and general support I got, all of it helped.

Also I just wanted to write down a couple things I learned. Did you know that there are fewer stars in the galaxy then there are dollars in the national debt? To be fair it should be said the US GDP is a lot larger than the number of stars in the galaxy as well. It is so hard to comprehend how much money is being spent by the government. To give everyone an idea I have posted a couple pictures of various galaxies.
The picture on the right is of two galaxies colliding, the one on the left is the Eagle nebula, one of my favorite pictures taken by the hubble telescope.
I tried to find accurate numbers for stars in a galaxy but because of the size it is impossible to count but the numbers are estimated around 200 billion (for the Milky Way at least, I am assuming other galaxies are of comparable size). In my brief search I could find a specific number for the national debt either but I think the number is around $10 trillion, about 50 times larger than 200 billion. And another number of interest, there are apparently around 6.8 billion people in the world.

Why is life so hard?

2009-03-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Why does everything in life have to be so hard? Shouldn't answers to problems come easier? Why does the Lord stay his hand for so long? Why are some things so easy for some people and so hard for others? Can the reward really be worth all the anguish we go through in this life? I hope so.

WTF

2009-03-03T08:31:00.000-08:00

I am sick and tired of the government. I posted a couple months ago how I was officially supporting President Obama as long as he did a number of things, used his brain essentially. Well he and the majority of the government are acting like fools, or deliberately trying to bring down capitalism and the American way. I just read an article talking about AIG and how the fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, said "I think if there's a single episode ... that has made me more angry, I can't think of one (other) than AIG,""We really had no choice" but to prop up the company because the consequences of failure could be disastrous. " Oh really, this is a company that cannot succeed on its own, why in the world should I be paying them to continue in their failing ways. No choice? You mean that the supposedly best financial minds in America can come up with nothing better to do than prop up a failing company? That is absurd.

And what is wrong with Obama, he is so full of it. He has said over and over how he will veto any pork that comes across his desk, that he will "call out" congressmen and congresswomen who try to pass wasteful spending bills and yet he keeps signing billions and trillions of dollars of pork laden legislation into effect. If all the proposed budgets and "stimulus" bills are approved, and there is no indication that they won't be approved, then by the end of the year our national debt will be roughly 60% of the nations GDP (gross domestic product). That would be like me working for a company that makes 10 million dollars a year and I get into personal debt to the amount of 6 million dollars, even though my personal salary is much much less than that. Another way to look at it is, total tax revenues approximate 1 trillion dollars a year, with how much the goverment will be in debt is comparable to someone making $50,000 a year being in debt $700,000. That is pathetic.

Some more pics

2009-03-02T11:19:00.001-08:00

"I love my wife", that's what I'm thinking in this picture.

Isn't this a great candid picture of my wife and me at our luncheon.

We felt very fortunate to have our entire bishopric come down for our wedding, true they did get out of going to a leadership meeting for Stake conference but I like to think they would have come down even if they didn't get out of going to a meeting. They were so helpful also for our open house we had in Provo. We had the open house at our Bishop's house, (the couple on the left) and the other four were there helping out with refreshments. Bishop Buckner even posted a road sign to help people find the place better, they were very helpful and effectively played the role as sudo-parents for the evening.
We had some fun playing around with some of the pics.
This picture essential sums up our relationship, I goof around and she puts up with me. :)

Staci doesn't like kissing pictures, but aren't these great!!!

Here is a great picture of my roommates and my wife (isn't she HOT in this picture). These are great friends that I've had for a number of years, they are all folk dance originating friendships. I lived with Dave and Scotty (the two on the right) for about three years and they have always been great roommates, I've known Jed (the tall one) for about a year longer, we weren't roommates until this last year. Staci has been really good friends with Jed for a couple years also and she became really good friends with Dave and Scotty while I was still living in SLC. When I moved back to Provo I moved back in with these guys and they were the ones who can be credited for getting me and Staci together. I do need to thank them their great friendship and also for being very chill during my and Staci's transition from friends to dating friends to engaged to married. You guys rock!!!

I didn't realize this at the time but this dance that my mom and I are dancing in this picture is a Viennese Waltz, not only is it a great dance but it is also the very first dance my mom taught me as a youth. I am very lucky Staci let me pick the song to dance to (she was dancing with her Dad at the same time and had every right to choose whatever song she wanted), thanks babe, I love you. Oh by the way, the song we are dancing to is "Can I have this Dance?" from High School Musical 3, great song.

So this is a great picture of the bouquet throwing, it was a great bouquet and we were really hoping one of our nieces would get it, or Staci's roommate, but some random girl who had just walked into the reception who we didn't even know plowed her way through and snagged it, we were a bit bugged but luckily we had some extra flowers that we gave to our nieces.

I really like this picture of us cutting the cake.
"I'm number one" that's what I was saying when this picture was taken. Actually I don't remember why I was doing that. "one reception down, two to go", or maybe I was saying, "which way is the wind blowing?" If anyone has other suggestions I would like to read them in the comments.

Ha, I'm married!!!

2009-02-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

So it has finally come, the turning point in my life, one could even say the turning point in eternity for me. From now on and forever I will be a married man, SWEET!!!!!

The wedding was fantastic, it really was an emotional roller coaster of a weekend. But more on that later.

This post will be mostly pictures with a few explanations. This first picture was right when we came out of the temple. The next four are pretty self explanatory.

Here is my favorite pic of Staci.
Here are some of our great friends, starting on the left going clockwise, Stephanie Calton, Jed Brown (also our photographer), Dave McMullin, Brian McMullin, Scotty West.And of course our parents, notice the missionary name tags on my parents. They had just arrived that day from Chile, we were very blessed to have them there with us for when we were sealed.

It's been a while

2009-01-04T19:13:00.001-08:00

Because it has been such a long time since I last posted a blog I am going to have a very random compilation of thoughts, not the masterpiece that I usually post.

First on my mind was something that I saw on TV, Ben Stein was being interviewed about the upcoming Obama presidency and he said "Now that he (Obama) is elected I hope he's the best president we have ever had." He has a very good perspective on how we should view our political leaders. These past four years have been lined with how critical so many people have been of President Bush, so many people have been so quick to point out that he has one of the lowest approval ratings in history (yet they gloss over the fact that Congress has an ever lower approval rating). Because of this animosity towards a Republican president many republicans have mentioned how they are looking forward to opposing Obama to show the same animosity towards him as a sort of payback. I admit that I have had similar thoughts, looking with an almost longing to see the country turn to pot, figuratively of course, and then in four years we would be able to say that it was the biggest mistake to elect Barack Obama. But after further consideration, and hearing what Ben Stein said, I've come to realize that it is foolish, selfish, and prideful to hope for a bad presidency just to see someone fail who doesn't have the same political persuasions as you. So this is my official declaration that I support Barack Obama for the presidency so far as him helping improve the country, strengthening the economy through sound principles, strengthening the family through good social principles but more importantly through his example of how he treats his family, and keeping our country safe from terrorists, oh and of course through all of this I expect him to uphold the constitution and support our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Instead of keeping this in cue for who knows how long I will post it now although I was originally planning on writing a lot more. Actually I want to get a couple things off my chest.

Why is it that Roland Burris is so adamant about becoming instated as the fill-in Senator for Obama's seat as soon as possible. Does he not understand why everyone is so concerned about making him a senator when he was named by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich right after he was accused by the FBI of corruption by trying to sale the senate seat to the highest bidder? True Burris has not been implicated with any involvement in the scandal but why not slow down and allow the Democratic Congressional leadership become more comfortable over the appointment. Is he worried that no one else will see him as a good pick, from all I've seen on him, and admittedly it's not much, he is an adequate choice. Just calm down and let Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi get more comfortable. And what's with Caroline Kennedy being seen as a great pick to fill Hilary Clinton's seat, all I've heard about her is she has tried to stay out of politics as much as possible, and that makes her a good choice to become senator, why, because her last name is Kennedy? That's ridiculous.

What a wonderful life

2008-11-26T12:29:00.001-08:00

Dear Santa,

I am having a hard time deciding what I really want for Christmas this year, usually there are a couple large items on my list that I would most likely buy myself if I didn't get them from someone else (something I've done for the past couple years and has resulted in some nice stuff). This year, however, I don't seem to want too much and although there are some expensive items that would be sweet to get such as a mountain bike, a snowboard and snowboarding boots, another gun (you never know when we'll loose a lot of the choices due to government legislation and regulation), and a surround sound system to complete my basic home entertainment system, these items aren't as appealing to me due to recent changes in my life.

As I'm sure you are aware, I have finally found the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, my "one and only", and because she has agreed to be sealed to me for time and all eternity I am finding all of the customary things I ask for are appealing less and less to me when compared to Staci Wilcock (soon to be Staci Andelin)

I have been thinking of a literary character to whom I could compare my soon-to-be bride and I think Desdemona from the Shakespearian play Othello will suffice. Desdemona is known for her beauty, purity and devotion to her husband; Staci fits those comparisons very well. Now Santa don't misundersand me, I am not comparing myself to Othello and fortunately there is no Iago in our relationship (except that one tempter, Satan, who tries to destroy everything good and beautiful), and I am certainly not suggesting that Staci will have a similar fate to Desdemona, I am merely comparing Staci to Desdemona due to her beauty, loyalty, and above all her purity. I love her so much; I have gone two days without seeing her amd my life has felt empty in those two days. She makes me happy, she keeps me laughing, she helps me grow spiritually and helps me see new perspectives to life, she takes care of me when I'm sick and loves to have fun when I'm well, she keeps me healthy by motivating me to eat healthy (and she usually generously prepares the food herself) and by encouraging me to exercise regularly through her example (something I am needing more and more with a desk job). She gives me direction, motivation, and above all she gives my life so much more meaing. I had a realization the other day that from now on all of my decisions will effect her; I am humbled at the trust she is placing in me and I hope and pray that I can live up to that trust.

So as you can see, my life is so much better with Staci in it. But that is not all that is going well for me; I also have been blessed with a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love my Savior so much; I am reminded of one of my favorite lines from a fantastic movie, "Amazing Grace"; the priest who was a former slave ship captian says a very profound yet simple line towards the end of the movie (and his life) "I can remember two things, that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior". Sometimes I wonder why He is so merciful towards me; the scripture in D&C 18:10 comes to mind, "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God", I am humbled to realize that the worth of my sould is also great in the sight of God.

So as you can see, my life is very good right now and I foresee it only getting better regardless of what I get or don't get for Christmas this year. I hope you don't take that the wrong way; I really do enjoy receiving gifts and I really appreciate the effort you go through to get the right gifts for the right people, but my happiness is not related to my material possessions (but they're still nice). To show that I appreciate receiving gifts as a simple gesture of friendship and love (I say simple because it is just one of the many ways to show these things and it is not necessary either) I will attempt to right down some smaller items that would be nice to receive on December 25, 2008.

I realized the other day that I don't have very many whit Sunday shirts; I would prefer nicer shirts, with some texture, French cuffs (not necessary), and a wide European collar (pretty important). I don't want any ties though, I am a little too picky with my ties and I don't want you to feel bad because you bought me a tie that I won't enjoy wearing.

Some how I have lost most of my black socks that I received last year for Christmas; I'm not sure how that happened but it did and again this I could use some black socks, I prefer the thick kind.

I am a fan of Church books; Hugh Nibley books are good as well as books written by Apostles, but no LDS fiction.

I think Batman: The Dark Knight is coming out soon on Blu-ray, I would absolutely love to receive that.

That is about it, if you come up with something that you think I'd like then I'm sure I will enjoy it, you have bben doing this for a long time and I trust your judgment. Oh, I just remember that next to my fiance the other great gift I have already received is for my parents to be able to come to our wedding. Those two things have made my life great.

Merry Christmas

PS. I trust I'll be getting the customary orange in my stocking right? :)

Dang, We look good!

2008-11-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

Here are our pics,
Tell us what you think
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Many thanks to Jed Brown and Stephanie Calton for helping make these pictures look so great.

Election Day

2008-11-03T14:53:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about politics and the future of America a lot recently, as I'm sure a lot of people have been. I thought I would write down a few of my thoughts before elections are finalized.

First off I want to say that I really don't want an Obama presidency; I do not hate everything about him but there is a lot of his views that I totally disagree with. I do have to admit that there are some things that are admirable about him, first and foremost is he seems to be a genuine family man. He cares about his wife, daughters, mother, and grandmother (who just passed away today, which is unfortunate that she passed away at an already stressful time for Obama). It is true, however, that he has a half brother living in poverty in Kenya although admittedly I don't know all details about that.

Another thing that is admirable about Obama is his ability to get young people excited about politics. I have seen a couple interesting youth groups singing songs and praising Obama, one was a steppin routine done based on exerpts from some of Obama's speeches with the teenagers starting out by chanting "Alpha and Omega" over and over, that I found a bit disturbing. I have read a lot of criticism comparing these youth groups to Hitler's youth groups in Nazi Germany. That is a bit unfair though because even those youth groups were based on community service and serving the public good, they were all just so completely deceived about their leader's intentions.

Then I have to ask the question, what are Obama's motives? I don't know but there are a number of disturbing patterns about his life and associations. He has repeatedly associated himself with the extremists of society, including domestic terrorists, Palestinian terrorist sympathizers, and racist religious leaders. It may be true that these men are not involved in his administration but I see these as signs to what his personal views are, and with a man so inexperienced we have very little to judge him with so why not use all the information we can gather. I am very concerned about what will happen to this country if Barack Obama is elected the next president and with the most recent Fox News poll showing Obama with 50% and McCain with only 43% it is looking more and more likely that Obama will win.

But I must remind myself not to fall into the liberal mentality of the past 8 years where bad news for America was good news for liberals because they could pass the blame onto the Bush administration. (This very well could have been the mentality of conservatives during the Clinton years but I don't remember and I certainly hope it wasn't). I will not become an America hater just because I don't agree with the current administration. I will still pray for my elected officials that they will be able to make good decisions for the great country and that we can stay protected from our enemies and that the wars we are involved in can end as soon as possible with the best possible results for us.

God Bless the USA

Staci and Jamon sittin in a tree...

2008-10-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I am finally getting around to making this blog entry after a week; I'm sorry for the wait but in perspective it really isn't that long to wait.

I am so happy to able to write this, I AM GOING TO MARRY STACI WILCOCK!!!!! YIPEE!!!

My proposal was simple but it did come at a cost. I had already purchased the ring and talked to her dad Saturday morning and I was long boarding on my way over to propose and thinking about this very large step in my life when KABLAM I crashed on my longboard breaking my elbow. I was able to finish riding to her place, some may think it was foolish of me to continue on my long board but I figured it would get myself there quicker and also I was feeling a little light headed and almost fainted, I'm not sure I would have been able to walk over there. Another side story is there was a guy and a girl getting into a parked car right behind me and they didn't see if I was alright, they must have seen at least some part of the crash and yet not even a quick "you all right?" I would have told them I was fine anyway but I would have appreciated the concern. Back to the important story.

I got over to Staci's place, she doctored me up, and we went to the insta-care. I was really worried because although I left the ring in my jacket at her place I did have a card in my wallet with the ring info on it and she needed to pull out my medical insurance card; I was really worried she would see it but luckily she didn't. The entire time while at the doctors I was either thinking this really hurts or I should be engaged already. It was especially annoying when after putting Staci's name down as my emergeny contact info the nurse asked our relationship and I had to say girlfriend and not fiance.

Afterwards we watched the BYU vs New Mexico game at Tyson's apartment with the ring in my jacket pocket while Staci used it as a blanket, that made me especially nervous. After the game we watched a movie then went back to her place and finally about 11 hours behind schedule I proposed. For more, and different details check out my fiance's website :-) http://stacethespace.blogspot.com/

We just spent the weekend in Houston visiting her sister and bro-in-law, the only family members I hadn't met yet. It was a lot of fun and really nice weather. We even tried to take some engagement photos but none of them really turned out very well.

We are getting married Feb. 7, 2009 in the St. George temple, a reception will be in Enoch, UT (right next to Cedar City) that night, an open house will be in Provo, UT on Thursday Feb 12 and then another one in Sparks, NV on Valentine's day; I know, a bit cheesy but Staci really wanted to have it that night. Actually it just works that way even though Staci doesn't want to have it on Valentine's Day, it could be the 13th but only if the 14th absolutely won't work.

We are really happy and are enjoying the engaged life and are eagerly awaiting married life.

A Temple in Rome!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-10-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

I am so happy right now, I almost hesitate to write about this because I don't think I'll adequately describe my feelings. I can tell you that when the announcement was made I raised my arms up in joy, everyone in the room looked at me (because I predicted they would announce a Rome temple) and I was speechless, one of the few times in my life that I've been speechless. And I would be lying if I said my eyes stayed dry.

Rome has a very rich history (just call me Captain Obvious) and was the center of the Western world for over a thousand years when you consider the reign of the Caesars and the Popes. Italy was the center of the Renaissance and was therefore instrumental in coming out of the dark ages. It is home to some of the great artists, musicians, and thinkers of the past two millennia. And yet Italy has a brighter future than past. There are a number of prophecies made by modern prophets about Italy and its place in the church. Lorenzo Snow dedicated the land for the preaching of the Gospel and after WWII Ezra Taft Benson rededicated the land for the preaching of the Gospel and in both prayers marvelous blessings were promised.

I would like to inform everyone about the very first Italian and most likely Roman Catholic convert. His name was Giuseppe Taranto and he was born in Cagliari, Sardegna (I've been there) and moved to Sicily when he was young. His family was very poor and so he left home to become a sailor in order to provide better for his family (he wasn't married). He came to America and decided to start a business in Boston providing fresh produce to merchant ships in the harbor, sort of like a boat to boat produce salesman. He was very succesful at this and was able to save a substantial amount of money. He met missionaries and accepted the Gospel but didn't join the saints in Nauvoo but stayed in Boston. Oh and before he accepted the Gospel he had a dream one night in which he was told to give his gold to the prophet, Brigham. After the martydom and an accident in the harbor when he almost lost his life (he never learned to swim) he decided to join the saints in Nauvoo. At this time the Church was very strapped for cash and was having a very hard time coming up with the financial means to continue building the temple. Brigham Young called a meeting and announced that they would have to cease work on the temple unless the Church could come up with more money. This was the same day that Giuseppe Taranto arrived in Nauvoo; upon hearing that announcement he then understood his dream he had years ago and saught an audience with Brigham Young during which he gave the Church his life savings of about $6000 in gold. These funds were enough to keep the Church going and able to finish the temple which allowed so many of the saints to receive their endowments.

And now more than a hundred and fifty years later Italy will be getting a temple.

There is more I would like to write but I need to get this posted.

Rosh Hashanah Woes

2008-10-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year (Sept. 30). For this holiday it is custom to focus on cleansing one's life of sin in preparation for Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). In institute last night (where I was reminded of these things) my teacher mentioned how Christians and Jews have many similarities and because of this it can be benefitial to be aware of Jewish customs. I find it fascinating the way other people worship and I try to learn as much as possible from other cultures; however, this is not why I titled this entry "Rosh Hashanah Woes".

My complaint is with Congress for having the nerve to take a day of vacation right in the midst of the greatest financial crisis the nation has faced since the great depression, and possibly the second greatest financial crisis in the history of the US. I don't just think they should have worked because it was just a Jewish holiday, if this was in December I would expect them to work on Christmas also (maybe not Christmas morning though). The are the leaders of this nation and they were elected and are paid by our money to serve the people, why then are they taking a couple days off for a holiday that most of them probably don't even understand let alone recognize themselves. They should be working non stop until this issue is resolved. Although perhaps the best thing for them to do is to leave Washington and do nothing, the current Congress doesn't exactly instill confidence and hasn't really accomplished anything of note in the past four years, and what's more, who's to say that their "answer" won't cause more problems.

Another thing that annoys me is how even now members of Congress are playing politics. John McCain suspended his campaign to try to help in Washington by doing his job and working out a solution to this problem (I don't think he had to announce to the world he was 'suspending his campaign', if it was purely altruisticly motivated and not to look more presidential to get a boost in the poles why didn't he just go and not announce it, perhaps there are logistical intricacies that I don't understand). The Democratic Congress then announced that they had an agreed upon bill that would pass the vote when in reality they didn't. The vote came and failed by about 20 votes (which could have easily been covered by Democrats in Congress if they all agreed on their pork-filled bill) and the Democrats and the media lumped the blame on McCain for getting in the way while trying to be some cowboy riding in to save the day.

These elections are really starting to bug.

Go BYU!!!! (ranked 8th in the nation)

The US of A socialist style?

2008-09-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

So Congress is voting on a financial bailout plan that has been written in the past week in attempts to avert the economic collapse that has been charging towards us. This plan is on top of the other legislation that has been passed in the past month including a bailout for mortgage holders (providing means for people foolish enough to buy houses they couldn't afford to stay in them), a bail out for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (providing them the loan up to some huge amount and of course they took the maximum amount), nationalizing Lehman Brothers Inc. (or something like that) (correction; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were fully nationalized whereas previously they were only partially controlled by the goverment, Lehman Brothers just went bankrupt) which I only thought happened to oil companies in communist countries (nationalize meaning the government takes over the company), and I think I heard about some $30 billion loan to companies not even in the US that was decided on over night without the common public finding out until after the fact. The most recent bail out plan being voted on today is for $700 billion, and some people are saying the funds won't stop there. Glenn Beck (a staunch conservative prone to far right views I concede) said on his radio show that his contacts are suggesting that this legislation could cost easily up to $1.3 trillion. The legislation is designed to buy high risk debt from the institutions that currently hold them. This includes mortgages, credit card debt, and car debt. Then the government will collect on that money. Obviously the tax payer will be hit hard for this legislation but I wonder what the government will do will the debt the do succeed in collecting on, or maybe only debt deemed as uncollectable will be purchased. (It should be obvious that I have not studied extensively on this but I just wanted to get some of my thoughts on paper, so to speak, I'll continue).

And all of this is happening because people have bought things they couldn't pay for. I remember in my Macro Economics class at BYU my professor said, when talking about how the economy grows, that people spending money grows the economy and people saving money shrinks the economy. The more money in circulation the better. Henry Ford understood this and started paying his employees more money so they could have enough money to purchase cars of their own thereby increasing revenue for Ford Company. This discussion was actually just after a CES fireside (or maybe a devotional or a talk in conference) by one of the Twelve, I want to say Elder Oaks in which he said we shouldn't be spending so much money, that we need to have an attitude of saving rather than spending. It was funny because he brought that up and said something like "now I'm not contradicting the Brethren, it is better to save in your personal lives, but for the economy is better to spend money; so you don't spend money but hope that everyone else does so the economy grows." The country at that time had a negative savings rate, meaning the nation as a whole was spending more money than they were making. Another factor was back in the Clinton administration there was a large push to put every American in a home. There was a lot of talk about how everyone deserved to own a home and there was legislation passed to require mortgage companies to fulfill quotas when giving mortages. In essence it was affirmative action for the housing market. Sub-prime mortgages came into existence as these companies greatly increased their high risk mortgages. People kept buying larger and larger houses with the intention of selling in a couple years and cashing in on huge earnings from a perpetual housing boom. Now that people have come to their senses and the housing boom has ended people are stuck with huge mortgages which will only get higher as their adjustable interest rates increase. With some many mortgages going into default mortgage companies and losing billions of dollars on bad debt.

Anyways, the question remains what needs to be done to fix the problem, if anything? Do we allow the goverment to step and make very socialist decisions in regards to the economy in order to try to curb the destruction of the economy? Or do we allow market forces to run their course and cleanse out the economy of these lenders and borrowers who made poor decisions? President Bush said that the cost of this bailout plan will in the end be less than if no action is taken and the economy collapses.

I guess in restrospect we should have had the forsite to realize that what is good for an individual is good for a nation and what is bad for an individual is bad for a nation.

In the end all I can think of is this Demotivator.
(30 minutes later)
So apparently it doesn't look good for the legislation to get pass Congress, I still don't know how I feel about it.

I was thinking more about how we got into this mess. I mentioned earlier that a lot of the problem is people living off of credit and getting into bad mortgages. A lot is being said about how this disaster is a result of "8 years of failed Bush economics". It seems to me that liberals and the media (the same thing most of the time) are just trying to place the blame on the easiest target, George W. After 9/11, the claim is that Bush urged everyone to start spending to save the economy; that is not how I remember it. I remember him urging everyone to live life the same way you have been, to not panic. (granted I was in Italy during that year, but still...)

Things are a mess but if we practice good financial principles, live conservatively and don't buy things on credit, we should be fine.

Cheating Olympics

2008-09-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

If I had a choice to win a gold medal by cheating and never get caught I would not do it. There are a number of reasons why I would not cheat and the guilt factor is certainly one of them, as well as the honesty factor, the reason I want to bring up right now is the competition factor. I ask myself why would I be competing in the first place? A large part of why we compete is to pit our skill, preparation, and determination against the competition. That being the case then why would I want to alter the competition to give myself an unfair advantage? I just thought of one of my wrestling matches in high school. It was my sophomore year at the Sparks High School Invitational Tournament and I was got matched up with one of my friends on the team. He had beat me in the past and we were evenly matched in practice; however, about 30 minutes before the match he told me he would let me win that day and sure enough I won the match. Now I can't know for sure if he really let me win but I do know it was easier than I thought it would be and because of that doubt I didn't have the same amount of satisfaction from the victory than if I didn't have this uncertainty about the level of competition he brought.

Another example, albeit not from my personal experience, is when the referee is paid off and makes calls to allow a certain team to win. Now I have never been in that situation (although in the moment sometimes I felt like I was on the team the ref was trying to make lose) but I wonder how satisfied the other team could be with that win, I must admit that this is not as good of an example because the team still has to play good enough to win but the point is they had an unfair advantage.

If I used performance enhancing drugs and won a gold medal I would not get much satisfaction out of the victory because I didn't really win based on my own ability. I would not use performance enhancing drugs because to do so would undermine the spirit of the competition.

Ethical question

2008-08-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

I have a question for everyone,

If you could cheat and win a gold medal in the Olympics and no one will ever find out would you do it?

Think about it, write in your diary about it, and if you want post a comment with your thoughts. I already know my answer and why I feel that way and I want to see what your thoughts are. I will post my answer as another blog entry in a couple days.

Oh and if you are uncomfortable sharing your true feelings then just post as 'anonymous'.

Obama vs. Bryant

2008-08-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

So I have been loving the Olympics this year; I have thoroughly enjoyed watching all of the Phelps races, gymnastics, track (just getting under way), volleyball, and so many other events. One thing I was thinking about today, though, was an interview I saw of Kobe Bryant on what it is like for him to wear the USA jersey. The commentator asked him if it is no longer "cool" to be patriotic and proud about one's country, especially USA at this time and Byrant essentially said "it's cool to me". I find that very ironic when you compare his attitude to the attitude of the Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama and his wife. They are repeatedly saying things that suggest America is a bad country, a down right mean country, and they are finally proud of their country because Obama may become president. All Olympic athletes place their hand on their heart during the national anthem and yet the "messiah", "God's gift to America (according to Nancy Pelosi), Barack Obama does not. Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous that the man running for president and has a very good possibility of being elected does so much to make people question whether he even likes America. He goes to Germany and instead of praising America he is critical of America, talking about all of her supposed problems.

Now back to Kobe Bryant, he cynic in me says he only said those things because he is trying to build up his public image both in American's eyes and Chinese eyes so that he will get bigger endorsement deals and make more money; but if that is true then how twisted is our society that we want our athletes to love our country and we want our politicians to hate our country. I can't be sure if Kobe was sincere or not when he expressed his love for our country but after watching the interview I was convinced and I certainly want to be optimistic about at least some things. Bryant certainly has issues and I don't always cheer for him (especially when he is playing the Jazz) but I don't like to have bitter feelings towards anyone and I have definitely found more to cheer Kobe for. GO USA!!!

Which one

2008-08-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

This evening I decided to get rid of my goatee even though I only had it for a couple of weeks. So I decided to try out different facial hair styles. Please comment on which ones look the best on me, Staci thinks the long mustache is the best. She is trying to decide if she wants to say anything right now....still hasn't decided, she just is hoping it will be softer now (hint, hint) ;-)
The soul patch is her favorite, mine too.

Family Reunion

2008-07-31T12:41:00.001-07:00

I was able to make it to the Andelin Reunion this week. I was fortunate enough to get my time off of work on Wednesday and Staci and I drove up to the reunion that evening.

We went on a fun hayride right after dinner that evening; it took a little longer than Uncle Kenny had planned for us to drive from the campground we were staying at to his family's ranch but it was a beautiful evening and I think everyone had a great time.

The next day we went horseback riding and four wheeling; Staci is really not a fan of riding horses but we were able to convince her to go on a short ride and she did very well. We had nine horses in the group, three of Uncle Brian's and six of Uncle Kenny's; having that many horses was pretty fun and much easier to keep the horses together.

We played this really fun game in the afternoon; everyone had a short length of 1/2 inch PVC pipe and a bad of small marshmallows and then we went outside and shot the marshmallows at each other using the pipe as blow guns. It got pretty gross because to shoot the mellows the best you had to get them wet by letting them soak in your mouth, then you could shoot them pretty far. But when you get hit the mellows stick to you. I was just glad I didn't have long hair because some of the girls got a lot of mellows stuck in their hair. Staci and I formed an alliance with Dan and Elise so we were able to stay much cleaner then most everyone else. Then again we did stay on the outskirts of the group and we would pick off people coming towards us. All in all it was a very fun game but I am pretty sick of the taste of marshmallows right now.

We had a short talent show during which I was reminded how talented my cousins are. I am more motivated to practice the piano now. It was funny because the first person to play was Jennis Andelin, a cousin who is about 10 maybe, and when she started playing I looked over at Staci and she had this look of amazement at how good she was. I just have to confess that I have a great family.

The reunion was a lot of fun and I am really glad that I was able to make it. It was well worth taking that day of comp time to go spend time with my family and my girl friend.

I need to post something

2008-07-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

As the title indicates, I am feeling pretty lazy for not having written anything on my blog for a while. As a default posting I thought I would complain about politics.

So now the government is not only bailing out homeowners who made poor decisions i.e. bought homes with no money down, a floating interest rate, and no income and now have to foreclose because they can't make the high mortgage payments from drastically increasing interest, but our "friends in Washington" have decided to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest financial institutions involved in mortgages. (I can't think of the term for them but I do know what they do, a bank supplies a mortgage to an individual and then the bank sells that mortgage to these other companies). The congress has moved to allow these two private companies to have an unlimited line of credit (temporary but no time specification on how long temporary will be) .... Actually I just decided to post a couple paragraphs from a conservative email I receive regularly that explains these issues much better than me.

On Wednesday, the House passed its housing bill by a 272-152 vote. The Senate will vote in coming days and send it to President George W. Bush, who has dropped his veto threat. The multi-provision bill became even more of an “emergency” because of trouble at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which, between the two, own or guarantee almost half of the nation’s mortgage market. Along with the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie and Freddie accounted for 90 percent of mortgages originated in the second quarter.

The Washington Post reports, “The measure would grant [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson immediate but temporary authority to extend an unlimited line of credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or to buy their stock if their financial condition deteriorates sharply before December 2009.” Paulson will also have wide latitude in setting the terms of a bailout, though the bill’s primary author, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), cautions, “You have to protect the taxpayer.” Protect taxpayers by using their money to bail out irresponsible lenders and borrowers? That’s Democrat logic for you.

In line with that bit of fiscal irresponsibility, the bill raises the national debt ceiling by $800 billion to $10.6 trillion to make room for any bailout. The Post reports further, “In addition to the rescue plan for the mortgage-finance firms, the package includes a plan to rescue more than 400,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosure by helping them trade high-cost loans with rapidly rising monthly payments for more-affordable mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration.” That little gift will cost as much as $300 billion.

Furthermore, nearly $4 billion will go to local governments to purchase and restore foreclosed properties; $4.6 billion will go to tax credits for first-time homebuyers; and $5.3 billion will go toward more low-income housing. Concerning the overall cost of this boondoggle, The Wall Street Journal said it best: “Even conservative estimates by the Congressional Budget Office say the cost for this bailout will run to $41.7 billion, with $16.8 billion offset by higher taxes. No one has any idea of the real cost.” What was that about “protecting the taxpayer” again?

Of course, missing amid all the furor over this behemoth bill is one simple question: Is it constitutional? (compiled and written by Mark Alexander)

Honestly, what ever happened to individual (and corporate) responsibility for ones actions. These people made poor financial decisions, I don't want to have to pay higher taxes and have less savings to put toward a down payment on my first home so that some bum can stay in his $800,000 home subsidized by Uncle Sam. Let them lose their homes and move into an apartment, maybe they'll learn not to buy what they can't afford. Now if there are not-for-profit organizations willing to assist some people get through these hard times more power to them, that is a very laudable endeavor; but that is not the government's responsibility.

Another thing that is really bugging me is how certain members of congress don't seem to have any common sense when it comes to the energy crisis in America. One of the biggest arguments I have heard coming from capitol hill against drilling in ANWR and off shore is "it won't even produce any oil for 10 years". First of all, one of the main reasons it would take so long is all of the federal loopholes that oil companies would have to jump through to start drilling. Second, experts are saying the drilling could go much quicker; and third, even if it does take ten years then all that really means is we should hurry up and drill. Are these politicians really that dumb? They said the exact same thing 10 years ago, and do they not think we will need oil in ten years? If all farmers had the same mindset as politicians (not doing anything without an immediate payout) then we could say goodbye to our food industry; these politicians are like the man lost in the desert who came upon a pump that needed to be primed and he had just enough water to prime the pump but instead of investing the water in the pump to get an unlimited amount he drank the water and died. They must not understand the way the oil industry works, that the price of oil is driven by future expectations of the price. All of these companies involved in the oil trade buy and sell futures, which means they estimate that cost of oil in the future and then lock in that price for a given amount of time. If it is determined that there will be a large increase in oil production then futures prices will decrease. And yet our "friends in Washington" don't seem to understand that ever so simple principle. Now they are proposing an increase in the gas tax and guess why; with the increase in oil costs people are buying less oil and the government's precious tax revenue is decreasing. Instead of increasing taxes thereby increasing fuel costs and decreasing consumption why don't they work on increasing supply thereby decreasing cost. I swear, if they would all just go to an Economics 101 class they would learn these basic principles.

In conclusion, I must reaffirm my love for this country and my belief (albeit hard to remember at times) that there are good men and women working in the government who understand these problems and the solutions available through the constitution.

The rest of the trip

2008-07-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well I'm sorry for slacking off on the rest of the trip. It was a ton of fun but I just was finding it harder to be motivated to write all the entries.

On Saturday we went whale watching and had a ton of fun. We set off at 10am and were out for about three hours. I was a bit annoyed by one thing though; as we were getting on I asked some of the crew members where they thought the best place to be was and it was so hard for them to give me an answer. I find that often people are so nervous to give their opinions on things such as meals at a restaurant. It's like people are scared that I'll get upset if I don't agree with their opinion, which I guess could happen with people at times. But I enjoy getting to know what other people think when I'm making decisions. On the boat we had the option to be high or low and they were so hesitant to say anything other than "it depends". All well, we had a great time and found that indeed the front down low was much more enjoyable than the top.

We saw five humpback whales in total, two cow and calf combos and one bull. We actually got a lot closer than I thought we would but not as closed as I wished. We were probably twenty feet away at the closest. I learned that whales do not drink any ocean water, if they did they would die just like us. But instead their bodies create all the water they need from their blubber. Also they use half of their brain at a time. One half is used for normal stuff like swimming, eating, etc. and the other half turns on when they are "sleeping". Its only function is to breath and swim. So each half gets rest while the other is functioning.

We then went to a famous seafood restaurant called Boston Legal Seafood. Apparently it has won a bunch of national restaurant awards. The food was really good, I actually had swordfish for the first time and I really liked it.

Then we went to the Boston temple. It was very peaceful and relaxing going to a session and walking the grounds. I'm happy we were able to go there, of course it's always nice to go to the temple but now I have one more temple crossed off my list and I'm well on my way to visiting all the temples in the world (well, maybe that's a bit ambitious).
On Sunday after Church we decided to drive up to Maine to take a walk on a beach. We heard about a place in Ogunkuit, Maine called Marginal Way. It was a very beautiful walk we were able to go on. On a part of it I saw a dogfish that had been beached and subsequently thrown back in the ocean by some people. The dogfish was way weak and you could see it trying to swim. I have my doubts that it survived, it seemed too weak to swim out to deeper water and even if it could I'm not sure it would be able to catch any food. Still, it was fun seeing it and getting really close.

The next day we headed up to Vermont to check out Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory and also to go to Sharon VT and check out Joseph Smith's birthplace. Ben and Jerry's was pretty fun. We saw how ice cream is made there and also learned about their company (nothing I didn't already know from all the projects and lectures we had on that company for my business classes, Marketing, Strategic Mgt., Organizational Behavior, etc. We must have mentioned Ben and Jerry's in over half my classes in the business school.)

We also stopped at a maple syrup farm that was close by. I learned that it takes 40-50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. No wonder it's so expensive. Also sap looks like water when it comes out of the tree.
The Joseph Smith Birthplace memorial was great. Did you know that the actual obelisk is one of the largest single pieces of granite in the world? The entire monument stands 38 1/2 feet tall, one foot for each year of the prophet's life. It was very relaxing there, we arrived towards the end of the day and had a personal tour by the senior missionary there, Elder Mckinnon. He was great and very entertaining. Afterward he invited us to attend FHE with all the other missionary couples there. It was so much fun. There were about 20 people there including us and we had an American History trivia game. Some of the questions were: when was the Pledge of Allegiance instituted? What city was the original national capital? Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner? When was the Declaration of Independence signed? What is the first line of the Declaration? How tall is the Statue of Liberty? What was the population of the 13 colonies when they declared independence? So everyone reading this think of the answers and then see if you're right, the answers will be in a comment.

We stayed that night at Camp Joseph, a Church run camp right next to the memorial. It was so incredibly peaceful there, the weather was perfect, we had a nice fire and roasted marshmellows, the night was clear and we could see a ton of stars (when we stepped away from the fire of course), and there were fireflies that we tried to catch (well I caught two of them, I was very happy), living in the west we don't get the joy of fireflies like east coasters do, they were a lot of fun. The camp was really really great, the missionary couple running it, the Wallaces, were great. They provided us with everything we needed, matches, flashlights, and firewood. It was a great change from Boston.

The next day we drove through New Hampshire and stopped at the stonehenge of america. Have you guys never heard of it? Yeah, me neither and we found out why. Well not for sure but for starters they were charging $10 admission. None of us wanted to pay that (maybe $3 dollars) so we took a picture of the sign and took off, we couldn't see the actual place because of the woods. I did see a sign informing me that if I wanted to go on a ghost siting trip I should come back for Halloween. But I would need to bring my own recording equipment to be sure to capture my siting on film (seriously, I saw a notice for this). Apparently this place has an underground paranormal activity following. We wanted nothing to do with that so we went to the beach.

The waves were big enough so I was able to do a little body surfing, I'm not very good at it but I did catch a couple good waves and from what I saw I was the best that I could see (OK I admit it, there were only like three other people trying).

That night we went to the perfect conclusion to a Boston trip, a game at Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox play. It was such an awesome game. Fenway was so much fun, before the game Jed and I went down to the front row right off of third base and took some pictures. The national anthem was incredible, the girl singing it was amazing and the setting was great, I got a ton of chills. The game itself was really good. We scored in the 1st (and when I saw we I mean the Red Sox) and then the Twins scored three in the third. Long story short this game had everything except for an in park homerun and someone stealing home and a fight and someone getting tossed (Ok so it didn't have everything but it had a lot). There were stolen bases, triples, broken bats, and a home run by Manny Ramirez (Boston) to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth inning. That stadium was so loud, you'd think they just won the World Series. Boston won 6-5, what a great way to end our trip there.

The next day we flew home in lowly old coach (no upgrades this time, but I did fiddle for someone in first class).

Cutest blog my eye.

2008-07-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit concerned that ever since I found this new background for my blog I have had an advertisement for "the cutest blog on the block". I want everyone to know that I still prefer to not have the adjective cute describe things about me (unless it's the girls I date of course). This was the least feminine blog background I could find on that website and I think it looks really cool. I'll probably change it sometime though.

Happy Fourth of July

2008-07-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day!!!

The Fourth of July here in Boston has been quite something else. We started this morning at the flag raising ceremony which included the national anthem, the pledge of allegiance, a message from the mayor of Boston, a performance by a band, and also by a drum and fife group. There were a bunch of Navy and Coast Guard there and also the Captain of the Swiss guards stationed at the Vatican. At the end of the ceremony we paraded down to the old cemetery where there was a short program at the gravesites of certain patriots including Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. I was really touched towards the end when a bugle was playing taps; it sounded beautiful in that crowded yet quiet and peaceful city street and I looked over and say an older gentleman probably in his 60s who was brought to tears. A funny thing that happened right after that was I was listening to a couple people speaking and I could almost understand what they were saying, so much so that I was certain they were speaking some Italian dialect. So I asked them what part of Italy they were from (in Italian of course) and the guy informed me I was wrong and he was actually from Spain but they were speaking Catalan. It was incredible how well I could understand them, we had about a five minute conversation me speaking Italian and he and his wife speaking Catalan and the only holdup I had was when they asked about fireworks. I was pretty proud of myself.

We then headed to the old city hall building to here the reading of the Declaration of Independence but unfortunately there were a lot of people so we couldn’t really understand what was being said, there were way too many echoes.

The next item on our agenda was to find a place to see the 21 gun salute to the nation from the USS Constitution. That proved more problematic than we thought it would be…. I just realized that so far too much of these blog entries have been simple story telling. I will try to be more creative in how I say what I’ve done from now on, I hope I haven’t been too boring.

I will continue by saying this, the next time I come to Boston for the Fourth of July I will know exactly what I want to do and how I want to it. I will be able to accomplish so much more in so much less time and it will be so much less stressful. Our plan was to catch the ferry over to the naval shipyard and watch from there; everything was going to plan and we had plenty of time until we realized that at 11 the Coast Guard closed down the harbor in preparation for the sailing of the USS Constitution. We missed the last boat across by 6 minutes. We started walking over and were trying to figure out the fastest way over, we couldn’t find a bus and we weren’t sure if there were any trains going over so we took about 45 minutes to finally get to a place where we could see. We found out that there was a train that we could have grabbed and we would have saved about 30 minutes. Ah, it’s so annoying. But the adventure was worth seeing the cannons being fired.

After a long nap back at home base, we headed out to find a spot for the fireworks show on the Charles River. We got an awesome spot right on the center of a bridge.

I love this country, and not just because we have the largest economy in the world, or because we dominate in the Summer Olympics (which I’m really excited for, go USA), or because we give more than any other nation in the world to charitable organizations, or because our military is the best armed forces in the world and is completely made up of men and women who join on a volunteer basis, or because we have some of the brightest minds in technology and science, or because we are ruled by elected officials who operate in a system designed to not let any one group of people become too powerful, or because any one who has the desire can become successful in life. No, all of those are great things about the United States of America but the reason I love this country is because it was established by the power of God and it is by His Hand that we may continue to succeed, as Benjamin Franklin said in reference to America, “if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?” The Founding Fathers recognized our Savior’s Hand in the roots of this nation, we would do well to remember that as well. God bless America. However, this doesn’t come with its hazards. I was reading a book by Hugh Nibley, “Since Cumorah”, and in it he mentions the song “God Bless America” and the thing I got from it was that we cannot arbitrarily think that God is always in favor of what America does. It is very dangerous to be so arrogant to think a certain nation, or state, or group of people, or person can do no wrong (one exception does exist of course). What we need to remember is the promise this land has been given, which is “if ye keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land—but if ye keep not his commandments ye shall be cut off from his presence” (Book of Mormon, Alma 37:13). It has been said that the most important thing we can do for our country is to keep the commandments because by doing so we make this nation more eligible for the blessings from the Lord and that is the only thing that can really help us.

The fireworks were amazing; I enjoyed singing along with the Boston Pops to the tunes of Take Me Out to the Ball Game, as well as a number of patriotic songs including “This Land Is Your Land” and “God Bless America”. Also Rascal Flatts was there performing and they are always great. The actual fireworks lasted for about 30 minutes but it sure went by awful fast, some of the fastest 30 minutes of my life.

I hope you enjoy some of these film clips I took from different things today.

Hm, I've been having issues with loading these video clips. Once I get it figured out I'll post them. Check back, they're worth the wait. At least I think so.

Day 3

2008-07-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

Today was another good day, we woke up at a reasonable time of about 8’oclock. I had a couple funny dreams last night; in one I was batman, always fun, in another I woke up to find a bucket of mealworms in the motel room and also a couple boxes of mice and rats that were all getting out. Then in my dream I woke up and realized I needed to check on all my pets, snakes and lizard and so I went home to make sure they were all doing OK, then I really woke up. Staci pointed out that I must be missing my pets; I suppose that’s possible but not certain.

We first went to Providence, Rhode Island and we stopped at the Roger Williams memorial. I found out that he was the founder of Rhode Island. He was the one who acquired the charter from England to start his own colony. I find it very curious so much of American history is centered around religious persecution. The pilgrims left England on the Mayflower to practice their Puritan beliefs; Roger Williams left Massachusetts to escape religious persecution from the Puritans. I sure others left as well to form various colonies. And of course so many of these colonies/turned states played a part in the persecution of the Latter-day Saints and caused them to flee to the West. It seems people quickly forget how their people once were treated. Too often in life do the persecuted become the persecutors. I really think that we as Latter-day Saints need to pay heed not to do anything that would lead others to believe we feel superior to any religion. A couple religions that I think are being unfairly criticized are Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims (and yes, I do think there is a difference between mainstream Muslims and radical Islam.) We should make sure we don’t criticize others for their curious beliefs; Latter-day Saints should be the last ones to do that for more than one reason.

OK, I’m off my soapbox now, but no promises that I won’t get back on. We also took a walk around the capital building in Providence, we figured we should get a picture there seeing how that really the only reason we came to Rhode Island is because it’s a state. I also went into a church and played a couple hymns on the piano.

We then headed over to Connecticut and of course the first place we went to was the state capitol. Well actually we were headed for the capital and took to detours after we parked. There is a 94 year old carrousel that we rode on for $1.00. And also we stopped at a Civil War memorial, the first national monument that wasn’t an obelisk (like the Washington Memorial). It was built to honor the union soldiers who died at Antietam Creek. I found that especially neat seeing how I went there last year.

The state capitol building was amazing. It is very cathedral like complete with stained glass windows.

We then went to the Travelers Insurance Tower, have you guys seen the commercials with the guy and the huge umbrella that he uses to help a bunch of people? We went to the top of the tower and had a very nice view of Hartford, CT.

Another thing I love about New England is all of the old buildings everywhere, as we were walking over to the Traveler's Tower I saw this building and thought it looked picture worthy, what is it exactly? I have no idea but that adds to my point that there are things everywhere to see, if you put that building in Idaho it would be a huge state attraction but sitting here in New England it doesn't even get a second glance. (luckily I took the picture on the first glance)

We then headed towards Coventry, CT to see the home of Nathan Hale. He was the man commissioned as a spy for George Washington who was caught and hung by the British in New York. His dying words were “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” I didn’t realize this but that is a quote from a Shakespeare play that was fairly well known at the time. Unfortunately the place was closed today so we just took a couple pictures on the outside. It was a very relaxing place to visit nonetheless. It was nice to get out in the countryside and explore a bit.

We then headed back to Boston and are currently chilling back at Kristy’s place watching the Olympic swimming trials.

Day 2

2008-07-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

Today was a really fun day, although it was potentially really annoying. We slept in a little bit, I couldn’t help but sleep nine hours to make up for not getting any sleep the night before. It’s not as much as Jed slept though, he was out for about 13 hours, lazy boy. Staci managed to get her beauty sleep in just eight hours, but she did sleep the night before on the plane.

Kristy’s generosity has continued to make this trip wonderful, her latest favor is she let us borrow her car for a couple days. We left Boston this morning to visit Cape Cod. I must admit, driving in Boston has brought back a lot of memories about driving in Italy. The roads are much narrower here and also the rules for driving are much the same, which is another way of saying, there really are no rules. I like it much better this way, people are much more attentive and logical when they drive.

We made a short stop at Plymouth, MA where the Mayflower landed. We decided not to pay the $10 to go inside and check out the ship, maybe we would have if we could climb up into the bird’s nest or walk the plank, but just looking around would have been boring.J

Our next stop was Race Point Beach at the tip of Cape Cod, MA. This beach was a ton of fun, the water was a bit cold but I had recently been to Lake Tahoe so I had already been habituated to the cold water. Jed decided it was too cold so he didn’t go in and Staci wouldn’t go in because she just washed her hair (I don’t understand but maybe my sister-in-laws can explain it to me). She actually went in most of the way, just not past her neck.

When we were taking a walk on the beach Staci noticed large splashes in the water, as I was going in to figure out what they were from we saw the head of a seal pop out of the water. It was then that we realized the seal had round up a bunch of fish and was hunting them. They were jumping out of the water to try and get away from the seal. Some of these fish were huge, I was able to get close enough to get a good view of them as they would splash around and as far as I could tell they were around four feet long, small for the ocean but large fish from what I’m used to. It was a bit unnerving to be that close to a seal while he is eating, I was probably 50 feet away when it popped its head out of the water and it very well could have been much closer, and I think I saw some of the fish swim past me. Either way it was definitely the highlight of the beach trip. I just wish I had my snorkeling equipment.

Here is a pic of the seal, you can barely see its head out of the water, we later found out that this is a fairly common siting, but it was exciting for us.

We then went to Provincetown and if I had to describe that place with one word it would be “gay”. Why you may ask, simply because there were loads and loads of gay people. Apparently, it is a favorite vacation place for sexual orientation challenged people. There must have been a 4-1 guy girl ratio. And all the guys were walking around in short shorts and no shirts. Well, most of the guys, there were some fathers there with their families, and me and Jed of course. Staci kept trying to get a picture of us on the beach we wouldn’t have any of that, not in Provincetown.

We ate at a restaurant on the beach and I had some really good seafood. I must admit though, although it was great food I can’t stuff myself with seafood the way I can with other kinds of food, my body gets tired of it after a normal sized meal. What I mean to say is it’s great but I can’t eat too much.

After dinner we went shopping for a couple souvenirs, Cape Cod stuff not Provincetown stuff of course.

Then we drove on to Rhode Island and found a motel to get ready for tomorrow.

I love being around all of this history. Everywhere I look there are more things that remind of things I learned in my American history class. Today we saw signs for the Roger Williams landmark. Does anyone remember who he is? See I don’t even really remember exactly who he is, he founded Rhode Island or something, but it is still cool to see all this stuff.

Day 1

2008-07-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

I am so tired right now. We spent all day touring the different Revolutionary War sites, Paul Revere’s home (we didn’t go in), the Old North Church (where the lanterns were hung), Bunker Hill, the USS Constitution (one of the first six ships built for the US Navy and the oldest commissioned, sailable ship in the world, built in 1797), little Italy (we got some great gelato), a couple cemeteries where a lot of the revolutionaries, and some other stuff that I don’t feel like listing right now.

This is Paul Revere's tomb, the small one is the original and the large one was made when people thought the original wasn't good enough.

I like this view of the cemetery, there were a lot of people buried here, Benjamin Franklin's parents, Mother Goose, the victims of the Boston Massacre, John Hancock, and many others.

We rode a ferry from Boston over to Charlestown, it was very refreshing to feel the ocean breeze on top of the boat. And we got a good view of Boston.

It is really hot and humid here, we were already exhausted from lack of sleep and add on top of that the humidity we were pretty tired, then as we were walking back to the subway we got caught in a total downpour. It was pretty fun running through the streets of downtown Boston getting soaked, but then again we did get soaked.

This is a long ranged cannon on the USS Constitution. The cannon itself weighs about 5800 lbs. and with everything else, it weighs around 7800 lbs. Pretty heavy.
Here is a monument to Paul Revere, if this were a better picture you would be able to see the North Church in the background. The quiz for the day is how many lanterns were hung there and what did that mean?

Staci’s friend is taking really good care of us, as I’m writing this she is just finishing up with making fajitas for dinner, I’m excited. We’ll eat, give massages and then probably crash until tomorrow when we will go visit a couple other New England states.

Boston or Bust!!!

2008-07-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

I have arrived in Boston with two good friends, Jed Brown and Staci Wilcock. The trip to Boston was fairly uneventful however there are a couple things I thought would be fun to write about.

While waiting in the SLC airport we were presented with the opportunity to upgrade to first class, three for the price of one. We decided that for a five hour flight (from Phoenix to Boston) it would be worth $50 to have bigger seats and more leg room. While waiting to take off I decided to get out my laptop and make some money while the lowly coach people were getting on the plane, a la Brian Regan.

I had the unfortunate luck to be seated next to the only nursing mom ever to be allowed into first class. (no I’m not bitter). She was really nice and had first class for pretty much the same reason we did. Her child, who was about 18 months old, was fairly quiet most of the time but it was a bit awkward when she was still breast feeding and the mom didn’t always use a cover blanket. Oh and she changed the diaper right there at the seat. All well, I had the window seat so I just turned on my ipod and tried to get some sleep, which I didn’t.

Now we are at Staci’s old roommates pad getting ready for our first day in Boston. I’m pretty stoked.

Who would have thought

2008-06-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

As you can see by the pic, I have finally accepted the fact that I live in Utah and am a resident thereof. I registered my car and got a UT drivers license. This was a long time coming but I kept dragging my feet and didn't want to give up my Nevada license plate. But in the end with my Nevada drivers license expiring it seemed wise to become a resident of UT.

This isn't all bad though, now I can make questionable driving decisions and people will write it off to me being a UT driver. (ha ha) Also I can now purchase guns here. I love exercising my 2nd Amendment rights.

I am pretty sure, though, that I will be teased now by certain members of my family whom I used to tease about being from Utah (Natalie). All well, I'm ready.

On a different note, can anyone see where my chin starts in this picture? This desk job is really killing my good looks. I hate to admit this but I think I need to start exercising regularly. Although I've been pretty active my entire life, I have never really had to exercise to keep from getting fat. Sad day.

Real men

2008-06-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about a lot of things recently. To start out I would like to tell a story about one of the times I drove from Sparks to Provo. It was after Christmas break and I was driving back alone as I often did when I got pulled over by a highway patrolman just outside of Elko, NV. I was frustrated as we all are when we get pulled over and went through the normal routine of getting out my license and registration. The police officer said the usual things about if I knew how fast I was going and why I was in a hurry and where I was going. Then he said something else that really changed the way I saw him. He said something to the effect that it was getting colder, the roads where getting icy, and he didn't want to have to respond to my getting in an accident. As I was driving away with my ticket I found it hard to be upset with the cop because he spoke to me in a way that I really felt he was acting in a way for my best interest and not just because he was on some power trip or because he had to fill a quota by the end of the month.

Daron (one of my brothers) is about to graduate from the police academy in Reno, NV and I have been amazed at the methods his instructors are using to teach him and the other cadets. Well, not just the methods but how rigorous of a process it is for him to become a cop. This made me start to wonder why he is going through all of this (getting beat up, getting sprayed with MACE, etc.) just to get a job where almost everyone with whom he comes in contact will be mad at him, people will constantly call him names, he will have to interact consistently with the filth of society, and people will even try to kill him. I asked him to write down for me why exactly he is going to be a police officer, and here is (in part) what he wrote:

Couple things here, 1) I feel like it is a calling. It is something I have thought about for a long time. It feels right. It is what I was meant to do. When I think of what other job I would be doing or would need to do if I was not in the academy, I cannot think of anything. Nothing else appeals to me. (2) I love the idea of protecting people. Not necessarily being the "hero" but a protector. I know I will have to work on Sundays and there will be times I will not be able to attend church. But I am ok with that. Here is why. I know that my family will be safe to attend church because I am on the street catching crooks. (3) I want to catch crooks and put them behind bars. THere are people out there that need to be caught and put away for a long time. (4) I believe that being a police officer is more of an act of service than a career. It is a way of life. It is who I am and it is making me a better person. (5) I want to make a difference in the world. I don't want to be the average Joe Blow citizen who doesn't notice people in need: Or if they do notice they don't want to help. Well, I want to help. I notice things that need to be fixed or changed and I want to be a part of correcting wrongs. That is just a few of the reasons why, and honestly as I am in this job longer, more things come to me that reinforces my decision. Things just make sense to me. I want to be the guy that runs to gun fire. I want to be the first one in the school during a Columbine or V.T.

I try to be realistic and I must admit that I don't think all police officers have such noble intentions every day; they are not perfect and have made and will make mistakes. But I have to believe that the majority of police officers are doing what they do for more than just a paycheck every two weeks. I have decided to write about this is to get all of us to reconsider our views of police officers. I have to work on this just as much as the next guy. I struggle with the feelings of loathing for cops because they are looking for the bad in everyone, they plague me with worry whenever they drive behind me because I feel like they are just waiting for me to make a driving mistake. But I have been trying to have a paradigm shift, to see them on the same level as the Armed Forces. The military protects us from enemies abroad and police officers protect us from enemies at home. And if we just happen to get a speeding ticket or some other moving violation then I am trying to see that as a small price to pay for having the security of knowing there are people in every city and county in the USA who are willing to give their lives to protect us.

In conclusion, I invite all of us to be more appreciate of police officers; pay anonymously for their lunch, don't complain when you get a ticket (it will be hard I know, but it's not like we don't know the law), and simply treat them like the good guys that they are. I am glad that Daron will be a cop; it makes me happy to tell my friends that my older brother will be a policeman. And now finally when I get pulled over in Reno I may be able to talk my way out of getting a ticket. :-)

Defending the Family Name

2008-06-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

I want you all to know that I was able to uphold the family name last night in the Elder's Quorum ping pong tournament. I didn't go undefeated but I won more than I lost. There were two guys who were decent at the game; we played a bunch between the three of us and I was above 500 on both of them. It had been awhile since I had played and I had forgotten how much fun the game is.

On to the main event (finally)

2008-06-03T17:31:00.001-07:00

I find it ironic that the party labeled as the most disorganized was able to wrap up their primary months before the other party. Barack Obama has finally clinched the Democratic presidential nomination; at the start of the primaries I was all for Obama (meaning all for him to lose in the general election) but after all the information on Obama's pastor, friends, and liberal voting record I have been feeling very disenfranchised from him. A couple things that bother me about him are that you can't criticize him at all because he'll say (or his people) that those are the old politics and we should be above that or that we should stick to "the issues" but I think that we, the American people, should have a right to know about the personal life and close acquaintances of the person who wants us to give him the most powerful position in the free world. Also, if his wife is going to take a major role in the campaign and be very outspoken about her husband being qualified to be the next president then what she says is fair game to review and scrutiny. Now if she had stayed out of the publics eye and then people attacked her then I would say that is uncalled for and inappropriate (to a certain extent) but she is taking a major role in the campaign.

On the flipside, I am tired of people saying that because Obama's middle name Hussein he is, therefore, actually a Muslim in hiding and should not be the President. I met a guy at a recruiting event for a company once and he was from Dubai, grew up a Muslim, and his first name was Hussein and I spoke with him about how people would question him as a person because of his name. I am sorry but I think that is the most ignorant thing someone could do, well maybe not the most ignorant but very stupid nonetheless. Following that logic, we should take financial advise from anyone with the name of Alan, Warren, and Donald; we should choose anyone named Lebron, Kobe, and Michael for our basketball team; and if someone's name is Ronaldo, Ronaldo, or Ronaldino then they must be really good at soccer. (Actually that last one may be true.)

Politics fascinate me but politicians often annoy me. The idea that people sit around and argue about what other people should be made to do and then get paid by those other people seems like a big scam. Don't get me wrong, I love this country and I do realize and accept that there must be laws for the general public safety and well-being; but laws discussed, proposed, argued, blocked, and passed by politicians that I believe fall into this category are maybe 1% of total actions of politicians.

Tagged? oh snap

2008-05-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm actually doing this.

A. ATTACHED OR SINGLE? Let's just say something is happening.
B. BEST FRIEND? I'm a cop out and can't choose just one, Rhett Andelin, David Andelin, Dave McMullin, and Scotty West. (this is my tag so I get to choose how to answer right?)
C. CAKE OR PIE? Maybe I should just say cheesecake and let everyone decide whether that is cake or pie. OK I'll make a decision, cake, no wait, pie. Oh I like them both.
D. DAY OF CHOICE? Days off
E. ESSENTIAL ITEMS? essential for what exactly? due to the lack of specificity from the question I'll assume it is referring to airplane trips to which I'll answer laptop, ipod, a puzzle book, and water (oh yeah I forgot the new rule, scratch the water)
F. FAVORITE COLORS? A nice baby blue, but I am a huge fan of green when it is things outside.
G. GUMMY BEARS OR WORMS? sour gummy worms
H. HOMETOWN? Sparks, NV
I. INDULGENCE? I can't really think of any.
J. JANUARY OR JULY? I want to know who chooses January, the only reason I can think of is for skiing or snowboarding (or if you're living in the southern hemisphere). My hobbies lean way towards summer stuff. July for sure. And we get the Fourth of July as well.
K. KIDS? Yeah, I would like to have kids some day.
L. LIFE ISN'T COMPLETE WITHOUT? the gospel, my family and friends, happiness
M. MARRIAGE DATE? As soon as possible of course.
N. NUMBER OF BROTHERS AND SISTERS? 5 brothers and 3 sisters-in-law.
O. ORANGES OR APPLES? I think the best orange will beat out the best apple, but apples are much more consistent, and the worst orange is way worse than the worst apple.
P. PHOBIAS OR FEARS? I can't think of any physical thing that I am necessarily scared of, but I do worry that I won't live up to my potential when it comes to family and church life.
Q. QUOTE? “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” —Groucho Marx
And on a more patriotic note “All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?” —Benjamin Franklin
R. REASON TO SMILE? because I'm not sad of course.
S. SUPERMAN OR WONDER WOMAN? CK all the way, Superman is way cooler than Wonder Woman. She has bullet blocking bracelets, he is bulletproof. She has a rope that makes people tell the truth, he has laser that shoot out of his eyes. She comes from some ancient island full of women, he comes from a planet with an advanced civilization that blew up. They both can fly but he can run super fast. And he has a secret identity that he has too uphold which means he can never take the credit for all the good he does. I definitely prefer Superman.
T. TAG 5 PEOPLE: I am slightly concerned here because all the other people Carrie tagged were girls, and come to think of it, I can't think of any of "my boys" who have blogs. I will just have to look at blogging like dancing and singing for guys. Girls do it most of the time but when a guy does it really well then it is way cooler. (hopefully I blog adequately). So to answer the question, anyone who reads this consider yourself tagged. (ha, gotcha)
U. UNKNOWN FACT ABOUT ME: hmmmmmmm, I can't think of anything of note that people would want to know about me.
V. VEGETABLES? I prefer to drink V8 Fusion for my supplements of fruits and vegetables, I love fruit but I am lazy and don't buy them. I love corn on the cob, tomatoes are good with certain things, and green beans are probably my preferred greens.
W. WORST HABIT? I take a long time to make up my mind, I suppose this isn't always a bad thing but people do find it a bit annoying when they play Risk with me.
X. X-RAY OR ULTRASOUND? x-ray
Y. YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? That depends on what country and what city I'm in. Some of my favorite foods are pizza (of course), home grilled hamburgers, prosciutto crudo di parma, mozzarella di buffola, italian bread cooked in a wood oven, steak, and let's throw in mangos just for variety.
Z. ZODIAC SIGN? Gemini

The Last Crusade

2008-05-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and I thought I would take this moment to write down the various ways I have related it to the Gospel.

I believe the Holy Grail represents the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The chalice was used at the Last Supper, which was also the institution of the Lord's Supper, the sacrament. And more importantly it caught the blood of Christ while He hung on the cross, this is a clear representation of the Atonement. The movie states that if one drinks from the grail he shall have a spring in his soul welling up to everlasting life. This language used (mine wasn't verbatim) is very similar to what Jesus of Nazareth told the Samaritan woman at the well when He offered her the waters of life, not referring to actual water rather His Gospel and His Way. Also, the water from the grail will heal any wound (a bullet shot to the gut) just as the Atonement has power to heal us of any wound to our soul.

The movie tells of three knights who drank from the cup and although they all drank from the cup they also all eventually died. This is because the cup will only give everlasting life so long as the person continues to drink from it. So also will the Atonement give everlasting life only so long as we continue to exercise faith in it and Him and "drink from its waters". We cannot be baptized, receive a remission of our sins, make necessary covenants with the Lord, and then go about our merry little lives and not think of those things again. No, we must continue to strengthen our faith, repent of our sins, renew our covenants (again referencing the sacrament), and share these things with others. When Indiana Jones was about the take the grail the knight told him it must not pass the great seal, "for that is the price of eternal life", meaning when we partake of the Atonement then our responsibility is to dedicate our lives to it, administer it (in a sense) to others who are worthy of it, and to show people where to find it (just as the other two knights in the movie left markers to show the way to the grail).

The directions to reach the grail include crossing the desert and going into the mountain of the Lord, these can easily be compared to worldliness and the temple, not suggesting that one has to go through the world to reach the Atonement but rather one must exit the world and enter the temple as part of the process to receiving the full blessings of the Atonement.

The three tests are very clear, to be blessed by the Atonement we must be humble, repentant, obedient, and exercise faith. Only through the true Gospel can we receive all the blessings of the Atonement.

I really enjoy comparing things to the Gospel; we learn so much when the Gospel is compared to things in our lives that we are familiar with (maybe some day I'll post my Star Wars links to the Gospel). I love this Gospel and I love learning more about it.

Government and girls

2008-05-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

I am now officially a resident of Utah, after living here for six years I decided I should finally get my license and register to vote here in Utah. After going through the DMV experience I couldn't help but think of something a congresswoman from California said the other day in regards to high oil and gas prices. She suggested that if the oil companies don't get a control on rising fuel prices that the government should socialize the oil industry, because that would fix everything. If anyone ever thinks that the government can do things more efficiently than the free market he/she only needs to visit the post office or the DMV.

Handing over the oil companies to the government would be like commissioning Bill Belichick to manage the ethical behavior in the NFL. Actually that's not a fair example, Coach Belichick would do a much better job than the government in his respective analogous duties. Just as my cousins here in Orem have reminded me, the government spends most of it's time fixing the problems that they created.

I'm not anti government always; but I am a bit annoyed at all the problems in this country that aren't being fixed by neither the Dems nor the Reps.

During dinner tonight at Brickoven Pizza we debated about the meaning of different types hugs after dates. My opinion is if a girl pats my back during a hug (or vice versus) she is telling me she's not interested in pursuing anything serious. The "pat" is a friendly motion whereas the "hold then release" hug means there could be something more.

The way of all the world

2008-05-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

First off I would like to ask, who doesn't have a blog? I think these blogs are a right of passage into the 21st century, now that I have started blogging I feel like I'm finally up to date.

I am living and working in Provo, UT. I have an average job but fortunately I have above average roommates and neighbors to make up for it. I do feel fortunate to have a job directly related to my major (accounting); I am in charge of most balance sheet account reconciliations and anything else the Controller wants me to do. We are in the home stretch of the annual audit and we are all itching to have it done. The audit itself isn't that bad of a thing it's the redundancy of the tasks that we have to do. For a while we were getting new auditors every week and we would have to reexplain everything to them. Needless to say, my coworkers and I were getting a bit frustrated with the waste of time (at least in our eyes).

I feel like I'm a considerate driver and am fairly safe on the road; however, I have a few pet peeves when it comes to drivers habits. One of those is people's use of the suicide lane. An example from my day should adequately explain my feelings. While driving back from lunch today an SUV pulled into the suicide lane in front of me and came to a complete stop, waited for me to passed and then pulled onto the main road. At the next light the SUV pulled up right next to me and the driver (what looked to be your typical soccer mom) looked at me with a mixture of contempt, bewilderment, and horror that I would have the gal not to change lanes and give her room to merge and save her three seconds. Again I think I'm a considerate driver but I really don't feel like going out of my way to reward bad driving.

I have multiple pets and I have to exercise self control to not buy more. The count so far is a red tailed boa named General Grievous (from Star Wars III), a bearded dragon named Hiro (from the TV series Heroes), a ball python named CK (from Smallville), a mouse named Lucky (because none of my pets will eat him), a breeding pair of gerbils named Romeo and Juliette (because there life is one big tragedy), and all of their offspring currently numbered at 9 (five newborns and four two-month olds). I'm not sure why I like animals so much but I do.

My friends and I are into a number of TV shows right now, some of our favorites are American Gladiators and So You Think You Can Dance. American Gladiators is great except for roughly 45% of the show, when contestants give motivational one liners to Hulk Hogan and Muhammad Ali's daughter (her name isn't coming to me, Layla my roomies tell me) but not to be outdone by the gladiators who spend all their time rehashing the same old put downs of the contestants (except for Titan who seems to enjoy motivating the contestants more, and Wolf who comes up with new put downs for every contestant).

On So You Think You Can Dance I feel bad for the terrible dancers too much to enjoy these early rounds as much as I enjoy American Idol's early rounds. I'm not sure why I feel worse for dancers than singers, perhaps it's because I feel like a fool so often when I go dancing and the only thing that keeps me going is that I convince myself no one cares I'm not a good dancer (although I don't always believe it). Whereas people who sing should have a basic ability before they join some group or sing in front of people. I'm not sure.

Well that is a basic sampling of the way this blog will go, I'll ramble on about anything and everything. And maybe if you're lucky I'll write about some of my dreams.