Friday, May 30, 2008

Tagged? oh snap

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

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The Last Crusade


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.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Government and girls

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.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The way of all the world

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.