Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Where's Steven?
My brother Steven tagged these pictures of his brigade on his facebook account. After getting his permission, I was told I could put these on my blog. Guess which ones are Steven!
Here's a semi-hard one to start off on. He's there somewhere...
And here's an easy one. Not too hard to find "the Steven" here. This is the guy we're looking for!
A line of soldiers. Somewhere, there's a Steven.
Extra credit: If you can find Steven here, you could find him anywhere.
Here's a semi-hard one to start off on. He's there somewhere...And here's an easy one. Not too hard to find "the Steven" here. This is the guy we're looking for!A line of soldiers. Somewhere, there's a Steven.Extra credit: If you can find Steven here, you could find him anywhere. Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Bits from a Conversation I had Recently
I was talking to a friend today, and the subject drifted to LDS Apostles. I was asked the following questions:
Friend: "So, when a living apostle gets up in the morning, do they feel like everyone else?"
Friend:"Does a living apostle get lauded with gifts, presents, do they wear robes and have parades? Because they should."
The strange thing? This wasn't a sarcastic conversation. Really.
Friend: "So, when a living apostle gets up in the morning, do they feel like everyone else?"
Friend:"Does a living apostle get lauded with gifts, presents, do they wear robes and have parades? Because they should."
The strange thing? This wasn't a sarcastic conversation. Really.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Weekend Roundup: Vernal Equinox! Vernal Equinox!
1) Last Week
Last week was a bit of a roller coaster. Work has been crazy busy, and this morning I found out that the Secretarial Awards Ceremony I’m in charge of has been moved to the Fall. I’m doing everything I can to let them agree to let me go to Switzerland in September with Steven (see #3).
So, I only really pay attention to College Basketball until Tournament time, and since my other teams were out quickly, I turned my enthusiasm to BYU. BYU Men’s Basketball actually won a game in NCAA Tourney which was a major highlight of the week. Of course they lost on Saturday, but still-they proved that they could win a game at the Big Dance! Plus, Michael Loyd Jr.? He’s going to be fun to watch the next couple of years. The sad news is that a co-worker and close friend of mine passed away from cancer Wednesday evening. I worked closely with this co-worker for 4 years, and it’s always tough losing a friend. My heart goes out to her loved ones. However, the weather in DC has been phenomenal. Mid 60’s-70s with no wind and sunny days? Oh, I’d love to package up the weather over the weekend and save it for a rainy day. The tulip trees are just starting to blossom which means cherry blossoms in about 2 weeks.
2) The weekend?
Friday: I had Friday off and spent the morning at the Doctor’s office getting a Xolair shot. My nurse blew a vein in my leg, but she’s totally forgiven (seriously) for bringing me Cabbage and corned beef while I was waiting in the office afterwards. Food heals all wounds in my world. That evening Kelli and I sheepishly admitted to the other that we really liked “The Hangover” and we both wanted to see “She’s out of my League” but common sense ruled out as we went to buy tickets at the movie theater. Instead of paying $21.50 for a movie, we decided to spend $47.50 on a Dust-Vac. There’s logic to that decision somewhere, I think. Saturday: After Kelli got home from working a few hours, we went up to Eastern Market for Lunch. We didn’t find the pickle guy (my fave) or the Crepe Guy (Kelli’s fave) until as we were leaving, but still had a great time taking in the sun while browsing through the stalls. That afternoon I cleaned and watched my Bracket Picks go down the drain (Thanks Kansas!). After the first half of the BYU game, we went to a house farewell party that evening (friends are getting kicked out of their house as their landlady is moving back in) and talked to a good friend for most of the evening. Sunday: I slept in and didn’t go to Stake Conference. Oops. But there was more cleaning to be had, lungs to be convinced that pollen isn’t out to kill them, a dinner at our neighbors and tentative plans for next weekend made. All in all a great weekend.
3) Trip Plans
March is here and I already have two big trips (Ecuador and Switzerland) planned. Ecuador will include the Galapagos Islands, and Switzerland will be 2 weeks of hiking in the Alps with my baby brother. There’s a smaller trip to Montreal in July that we’re hoping to do, and then there’s Christmas and a trip to Portland to see a baby get blessed. I’m already saving for a house down-payment, but it’ll be good for me to do some further cut-backs on my expenditures.
4) The “I will if you will” Book Club
One of my absolute favorite blogs is “Monkey See” on NPR. The primary writer, Linda Holmes” waxes poetic on pop culture and each post is a gem. A couple of weeks ago after admitting she had never read Twilight, she started the “I will if you will” book club on the blog with Twilight as the first book. Today is their first installment of talking about Twilight and Linda chose to talk about the writing with another Monkey See Contributer. Here’s an excerpt about the book:
It's just this wildly florid prose that's wielded with the subtlety and repetition of a jackhammer, all in the service of a story that's going nowhere being told by a girl who seems to be fighting me for the gold medal in a not-liking-her contest.
Monkey See Blog
5) Health Care Bill
All in all, the Health Care Bill has kind of been an exercise in hilarity. I wasn’t real impressed with anyone during the whole debacle, but they finally passed it. Now that it’s passed, I’m hoping that it actually does more than just line the pockets of the Health Care Industry and actually gives the uninsured a chance to have cheaper, more comprehensive health care and it gives those that are insured better health care. Because really, our Health Care system is broken and unfortunately I don’t see how anyone except the government can fix it. Here’s hoping that the Bill will actually help fix the problem. And if someone could explain to me (in a rational, logical manner) how passing this bill would move us over towards a totalitarianism government, I’m all ears.
6) Everyone’s Favorite Mormon: Glen Beck!
I’ll be honest. I’ve only watched about 2 minutes of Glen Beck before changing the channel, so all I know about him is mini clips here and there, and others verbal repudiation of Beck. However, Beck encouraging listeners to flee churches that had hints of social justice shows of a lack of understanding of basic Christian Doctrine
Roger Ebert wrote an enjoyable piece about Beck and some great points that he learned about Mormonism. A highlight from his blog is here:
One of my friends, Matt, wrote a thoughtful, sometimes humorous (the kicking puppies line is great) post about Mr. Beck and Beck’s summation of the “religious left.” Definitely food for thought. From his post:
Last week was a bit of a roller coaster. Work has been crazy busy, and this morning I found out that the Secretarial Awards Ceremony I’m in charge of has been moved to the Fall. I’m doing everything I can to let them agree to let me go to Switzerland in September with Steven (see #3).
So, I only really pay attention to College Basketball until Tournament time, and since my other teams were out quickly, I turned my enthusiasm to BYU. BYU Men’s Basketball actually won a game in NCAA Tourney which was a major highlight of the week. Of course they lost on Saturday, but still-they proved that they could win a game at the Big Dance! Plus, Michael Loyd Jr.? He’s going to be fun to watch the next couple of years. The sad news is that a co-worker and close friend of mine passed away from cancer Wednesday evening. I worked closely with this co-worker for 4 years, and it’s always tough losing a friend. My heart goes out to her loved ones. However, the weather in DC has been phenomenal. Mid 60’s-70s with no wind and sunny days? Oh, I’d love to package up the weather over the weekend and save it for a rainy day. The tulip trees are just starting to blossom which means cherry blossoms in about 2 weeks.
2) The weekend?
Friday: I had Friday off and spent the morning at the Doctor’s office getting a Xolair shot. My nurse blew a vein in my leg, but she’s totally forgiven (seriously) for bringing me Cabbage and corned beef while I was waiting in the office afterwards. Food heals all wounds in my world. That evening Kelli and I sheepishly admitted to the other that we really liked “The Hangover” and we both wanted to see “She’s out of my League” but common sense ruled out as we went to buy tickets at the movie theater. Instead of paying $21.50 for a movie, we decided to spend $47.50 on a Dust-Vac. There’s logic to that decision somewhere, I think. Saturday: After Kelli got home from working a few hours, we went up to Eastern Market for Lunch. We didn’t find the pickle guy (my fave) or the Crepe Guy (Kelli’s fave) until as we were leaving, but still had a great time taking in the sun while browsing through the stalls. That afternoon I cleaned and watched my Bracket Picks go down the drain (Thanks Kansas!). After the first half of the BYU game, we went to a house farewell party that evening (friends are getting kicked out of their house as their landlady is moving back in) and talked to a good friend for most of the evening. Sunday: I slept in and didn’t go to Stake Conference. Oops. But there was more cleaning to be had, lungs to be convinced that pollen isn’t out to kill them, a dinner at our neighbors and tentative plans for next weekend made. All in all a great weekend.
3) Trip Plans
March is here and I already have two big trips (Ecuador and Switzerland) planned. Ecuador will include the Galapagos Islands, and Switzerland will be 2 weeks of hiking in the Alps with my baby brother. There’s a smaller trip to Montreal in July that we’re hoping to do, and then there’s Christmas and a trip to Portland to see a baby get blessed. I’m already saving for a house down-payment, but it’ll be good for me to do some further cut-backs on my expenditures.
4) The “I will if you will” Book Club
One of my absolute favorite blogs is “Monkey See” on NPR. The primary writer, Linda Holmes” waxes poetic on pop culture and each post is a gem. A couple of weeks ago after admitting she had never read Twilight, she started the “I will if you will” book club on the blog with Twilight as the first book. Today is their first installment of talking about Twilight and Linda chose to talk about the writing with another Monkey See Contributer. Here’s an excerpt about the book:
It's just this wildly florid prose that's wielded with the subtlety and repetition of a jackhammer, all in the service of a story that's going nowhere being told by a girl who seems to be fighting me for the gold medal in a not-liking-her contest.
Monkey See Blog
5) Health Care Bill
All in all, the Health Care Bill has kind of been an exercise in hilarity. I wasn’t real impressed with anyone during the whole debacle, but they finally passed it. Now that it’s passed, I’m hoping that it actually does more than just line the pockets of the Health Care Industry and actually gives the uninsured a chance to have cheaper, more comprehensive health care and it gives those that are insured better health care. Because really, our Health Care system is broken and unfortunately I don’t see how anyone except the government can fix it. Here’s hoping that the Bill will actually help fix the problem. And if someone could explain to me (in a rational, logical manner) how passing this bill would move us over towards a totalitarianism government, I’m all ears.
6) Everyone’s Favorite Mormon: Glen Beck!
I’ll be honest. I’ve only watched about 2 minutes of Glen Beck before changing the channel, so all I know about him is mini clips here and there, and others verbal repudiation of Beck. However, Beck encouraging listeners to flee churches that had hints of social justice shows of a lack of understanding of basic Christian Doctrine
Roger Ebert wrote an enjoyable piece about Beck and some great points that he learned about Mormonism. A highlight from his blog is here:
Nor, for that matter, could a genuine conservative identify with a flywheel like
Beck. Conservatism is a political and ethical philosophy that exists in another
universe from Beck's shopping cart. Remember that TV show where couples raced up
and down aisles seeing who could jam the most loot into their carts? Beck loads
up from the shelves of the Discount Screwball Supermart. He needs material to
fill his daily hours of air time and fuel his fans with one-liners they can pass
off as thought.
One of my friends, Matt, wrote a thoughtful, sometimes humorous (the kicking puppies line is great) post about Mr. Beck and Beck’s summation of the “religious left.” Definitely food for thought. From his post:
The savagely brilliant religious imaginations that Martin Luther King, or Walter
Rauschenbusch, or Dorothy
Day mobilized behind social reform worked because of their
comprehensiveness. They began with a vision of the world in part inspired by but
not bound to the contexts they found themselves in. And the social reforms they
advocated for were not merely an end in themselves, or to satisfy our basic
human impulse toward charity, or to pursue greater egalitarianism as a
self-contained good. Rather, their calls for social reform were bound inexorably
into the most basic and primal aims of Christianity – to, through the atoning
acts of Christ, attain for humanity salvation. Their theologies of social
transformation were based upon their imagination of the Kingdom of God. They
were radical, then, in the best sense, not merely political. They knew that the
world that Christ calls us to is not the world we live in; that the things
Christ asks of us cannot be fully embodied in the tools of politics. One does
not get that same sense of the incarnation of Christ in the politics of Jim
Wallis. And that, because, like those of Beck, they are simply politics.
So,
I feel an incessant, nagging suspicion that perhaps Beck’s salvo is a justified
one. This is not to endorse his somewhat staggering ignorance, bluster, and
paranoia; indeed, Beck suffers acutely from the same problem he diagnoses; he
believes God is on his side rather than engaging in that constant struggle that
should afflict every Christian – worrying that he is on God’s. It is, though, to
point out that as in every age, idolatry may be the most pervasive sin of our
own.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Merlin Olsen
As a little kid, he was kind of a hero of mine. A Mormon from a small town who did really well at sports and then went on to be on Little House on the Prairie? Talk about living the life!
Oh, his football feats were before my time, but they were legend in the state of Utah. Little House though, spent many hours as a kid watching Little House and Merlin was always a favorite of mine. Tragic that he died of Asbestos poisoning (mesothelioma) from exposure as a television actor, but Merlin your light shined bright for all those who knew you as an actor or a football player...except for maybe those you went against on opposing teams.
Kudos to USU for naming the football stadium after Merlin before he passed away. I'm glad he got to be around for that tribute.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Random Bits:
1) I went home over the weekend to attend a baby shower and see my family. The trip was quick, but worth the 25 hours of traveling in 5 days (not that I’m counting or anything. The baby showers were in Lehi at my cousin’s house and there was another one in Bountiful.
2) Okay, these commercials have been around for several months, but I adore this guy. These commercials come on tv and nothing stops me from watching them. Well, almost nothing: Thank you, ridiculously awesome Old Spice Guy.
3) For Lent, I went back to my old stand-by, giving up candy. Since I adore candy, there’s rules (chocolate isn’t considered candy, but Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are forbidden—except for the ones I ate on Sunday) that might be silly, but they work. All I can say is, I’m so looking forward to Easter Sunday and a Cadbury’s Crème Egg.
4) My dad has been researching the family lines on his mom’s side. Turns out there’s Zimmermans not too far back. Granted, I know we’re not related to my favorite Zimmerman (Bob,) as his family is of Russian Jewish descent and our line is German (not sure if they are Jewish even though it’s a Jewish name) but I still thought it was pretty cool.
2) Okay, these commercials have been around for several months, but I adore this guy. These commercials come on tv and nothing stops me from watching them. Well, almost nothing: Thank you, ridiculously awesome Old Spice Guy.
3) For Lent, I went back to my old stand-by, giving up candy. Since I adore candy, there’s rules (chocolate isn’t considered candy, but Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are forbidden—except for the ones I ate on Sunday) that might be silly, but they work. All I can say is, I’m so looking forward to Easter Sunday and a Cadbury’s Crème Egg.
4) My dad has been researching the family lines on his mom’s side. Turns out there’s Zimmermans not too far back. Granted, I know we’re not related to my favorite Zimmerman (Bob,) as his family is of Russian Jewish descent and our line is German (not sure if they are Jewish even though it’s a Jewish name) but I still thought it was pretty cool.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Weekend Roundup: Hockey Pho Edition
Friday: The Weekend started with an asthma attack from staying up until midnight watching women’s figure skating. Luckily, I was at home working so I could take a couple of hours off and try to calm down my angry lungs. Lungs calmed, I was able to work during the afternoon. Friday night was dinner at TBR (The Burger Joint) with a couple of friends. Fewer things are better than conversing for a couple of hours over great food in a not too crowded restaurant. I begged off the Olympics and went to bed.
Saturday: Woke up to the news that the 7th largest earthquake in recorded history hit Concepcion and affected Santiago Chile. I was a LDS (Mormon) Missionary in Chile about 10-12 years ago and have many friends down there. So far, everyone I’ve heard back from is okay. The afternoon was filled with errands and a trip to the gym!! Saturday night, Kelli and I went to eat Pho with a group of friends to celebrate another friend’s birthday. Except the birthday boy didn’t show up until we were singing karaoke to the Bobsled Finals at another friend’s house. We know how to party. Ended the night watching Apolo Ono's dq (I didn't stay up for the relays)
Sunday: The US/Canada Hockey game? Totally worth switching my church schedule around. Really though, I needed to go to the family ward, catch up with the “other” little brother and his wife, and tie up some loose ends. I tell you, there should be a rule against meeting at 3:00p-6:00p for church. I’m currently a member of the “old” single ward (31-55) which meets at 3:00p and that’s a trying time for me to have church. Give me 8 am or 11:30 any day over that schedule. Sunday night, the “other” roommate had a group of friends over for dinner and I got an invite too. We ate Mexican food, debated the legalization of pot and had a good time all around...drug free.
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