"someone grab the tea, its going overboard!"

So, the Failout bill passed. I couldn't be more disappointed. The original proposal was set at 700,000,000,000 Dollars yes that's 11 zeros. To compare that to something Forbes reports that had Bill Gates not donated any of his money to charity including the Bill and Melinda gates foundation he would have about 90 billion dollars (he is currently around 40 bill er so). Also everyone is crying about how much the war in iraq costs, its currently at about 580 billion. just some prospective.

The rage I feel comes into play when the bill that President Bush signed came out to 850 BILLION DOLLARS!!! that's an extra 150 billion dollars on what? WOODEN ARROWS BUILD FOR CHILDREN! TAX BREAKS FOR NASCAR RACE TRACKS, all pushed through and earmarked because this is a hot issue.

So instead of coming up with a better plan, they push a crappy plan on the taxpayers saying its good for us because its the only thing we can do and that if we do nothing the world will end. I called there bluff from the get go when Secretary Paulsen drafted this failout plan.

When he wrote it up it was 3 pages long. it bloated to 110 in the house before it was shot down. The senate picked it up and now its at? any guess's? 200 pages 300, wrong 487 pages of earmarks and legalese

Another thing. Paulsen now has a blank check, read this mess:

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time

Not only that but he can buy any asset he wants and only has to tell congress what he bought once every quarter with NO explanation. So he can buy anything he wants. retail, commercial, industrial, pawn shop loans. whatever. Can you Smell the fail? Paulsen is an EX- Executive of Goldman sachs. which is one, of if not the biggest company on wall street. talk about back room deals.

Excuse me while I grab the tea.

Writing

"Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report?

Hobbes: (Reading Calvin's paper) "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender modes." Calvin: Academia, here I come!"

In other notes, I really enjoyed this Talk:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_harris_collects_stories.html

Real Salt Lake

We went to a Real Salt Lake (pronounced "re-Al") soccer game with some friends and family last Saturday. We had tickets for Zions bank box seats, which was also catered by a excellent local BBQ joint.

As I watched and enjoyed the game I realized that I didn't pursue a lot of the things I was interested in, in part because of my brothers likes and dislikes had a huge part in what I spent my time on. So as I watched these athletes run around for over an hour and a half I was impressed with there stamina and endurance. Most of both teams played the entire game.

In all the sports I played growing up I peeked at around 8th or 9th grade. Right around the time people started the puberty thing is when my crazy good skill became mediocre. I ended up not having the drive to compete for the first string or the best positions because I had to work to get them, they weren't handed to me.

So I find myself sitting in the stands telling myself "I could be down there" or "what is that guy thinking? I could do better than that!" then I start to entertain the thought of actually working out, getting in shape, being better than most, then reality sets in.

In an alternate universe this post was about how fun sporting events are to attend, regardless of what sport. I went to a SLC Bee's baseball game a Utah Blaze Arena football game and now a Real SL game and had a great time at all of them. I think its the thrill of the competition that makes it enjoyable for me.

Mai bebe

So a few nights ago my baby was in the bed with Holly and I. Holly is a light sleeper and often will nurse in bed. Well after the baby was done nursing I figure it was my turn to cuddle with her (the baby) So I pulled her over and stroked her hair as she went to sleep.

Well, then I wanted to go to sleep but I didn't want to wake her, so I kinda rolled on to my back with her on my arm and its not to bad. As it turns out I can't fall asleep on my back*. I have to be on my side, by myself. But my baby's there and shes to cute/tired to wake.

So I lay there on my back falling in and out of sleep for another 3 hours all crooked on the bed with my head hanging off the side and my legs across Holly so my baby can sleep peacefully. Enough ended up being enough and I slid her back over to Holly with only the slightest stir and fell promptly to sleep.

*more on this later

The Problem with Standing for Something. Part 1

This could probably be view in a glass half full sort of way but I find myself on the half empty team with this topic as I debate and analyze it over and over in my mind. I've been kicking it around in my mind for at least the last six years but have yet to write it down. Writing helps to clarify. So here it goes

The Problem with standing for something means your a target for someone. example: I Love to do X and I am very passionate about it. Wait forget the X here is a real example. There is a restaurant in SLC that serves "Living" food. What the crap is living food? Well its food that isn't cooked above 118 degrees Fahrenheit and is vegan. So wow, where do i start? I guess thats part of the problem as I see it because in my mind thats silly, and I'm not about to pay 15 bucks for lettuces and nuts. So its easy for me to point fingers at this chief because wheres he going to go? He can't say, well I was just kidding or, look I'm eating a cow now, yumbo. No he has to defend what he stands for, regardless if the accuser is making a legitimate point or merely taking a cheap shot. So the question is how does the chief respond without getting defensive, upset, or sounding like a raving lunatic?

Thats where I am at. I believe things, and when questioned (not in a "what do you believe/think/feel kind of way) I get defensive, no I get Offensive, I want to go after them and something they stand for, but when they don't take a stand for anything I'm left with nothing. Am I making any sense? maybe not yet. maybe another example will illustrate

In Florida theres was a guy who was very anti religion, not just Mormon, religion in general. He had the life of a super star, unemployed, smoked, drank, no shower for days and cloths from the gutter. So when he attacked or belittled my beliefs, what do I do? I explain, I talk nice. It evolved into calling him out on his smoking (in the course of 5 minutes he had downed 3 cigs and was onto his 4th) for which he "believed" in, which obviously did nothing. I guess I just want people to stand for something so I can have something to attack when they attack me.

One last thing, a bumper stick a brother had related to me which I agree with. (something else to attack)
In opposition to the bumper sticker that says
"Respect Diversity"
I favor the sticker that says
"Not All Diversity Is Respectable"

Arena

Tyson and I played 3 games in the 2v2 arena last night. Team comp: Paladin, Warlock.

after a few skirmishes we queued for the real deal.

Game 1. The first game was a flop. we went against a warlock and rogue combo. they completely shut me down. they sapped me and opened up on Tyson. i was then feared right out of sap. so i trinket ed and started to heal. i was then spell locked by the warlocks felhunter. right after the spell lock i went to cast another heal and i was blinded, i bubbled out of that and before i could get a flash heal off Tyson was dead. it was a quick game. ill chalk that one up to paladins being so susceptible to cc and my unwillingness to pop my bubble sooner. we lost 14 points.

Game 2. Mirror match. Paladin/Lock vs Paladin/Lock. This was a long fight as you can imagine. Tyson played it really well though, ended up attacking both players and casting full dots on them. I was watching what the other team was doing to see if there where things i could improve which helped because i changed my aura from concentration to shadow like the other paladin did. beyond that i switched in my pve gear for the + healing and mp5. Tyson stayed on the paladin forcing him to heal. we had the advantage as the warlock had summoned his fel guard instead of his fel hunter. 5 minutes in the other paladin and I where equal on mana. Through an unintentionally well timed course of events we forced the paladin to bubble and spend a lot of mana healing. the paladin was also spending a lot of mana trying to kill the fel hunter but I was able to keep it healed. all the while Tyson's dots ticked away. they ended up killing our felhunter which was summoned back immediately. The pally at this point had no mana and was at half health, we tried to burst him down but he was able to stay alive. we waited for nubcoil to finish its cool down and then we struck. holy shock Judged Wrath and dots/shadow bolt and he died. I ended the fight w/ 50% mana and full health. we got 16 points off the game. Well played IMO.

Game 3. Was awesome. We played a Feral druid and Spriest. When playing priests of any kind it is most important to LOS them at all costs. If you don't you will be oom and the game will end quickly. The game started with me being mangled on my mount by the druid. I stayed mounted and ran around the grave in middle of the arena 3-4 times. when I dis mounted I had about half health because of bleed effects and dots. I healed right away and started to dance around the grave with the druid on me and the spriest trying to mana burn. the typical fear/burn that priests do was effectively shut down because as soon as I was feared the priest was feared by tyson, that saved me a lot of mana. he ended up not getting 1 mana burn on me which had a huge affect on the game. The druid could put out a lot of dmg and Tyson at one point was down to 823 health. to which I had to holy shock, bubble, run away from mass dispel flash heal, holy light, and he lived. the priest was oom with 1/8th his health when they left the arena, we didn't even get the pleasure of giving them a dirt nap. They just left. we got 18 points off the deal.


p.s. unedited for content.

Calvin & Hobbs

I've been searching the interweb for intellectual entertainment and was lead to calvin and hobbs quotes. Though there are many quotes out there that will spawn blideas (just made that up, it is a mix of ideas and blogs....maybe idogs would work better) but this one I found extra tasty.

"Why isn't my life like a situation comedy? Why don't I have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do but drop by and instigate wacky adventures? Why aren't my conversations peppered with spontaneous witticisms? Why don't my friends demonstrate heartfelt concern for my well being when I have problems? ...I gotta get my life some writers."

My thoughts on the bus

Directly from my mind to the blog

"i hate this, i can never remember when to pull the cord. what the crap? who put this song on my, o yeah, a wedding theme...i wish that girl who always gets off my stop was here, she knows when to pull the cord, that's going to suck if i miss it. she gets off a few stop early now, i wonder if her and her x are back together. L street K street, jeez, abcdefghijk, i wish i could do the alphabet back words in my head, i can count down, but i can't alphabet down, I street, getting close I think abcdefghi, only a few more, G street, o hey, its the first stop light going this way, duh, just pull the cord when you see the light, even after a few weeks of riding this bus it takes you this long to realize? jeez chris your bright. Oh theirs the light, *pull cord*, wait, what the, wheres he going? bus driver says "you need to let me know sooner if you want off there". Shoot, ah well, i need the exercise."

It's free

Holly sent me an email today that said "I went to Costco with Alicia. We got rice. lots of it. and milk and bread. but dont worry, I paid in cash, so it was free. ;)"

Which is pretty funny because thats kind of how we view cash theses days. If by chance we have any we don't feel as though its real currency. We don't take money out of the bank, and the money in the bank mostly disappears into bills.

So its good to get free food every now and again.

Do you work here?

Last night the H drive went down for regular maintenance and then it never came back up. Turns out it got corrupted and the Storage team had to call Novell to get support in rebuilding it. Not a big deal right? Wrong. The H drive houses all shared folders for all of the hospital, the clinics, the School of Medicine, and the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. We are talking Tera bites of information. They ended up getting it online but anything saved after 6pm on Sunday is lost and anything before that is corrupt or missing and needs to be restored. So we have been buried in queue all day trying to restore files.

So to the point, I went to Wendy's today for lunch and as I was walking across the parking lot a 2000 some model 2 door Acura drives in front of my walking and parks. I go in, fill up my drink (Wendy's/gas station combo) and head over to order 3 junior bacon cheese burgers.

Its been somewhat of a stressful day compared to others so I'm absorbed in my thoughts and then the Acura driver appears in front of me, he's probably 70+ years old and walking with a cane.

I try to edge past him as stealthfully as possible knowing it will take him at least 5 hours to order and I don't wanna stand in line that long. But to no avail, I don't pass him before he makes it to the counter and orders. He was surprisingly quick ordering a mandarin chicken salad and a sprite. They prepare his food and as he walks away from the counter- one hand holding the tray, the other supporting himself with his cane. I think to myself, "carry his tray for him". So I stepped forward and ordered my food. In the mean time he makes it to the condiment table and gets a straw. I've ordered and was waiting and then I say to myself again "carry his tray for him". So I walked over picked up his tray and said "lead the way, ill carry your tray to your table".

We arrive at the table he chose and I set his food down, he looks up at me before he sat down and said "do you work here?" I said "no, just helping out". He looks back at me and said "that's great".

Good is the enemy of great

I started listening to the book "Good to Great" on audio again, for the 3rd time. Its written by Jim Collins and I highly recommend it. Chapter one starts out explaining why good is the enemy of great.

We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government , principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good - and that is their main problem.

So as I was trying and find ways to move from being mediocre to something better I had a conversation with a brother who though my difficulty in finding things to be great at crazy. He said you need to find what you can be best at and do it. i.e. "no one can love Holly better than you can, you can be the best in the world at it". Point well taken.

So here I am, listening to this book again, trying to make it stick and I find myself in the same rut I find myself in when I learn something new or think its a good idea. I file it away so I can refer to it sometime in the future and portray myself as knowledgeable. As the guy with the sound bite. the good quote or neat idea. I don't actually do it. I find this same thing happening with the gospel as well. I can quote a great scripture, prophet, or scholar, but in practice I'm severely lacking.

I'm writing this to throw it out there, to see what others have done to incorporate it. not in the way we typically pray "help us to incorporate these things in our daily lives" but to actually do it. Here is another quote which I try and remember every day and I am actually somewhat consistent with doing

Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain - Mark Twain

So I take out the trash, I empty the dishwasher, I clean the bedroom, I exercise, call a long lost friend but its not consistent.

I'm not really looking for the end all answer because I think I already know it. President Kimball said "do it" to which he later expanded to "do it now".

I think that is the key.

Kevin Trudeau and Vaccinations

A few weeks back Holly ordered a book, unbeknown to me, written by Kevin Trudeau entitled "Natural cures They Don't Want You to Know". It all sounds well and fine, until you read the title, or the name of the author, or watch an infomercial this guy has produced. He is a new version of the old school con artists. Only now instead of putting up his tent on the side of the road and curing everything w/ one bottle of magic juice, he is able to record a 30 minute spot and anyone who is up past 12:00am is able to hear all about his magical cures and testimonials- of which 0% have been substantiated.

(side note: While in high school my brother and I could name and quote from many infomercials. They are so great, we would always get a kick out of them. We would make huge mugs of either grape drink or hot chocolate and stay up till 2-3 mocking and quoting the best testimonials and the surprise and wonderment the hosts would express. Those were good times. Not to long ago Holly couldn't sleep being heavy w/ child and I had nothing better to do so I introduced her to the wonderful world of infomercials...ah, I digress.)

So I think to myself, maybe Mr. Trudeau is on to something. Maybe I should give it a chance. I crack the book open and find no citations. Not a good start. Then I start reading about government lobbyists and how they are "hidden" and "secretive", when in fact we (anyone who has taken a course in American government) have known about these "hidden and secret" lobbyists since we were in middle school. In chapter 2 Trudeau goes on to say that "modern medicine has absolutely and 100% failed" he also says they haven't cured anything. Sorry to burst a little bubble w/ my vast knowledge of of medical history, but when was the last black plague outbreak? Or polio? On top of this, he is a convicted felon for credit card fraud and larceny. I wonder, could this book also be a fraud?

In Kevin Trudeau's defense I have only read a little more than a chapter of his book. I fully plan on reading the rest of it w/ a lot of towels so that when the blood shoots out of my eyes it doesn't get the pages too moist (say moist 3 times really slow) and duct tape so my head doesn't explode.

As for natural cures and eating health I think it is fantastic. Yay for natural cures, yay for homeopathic alternatives. Yay for real research.

Now to a bigger beast. Vaccinations. I can not for the life of me find a non biased article/study/review/comment that is not fueled by emotion and misinformation. My kid is now 7 weeks old and hasn't been vaccinated. And right now most likely won't be. So if anyone comes across an article that isn't s cued please let me know.

My Chuck Norris Top 10

In no particular order

1. Chuck Norris has never won an Academy Award for acting... because he's not acting
2. Chuck Norris crossed the road. No one has ever dared question his motives.
3. Chuck Norris doesn't say "who's your daddy", because he knows the answer.
4. Chuck Norris is widely predicted to be first black president. If you're thinking to yourself, "But Chuck Norris isn't black", then you are dead wrong. And stop being a racist.
5. The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably.
6. Chuck Norris can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves.
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is based on a true story: Chuck Norris once swallowed a turtle whole, and when he crapped it out, the turtle was six feet tall and had learned karate.
8. Chuck Norris Does not sleep. He waits.
9. Chuck Norris Counted to infinity - Twice.
10. Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door
11. There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up.

Moving Forward

I've been avoiding blogging for quite some time now. Several different events have moved me in this direction of which I will list just a few.
First and foremost is the idea that, in the words of Tony Robbins, "a life worth living is a life worth writing down". And up until now my life will only be remembered in memories and a few journal entries.
My life is not only worth living, it is also worth remembering. Sounds pretentious and all but I truly believe I have something to give to current and future generations.
Another reason that this blogging thing has been on my mind is a talk given by Elder Henry B. Eyring, member of the first presidency, in the Sunday morning session of the October 2007 Conference entitled "O Remember, Remember". This is a quote from that talk:

When our children were very small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every day. Let me tell you how that got started. I came home late from a Church assignment. It was after dark. My father-in-law, who lived near us, surprised me as I walked toward the front door of my house. He was carrying a load of pipes over his shoulder, walking very fast and dressed in his work clothes. I knew that he had been building a system to pump water from a stream below us up to our property.

He smiled, spoke softly, and then rushed past me into the darkness to go on with his work. I took a few steps toward the house, thinking of what he was doing for us, and just as I got to the door, I heard in my mind—not in my own voice—these words: “I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.”

I went inside. I didn’t go to bed. Although I was tired, I took out some paper and began to write. And as I did, I understood the message I had heard in my mind. I was supposed to record for my children to read, someday in the future, how I had seen the hand of God blessing our family. Grandpa didn’t have to do what he was doing for us. He could have had someone else do it or not have done it at all. But he was serving us, his family, in the way covenant disciples of Jesus Christ always do. I knew that was true. And so I wrote it down, so that my children could have the memory someday when they would need it.

I believe I have read this talk in its entirety over 20 times since it was given and now, finally I am beginning to act. This isn't going to be a preachy blog though to sensor or neglect this aspect of my life would leave a huge hole in the endeavor.