Thursday, March 28, 2013

My date with Rachel

Last night I had a great adventure.  I asked Rachel Easter on a date to go hike to the Y on the mountain.  This may not seem extraordinary but I asked her at 11:40 PM.  When she answered my phone call, she had just finished getting ready for bed.  Lucky for me, she agreed to accompany me on the hike.  I picked her up a few minutes after midnight.  The hike was really fun especially because there was a full moon last night.  I thought that it was going to be a bit chilly because it was the middle of the night but when we started hiking it proved to be much warmer than I initially thought.  It only took a few hundred yards before Rachel nearly ripped my shirt off my body.  What actually happened was we both had hoodies on and our body temperatures were elevated because of the hike.  Since I had two shirts on, I offered her one of mine since she did not bring one or something like.  I am not really sure how that works but you can ask her.  Anyways, we got home from our date just after three in the morning.  Thanks for the fun date Rachel!

Gymnastics career


As a little boy, my loving mother enrolled me in gymnastics lessons.  I was 5 years old when I started.  I did well and excelled quickly.  When I was 10 years old, I my skills on the floor exercise routine would consist of back hand springs, back flips, and various other skills.  I was probably best on the pommel horse.  My pommel horse routine consisted mostly of swinging my legs around the pommel horse with my hands firmly planted.  I would do about 15 to 20 circles by the end of my routine.  On the rings, I did not do very many impressive tricks.  When I quit gymnastics I was trying to do sweet tricks on the vault.  Parallel bars were hard and I did not do very well on them.  High bar was fun but that is the event that forced me to quit.  When I was doing a reverse giant, my grip slipped and my body flew away from the 9 foot high bar.  I landed with my chest on the mat and my face implanted into the mat.  My back was arched and my feet were around my ears.  It hurt and the injury ended my gymnastics career.  

hot pots on Monday


I went to the hot pots up Spanish Fork Canyon again on this last Monday after I had already gone on Saturday.  I had a much better time on Monday than I did on Saturday.  When I went on Monday, I went with a good friend of mine named Maddie.  Maddie and I went on choir tour together when we were 14 and 15 years old.  When we were 16, we went on a few dates together.  Then she got a boyfriend and decided that she did not really want to spend time with anyone anymore.  Anyways now that she broke up with her boyfriend, I decided to take her on a date again.  We went up to the hot pots and talked the whole way up there.  I was pleased to find that the best hot pots were not yet occupied.  We promptly took them.  The pots were so hot that we could not sit for more than a few moments before we jumped out.  We found that the cold water intake pipe had been blocked so we went and unblocked it.  That cooled the pool down and we talked about why her ex was not worthy to serve a mission.  All things considered, I had fun.

Hot pots last Saturday


This last Saturday, I went on an adventure to the hot pots that are up Spanish Fork Canyon.  I went up there with my roommate Will and John.  It was supposed to be a group date but it seems that everyone was able to find a date except for me.  I asked all of the girls I could think of that would go with me but no one wanted to go with me.  William asked a girl that he knew from summer semester.  Those two have become chummy and he now owes the dorm ice cream (if you know what I mean).  John asked a girl named Andrea.  She is nice and I am glad I got to see the two of them together because they are cute.  Anyways, when we went up to the hot pots, there was a group of drunken losers in the biggest pool which is fine.  Live and let live right?  So I ventured up to another group of hot pots only to find a man happily displaying his body.  All of his body was hanging loose.  So we were stuck with the hot pot that was only mildly warm.  All in all, it was fun though.

My xbox


A few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted an Xbox 360.  I planned to pay for my Xbox by donating blood plasma at the new Grifols facility on 900 east in Provo.  By donating plasma, I would be able to raise enough money to pay for my Xbox in a matter of only a few weeks.  This was a brilliant plan except for the part that was not planned for.  I was permanently deferred from donating plasma with their facility because I have tested positive for a Coombs test.  I do not know what that means but I do not like it because it means that I cannot donate plasma anymore.  I had already purchased my Xbox for $100.  This does not bother me because I recently sold it for $150.  I was happy to sell it for a $50 profit.  Now I am currently trying to sell my Banjo Kazooie game, wireless controller, and Call of Duty Black Ops 2.  All of those things are fairly easy to sell I just have not gotten around to it.   When I sold my Xbox I sold it to a big fat guy.  He was nice but he looked old and still lived with his parents.

Tyler.


I have a friend by the name of Tyler Porter.  He was a good friend to me before he died.  Just kidding he is alive and well but he did go on a mission to Chile.  Tyler was a nice kid to hang around and was pretty funny.  His nose is so massively large that he looks like a Navi from the movie Avatar.  The only difference is his face is not always blue.  I like Tyler and appreciate his friendship.  He introduced me to my good friend Tennyson.  I like Tennyson too.  He is also on a mission.  When Tyler went to the Missionary Training Center, I did not even know that he left.  I am happy to report that he wrote me a letter once.  I never wrote him back.  I should write to him since he was nice enough to write to me.  I would like to be around when he gets home from honorably serving the Lord but I will most likely be on my mission.  I cannot wait to see him again after I return from my mission.  On second thought, I think I can wait but I am excited for his return to America.

McDonalds


I went to McDonalds to satisfy my hunger late in the evening.  McDonalds has a wonderful menu of delicious food all for a low price.  When I order from McDonalds, the staff is always intelligent and can communicate clearly in the English language.  Perhaps my favorite part of ordering from the folks as McDonalds, they all look like they love their jobs.  It definitely does not smell like little kids smash their food on the walls before letting fall to the ground where everyone has the opportunity to walk all over it and grind it into the grout between floor tiles.  The tables are cleaned constantly and do not have ketchup remains smeared from one end of the table to the other.  I like to think about where my food came from before I eat it.  I hear that McDonalds treats lots of animals with high ethical standards.  Then they do not include parts of the animal that no human should eat.  They realize that it is worth their time to throw away those parts.  Are you ready for the conclusion? 

I am kidding.  McDonalds is despicable.  I do not like the food they serve or the ambience they foster.

Reflection

As I was reading through what are commonly referred to as the “war chapters” I read about how many of the people were slain of both the Nephites and the Lamanites. According to the account given by Mormon, there were in total approximately 230,000 Nephites slain. In his account, Mormon mentions that they were mourning; however, they were not mourning unto repentance. They were instead mourning for their losses and for hatred toward their brethren. As I was contemplating this, I thought of the scripture in Matthew 5:44 that instructs us to love our enemies. I put myself in the shoes of the Nephites and thought about what I would do. I believe that I would tend towards taking care of the ones I love even if that means to be vengeful. It would be very hard for me to know that there was a man that brutally murdered my friend and left his family without a father, husband, and provider. If I really cared about him as a friend I would make sure that I did everything I could to make sure that the murder would not walk away from his crime. Then I began to think about what Jesus Christ would do. I can picture Jesus caring for the murderer while teaching him that he must pay for his sins. While it is very hard for me, it is more important for me to become more like Jesus and live by the teachings that He has asked me to live by.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

ALL ABOUT RACHEL EASTER!!


So there was a time when Krispy Kreme threw away a large quantity of donuts.  It was at this time that I, along with some friends, joined my good friend in grabbing donuts.  My good friend is known by the name of Rachel Easter.  Upon collecting nearly 50 pounds of donuts, little Miss Easter asserted that she could eat more donuts than me.  This erroneous notion was fueled by Miss Easter’s roommates who degraded me into thinking that she could possibly have a chance at competing with me.  At the beginning of the doughnut eating competition, I pulled ahead by eating 3 donuts.  Rachel answered by stacking 3 donuts and eating all 3 at once.  This was impressive, but no competition for my doughnut eating ability.  I quickly gobbled until I was at 8 donuts.  Rachel’s next triple stack, as she called it, was no match for me.  When finishing her second triple stack, she tossed a portion of her doughnut into the bushes hoping that I would not notice.  Cheater.  After polishing off my twelfth doughnut and beginning my thirteenth, Miss Easter wept and nearly gagged as she walked a shameful defeat out the door and tossed her half eaten twelfth doughnut into the bushes.  Defeated and broken, she walked the long walk back to her dorm as I triumphantly carried my bag of winning donuts back to my dorm.   I was very impressed by Rachel’s ability to eat donuts, but it was no match for my superior skill.  Thanks for playing Miss Easter.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Backpacking


If I were to go on a backpacking trip I would take my close friend Tennyson Renner.  Tennyson is a tough and rugged character.  Right now he is currently serving a mission.  He is 20 years old but is at the MTC still.  He leaves to serve the Lord for two years in the Bangkok, Thailand mission.  The reason that I would choose him to accompany me on a backpacking trip is because he is a righteous, knowledgeable, and experienced person.  His set of moral values his high and similar to my collection of morals.  Also, he and I get along really well and have a similar outlook on life.  Tennyson would be a very competent person to take with me into the mountains.  He has knowledge of the outdoors and a mountain sense.  This would be beneficial to me as we trekked through the woods.  Also he is a gun owner and goes shooting regularly.  This would provide an added sense of security and protection not only from wild life, but also from crazy people and zombies.  Basically I would choose to take my friend Tennyson because he is a lot like me and I would have fun with him.

Why we have to make blog posts


I am trying to think about why I am writing these blog posts.  I do not feel like I am doing anything other than wasting time that I could spend researching my topic for my issues paper.  Is blogging a skill that you need to survive in the professional world?  Absolutely not.  I am not learning how to write any better.  Perhaps the reason that we are required to keep a blog is to improve our gross words per minute when we type.  I definitely feel like my fingers are flying with elegant grace over my keyboard.  Is a blog anything more than an online journal that anyone can read?  I know that my blog posts are not very insightful.  So what is the purpose of writing blog posts?  Perhaps one reason that we are required to write blog posts is that it keeps us writing constantly.  If we are in the habit of writing and committing our thoughts to paper, or a Microsoft Word document, then it will be easier for us to write our essays.  Or even maybe it is so that we can spend more time out of the classroom thinking about writing.  I do not really know why we have to post on a blog.  

Girls at the G Eazy concert


I have had a craving that I have never had before.  I wanted to smoke weed for the first time in my life.  I did not act on my craving for some obvious reasons.  While I was in high school and junior high school I was never offered the opportunity to light up.  Because I never had the opportunity to smoke a joint, I never did.  When I was in attendance at the G Eazy concert, there were people smoking pot on my left, right, in front, and behind me.  This did not bother me because it was not that bad.  What did bother me was that the girls that had the marijuana were as young as 14 years old.  I do like girls but I do not like 15 year old girls that are baked out of their minds trying to grind up in my business.  I have a hinting suspicion that those girls are not the girls that I am going to be seeing around BYU campus anytime soon.  I wonder how those girls are going to end up.  I tend to think that girls are innately virtuous but the girls I saw at the concert did not strike me as the temple goes.  I have no idea what the point of this blog post is.

G Eazy

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend a concert by an artist by the name of G Eazy.  G Eazy is in the hip hop genre.  Even though he is classified as a hip hop artist, his rap is laid back.  His music sounds like the way you would sound if you wrote music while you were high.  Now that I think about it, that is probably what happened.  Anyways, the concert was at In the Venue.  This venue is located somewhere in Salt Lake.  When I got to the concert with my friends that were with me, I started to look around at the crowd that I was going to be spending the next few hours with.  I realized that this was a very different crowd than my family home evening group.  I was excited to be there at the concert because I have a lot of fun at concerts.  Skizzy Mars opened the concert for G Eazy and he sounded pretty good.  When G Eazy came out on stage, he asked the audience if he could light up with us.  Then he proceeded to pull a joint out of his pocket and take a few hits before passing it along to a groupie.  After everything, I had a lot of fun.

Deaf or Blind?


Would you rather live a life being deaf or blind?  I think that if I had the option to choose, I would rather be deaf.  I love to listen to music, but what I love more is being able to create things with my hands.  If I were blind, I would not be able to work on my car, or thread a fishing line as well as I would with my vision.  I love creating things and I think that if I was deaf, I would learn a trade such as welding or woodworking to support myself.  This is something that I would thoroughly enjoy.  I already have experience in a metal working shop and am currently a certified entry level welding technician.  Some of the things that I would be able to create include items such as boat trailers, custom car frames, porch swings, and weight lifting equipment among many other items.  For example, boat trailers can sell for thousands of dollars.  That way I would only need to make about one trailer per week.  That would allow me to work hard for only a few hours each day and I would be able to create enough trailers to support myself.

Reflection on BOM

As I began to ponder about my last post and how the Lord is merciful even if it seems like a punishment, I tried to relate this to my own life as I try to do with the principles taught in religion class.  I was thinking and I realized that there was one particular instance where the Lord was merciful to me and I did not realize it.  When I was a child, I was jumping on the trampoline when I decided it was time to head inside.  For my dismount, I thought I would try a front flip into a shallow pile of leaves.  Midway through the air, my body was caught by a trash can around my midsection.  This was very painful and I began to cry.  As I reflect back on the experience, the Lord was merciful for letting me land on the trashcan because if I had not, I would have landed on my head.  This could have broken my neck, paralyzed my body, or caused severe brain damage.  But instead I was protected.  I think back on this experience on contemplate how many other times it seems like I am a victim of misfortune, but in reality I am being protected from a more fateful trial if it had not happened to me. 

BOM


As I was reading through the assigned readings, I was reading about how all of the destruction and all of the terrible calamities that came down upon the Americas.  From the description given, it would seem like the worst punishment to ever be enforced upon man.  In 3 Nephi 9:3-10, the Lord talks about the great and powerful cities that He has obliterated.  There is every kind of painful death that you can think of from the burning of Zarahemla with fire, to the city of Moronihah being covered with earth, and Gilgal being sunk by water.  What I found particularly notable was that in 3 Nephi 9:14 the Lord says “mine arm of mercy is extended toward you” I found this to be somewhat contrary to the description of the suffering that was being experienced by the inhabitants of the earth at this time.  I was not until Bro. Griffin mentioned that it was indeed merciful of God to bring calamities like that for a number of reasons.  One reason being that if all of those people had been killed and their bodies were not destroyed, they would have plagued the land with a terrible smell and would pollute the soil similar to the land of Desolation.