when honest people steal

I've been meaning to write a lot of stuff for a long time.  For now, here's a story.

Stephanie and I went running in our apartment complex's rec-room one evening (as we often do), and even though I didn't lock our front door for the 30 minute excursion, I still brought my keys with me.  So we ran, I placed my keys in the cup-holder on the treadmill.  (Really?  a cup-holder on a treadmill?  let's call it a water-bottle-holder).  Then after running I walked around a bit, stretched, got a drink from the drinking fountain.  Then we left, and I left my keys behind. 

The following morning was quite disastrous.  Stephanie usually keeps her keys in the car, to help her not forget to take them to school, and that's where they were in the morning, inside the locked car.  My keys of course were nowhere to be found I went back to the rec-room, but found the treadmill water-bottle-holder empty.  Someone might have taken them and given them to the office?  Sadly the office was closed that early in the morning.  A good while later and not-the-best-locksmith-in-the-world had my car door open and we're off to work for the day.

That afternoon though I dropped by the office and sure enough there were my keys in one of the desk drawers.  "Some honest resident dropped these by" says the office secretary.  And that is how honest people steal.  Had they just left them there where I'd left them, there probably wasn't anyone who would have taken them, and I could have found my keys that morning and been happy.  Of course an honest person turns things into the lost & found....

NCAAF Gloves

Quite a bit of hullabaloo has been made recently regarding hand signs in college football. Over the past year or so there have been a flew flags thrown over 'excessive celebration' relating to the using and showing of hand signs after touchdowns.

Most recently, Fox Sports' Mike Pereria complained that the Oregon Ducks should get penalized similarly for their O sign.  Then after further clarification from officials and administrators he recalled his statement, saying that flashing the hand sign was ok to use in a 'non-taunting' fashion.

This is probably a good thing, since more and more teams are getting awesome gloves that make for sweet glove-palm salutes.

Entré Les Photos!

UGA

Oregon State

U of Miami (FL)

Horned Frog (TCU)

TCU

Stanford

Boise St. (probably the best design)

Army

Navy

Michigan State

LSU (totally awesome)

Florida

Florida State

Alabama

Texas

Nebraska (a little over kill with the 2nd pair)

And if you want to see more Nike Pro Combat Unis take a look at these news stories from the first three years of uniform releases.  First Second Third

Brigham

It is reported that President Brigham Young once said that he who takes offense when no offense was intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense was intended is usually a fool.

Dating vs. Hanging out

I held a facebook discussion recently. Please see the below note and ensuing comments.

Dating versus Hanging Out

the conclusion for me was basically this: communicate. If everyone is perfectly clear in all they say, and communicates what they truly mean then most problems would be solved.

Silence Resolves Nothing. hu.

just don't know

Sometimes I get really frustrated with catch 22 type situations, sometimes though I enjoy the futility, weird I know.

I was not as impressed with BYU's offense as the general fandom of Provo. They only scored 21 points in the first quarter because the defense prepackaged and gift wrapped each touchdown for them. But it is a pretty good consolation for me that our defense is that good.

I have been having trouble with α, β, and γ. No, that's not a, b and y, it's alpha, beta, and gamma, and not I haven't really been having trouble with the Greek alphabet, but rather people who I have chosen to label symbolically rather than with their true names. Needless to say, they have been causing me a lot of stress and worry, and the worst part is I really can't do much to fix it.

I passed my physics test last week, I forgot to take my math test.

I need to find a story written by George Durrant, and it's not anywhere on LDS.org nor to be found in a google search. Sad day.

I haven't written in my blogg for a long time, but I really wanted to write something... yay for life.

Repetition

One thing that many of us probably realize, is that Sunday School lessons are repetitive. Not each lesson on it's own, but really... they only publish four years worth of lessons, after that it repeats, not to mention we learn the same stuff in seminary/institute too. That's not to mention YM/YW lessons, which vary only slightly every year, and how many times have we had talks given in sacrament meeting that were simply readings of talks given previously. What I'm getting at is that lessons in the church are repeated fairly often through various means. It is easy to go into a lesson hear the topic, and quickly recall important ideas or even quotes that you've heard in previous lessons on the same subject, a good sign that you're building up a gospel knowledge database.

Today in class we had a lesson talking about Zion's Camp and how the Lord sometimes chastises his people, the reasons for afflictions, etc. and I someone sitting near me made an important comment (one that is fairly commonly used is such a discussion, but one that I think is important to the topic) she's heard at a different time about the three sources of trials, others, our selves, the Lord (the comment was significantly more elaborate than that, but you get the idea). A few minutes later in the lesson I glanced over her shoulder and noticed the notes she had been taking for the lesson. I found it interesting that a prominent feature in her notes was the idea that she herself had mentioned, this 3-source idea. I do not doubt it's importance, nor am I saying that it wasn't an insightful comment, however I did have to ask myself if that was a note work taking.

What is the purpose of notes? I would say, note taking is to help you remember ideas from a lesson. If she knew that thought, used it as a comment to the lesson, clearly understands and knows the concept... why take it down as a note? Isn't the point of a lesson to learn something new? If all we are remembering are some key points that really touched us in one lesson and retaining those same ideas over and over again after hearing the same lesson, then we aren't really learning are we? Shouldn't we look at every lesson as an opportunity for further learning, not just regurgitating the past? I'm not saying I'm perfect or that this girl was wrong, I just think that there were more important ideas that should could have noted as new or more interesting doctrine that perhaps came from another student with good insights, or perhaps even the teacher who's been set apart as a teacher and even is entitled to revelation on our behalf (to a point)? .... just a thought.

Wisdom teeth and water polo

Most of us have seen or heard Brian Regan warning us to not ever tell a "two-wisdom tooth story" because we will always be one upped (or rather two upped ;-) by someone with a four wisdom tooth story (If you don't know what I'm talking about watch this:
Brian Regan on Wisdom Teeth

But you know, the people I really feel bad for aren't those with only a two wisdom tooth story, but those with only a cavity story. I mean really, how far can you get with the story, "This one time I went to the dentist-" right there you're dead, someone's going to jump in, "Oh that ain't nothing! This one time I was going to the oral surgeon..." and go on to tell his much more interesting, not-just-a-dentist story.

Moreover, I think this is somewhat of a metaphor for personality types. I know people that are simply 'just-the-dentists' people, and every story they tell isn't actually that cool, so at a dinner party they begin to tell a story, but everyone already knows that it's going to suck, so to save time they jump in over them with a different story, the person soon realizes they're not being listened to and usually quiets down. Of course I feel to bad for them that I just have to look at them and raise my eyebrows to pretend that I am waiting for them to continue, when really I am listening to the much more interesting story being told by the guy next to me. Can you imagine, "this one time we went rafting on Salem Pond-"
"Yeah, well I took a whitewater trip down the snake river!"
"I won a candy bar at a raffle-"
"This one time at a raffle, I won a car!"
"I saw some guys playing water polo-"
"I used to be on the water polo team, that's why I don't have a left ear!!"
"I once had to eat this gross soup my Asian roommate made-"
"I ate human blood!" ;-)

Some people just aren't cut out to tell stories, and I'm not dogging on those with cool-er stories. By all means tell your cool stories, they're worth hearing. My plea is to those without cool stories, do yourself and others a favor, by not looking quite so pitiful and left out and learning to enjoy listening. You know what they say:

If you give a mouse a cookie...

As I was idly sitting in a most important class, I realized the relative unimportance of it. So I decided to engage in a much more productive activity, reading the news. Upon navigating to the Yahoo! home page I browsed through the headlines, and was yet unsurprised to see something about Pres. Elect Obama, something about football, and most interestingly, an article about health. It was labeled "20 Worst Foods in America" (http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/24416/20-worst-foods-in-america-2009) and it revealed some surprising scientific finds (un-heathy determined by amount of calories.... since we all know how bad they are.....). 

It revealed that one of the least heathy foods found on american restaurant menus, was Blimpie's Veggie Supreme sandwich. The also found that the equivalent of 13 krispy-kreme donuts was to be found inside of one single appetizer (Chilli's deep fried onion, the Awesome Blossom). Alas the (un)heath of americans didn't stop there, but in fact the most unhealthy food found on a menu was none other than a (get this load) Large Chocolate Oreo Milkshake from Baskin' Robins. They then criticized the company for going two years in a row having the most unhealthy food. WHA-! No freakin' duh people! Do I go to Baskin Robins looking for a healthy snack? HECK NO!!! If I order a large chocolate oreo milkshake I'm probably looking for something to fill me up (and fill up my arteries) and I'm not worried about health, it's called indulgence, that's why people buy it. And about the Awesome Blossom, could one person possibly eat that themselves? I sure hope not! it's a group appetizer split between 4-6 people, not a meal for yourself. Just as a dozen donuts wouldn't be all for you (except in the case of Kris), you buy them for a group of people. 

I just think that it's one thing to identify deceivingly unhealthy foods, but it's another to state the obvious, and obviously unwanted, information that the largest-milkshake-you-or-your-grandmother-has-ever-seen is not good for me. Thanks Yahoo! news... you rock.