update

For the three of you who read my blog, but not Jill's (which you really should, btw), I'll refer you to her blog for an update:

Day #117 - Doctrine and Covenants 42:45

until next time...

Vote! And help our friends get a scholarship

I saw this posted on a friend's blog:

We recently entered a contest to win 10,000 dollars for college. The contest was to enter a video of someone telling why you deserve 10,000 dollars for college. We entered a video of freddy “telling” why daddy deserves the money, all of you need to vote for it so we can get the money, each person can vote they just enter thier email addresses and each person can vote every 24 hours. PLEASE VOTE FOR US AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, FREDDY NEEDS HIS DIAPERS!!!

Take a look, and vote!

[Aside: I think this is an interesting way to offer a scholarship, and a great way to drive traffic to the UPromise website. I wonder if they can track how (what social networking sites, or emails, etc.) the winners got so many votes. One video currently has over 4,000 votes. Anyway. Let me know what you think about this scholarship contest.]

Springtime

...Must be here- smell the first, fresh-cut grass. Ahhhh. Glad it's not me that has to mow it, though.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Funny morning

Despite the blah that's been a part of the last week or so, I've been meaning to share something funny that happened to me the other day at work.

Jill dropped me off one morning, and I walked into two co-workers getting set-up for a conference they were hosting. One of them asked if I could help them out, if I could go bring the group that was attending the conference from a nearby hotel to our building.

My task was simple: meet them, catch a shuttle over to my office building, deliver them to the first floor conference room for the day's proceedings that were to begin at 0830.

So, I started walking to the hotel. I arrived, waited, and watched tons of school kids converge on the lobby and load up into tour buses, ... Here's the rest in bullet form:

* Arrived at the between 0810 and 0815.
* Spoke with two different gentleman in the lobby who were directing the shuttles and assisting with guests – informed them I was expecting an 0820 shuttle and asked if the van out front was our shuttle.
* They said that van was only for Pentagon (metro?) runs, but that my shuttle might be coming soon.
* Met the group, had a few moments of awkward conversation, and tried to check on our shuttle.
* Waited for several minutes outside, sent the group back in (they were cold), spoke with one of the gentleman from the lobby again and asked if he was sure that empty van wasn’t supposed to be taking us around the corner.
* He again said no. Waited more.
* Spoke with our admin assistant on the phone and got the name of the manager who scheduled our shuttle, spoke with a third gentleman at the front desk and the two individuals from before. Stated that Manager X assured us we had a shuttle -- and it was now 10 minutes late.
* The front desk said the shuttle out front—even though it was empty—was on a schedule and couldn’t be used to take us around the corner. He consulted with the other two individuals and said that another shuttle would be pulling up in “several minutes” or “soon.”
* I kindly reminded them our shuttle was past due, and asked if they realized we were right around the corner and could take us with the waiting van and then return the van for it’s supposed schedule departure.
* I was asked to wait 2-10 minutes for another shuttle.
* I went to apologize to the group (again), and Mr. X (group leader) indicated that they had an SUV and would rather drive than wait further.
* We took their vehicle (it was an awkward ride, they wanted me to sit up front, and the group leader sat in the middle seat with two other associates) and parked on P1, entering through the back door.

Ok, so maybe it's not that funny. But it was funny that my simple task was so darn difficult. The shuttle never showed. I'm not sure what happened, but our admin assistant had a few words for the hotel and Manager X.

I thought it was kind of funny how we entered. Let me explain some more. Parking on the visitor lot on P1 meant that we had to walk down a flight of steps in a dark parking garage, cross the garage floor, go in the back elevator bay, and take an elevator up to the lobby. Of course, the elevator car that came was one that had been used recently by maintenance to move some items, so the protective cloths were still draped from the wall panels. You get off this elevator in the back of the lobby, and have to walk around, past the hallway to the cafeteria and gym and admin offices to the front lobby and front desk.

It was a surprise attack: we entered and saw the rest of my co-workers looking at the front door, probably wondering what the heck was taking me so long to deliver their special guests...

[[ In retrospect, I should have had the driver drop everyone off at the front door and then gone with just him to the garage. Oh well, live and learn. ]]

Somehow, I finally managed to bring the guests to our building--albeit 10 or so minutes late--and get them to the conference.

I love to laugh

Flying


A friend of mine posted a Brian Regan clip. I remember when another friend of mine introduced me to his comedy (I think they share some of the same facial expressions).

Anyway- enjoy!

LDS General Conference: Google Trends

Gotta love the two-spikes-per-year graph of Google's trend report for the query "LDS general conference":
From Google Trends

Watching Conference

We love Conference.

Jill has been "live blogging" the sessions for the last year or so. Here's yesterday's post, which got a shout-out on @jarvie 's blog.

Watch for another update there today. And, you can follow the LDS conference twitter thoughts by following hash tag #ldsconf. (We use twitterfall.com to see the tweets update as it goes).

How Wude!

Sorry, I was channeling Jar-Jar Binks there with the title...

From HBS Daily Stat: Workplace Rudeness Affects Performance

Source: How Toxic Colleagues Corrode Performance.

The gift that keeps on giving

In 2001, I attended a year of school at the University of California, Irvine. There, I studied International Studies (which was awesomely abbreviated as Intl'l Stud) on a UC Regents Scholarship, lived in a dorm, was a member of CHP (Campus-wide Honors Program), got good grades (despite my roommate's, and others, best efforts to keep my time occupied with video games(long live DCI !)), and enjoyed the sunshine, beaches, Disneyland, and cheap carne asada burritos from this place that was open 24 hours.

Then, after a summer of international travel (Mexico and Taiwan), I took leave from school and prepared to go on my mission. I moved "home" to V-Town, worked at this old VW bug parts shop, and left for the exotic land of Portland, OR (by way of the Provo MTC) in June 2005.

I spent an amazing two years among the people of the Portland Metro Area. To this day, I remain friends and in touch with many of the people that I met and taught. Spending those two years in the service of others shaped my life, taught me many things, strengthened my faith and testimony, and helped me develop and refine many different gifts, talents, and skills. As much as I may not have deserved all the wonderful blessings, they truly came, and continue to come. Funny how that works.

While I was finishing my mission, I had the opportunity to work very closely with some wonderful individuals who continue to this day as friends and mentors. One of them suggested as I was preparing my paperwork to return to UC Irvine (which I completed and heard back from everyone--CHP, School of Social Sciences, my graduation counselor, my scholarship, housing--except for the registrar) that I consider applying to the BYU's.

So I did. To be honest, I wasn't very excited about the prospect. I liked that I hadn't gone to a Church school, and wasn't sure how I felt about changing partway through. I received acceptance letters from both BYUs to which I applied. Oddly, that was kind of disconcerting, because since I hadn't heard a word from UC Irvine, I figured I'd just go to whatever school took me first. Now, I had to make a choice. I told myself I'd go to the school that offered me a scholarship -- that'd help me make my decision, I thought. Yes, just what you're thinking: they both offered me a scholarship. So, my self-imposed winnowing process didn't work.

I then turned to the tried and true process that I've used throughout my life (and should probably use more often) of seeking knowledge (in this case, through the school literature, my peers, and my leaders), making a choice, and then turning to the Lord.

Ultimately, I decided to enroll at BYU-Idaho. To keep from boring you, I'll summarize the great things that happened since I made that choice:
* Met, dated, and married a wonderful woman
* Developed many wonderful friendships
* Was blessed by more great mentors (Leadership, English, Political Science)
* Graduated at the right place and at the right time: landed two great internships right out of school, which put me on my current path
* Got both me and Jill the jobs we have today

Now, in a little more detail.

Met, dated, and married a wonderful woman
Marrying Jill is the best decision I've made in my life. It ranks among the triumvirate of essential decisions: joining (and remaining faithful to) the Church, serving a mission, and marrying in the temple. I could go on and on about her, but will save my additional gushing for future posts. We have a crazy, exciting, amazing roller coaster of a life, don't we?

Developed many wonderful friendships
I am blessed with many friends whom I respect and with whom I (try to) keep in touch. I know once I start pointing out people I run the risk of leaving people out, but here's just a sampling of some of my friends: (1) The law school friends, with whom we've spent many hours playing, learning, and debating. (2) The political science friends, who keep me up to speed on different facets of current events, introduce me to new things, and take a chance exploring the wonderfully crazy world of politics. And the ones who "stake their reputation" by "endorsing" me... (3) The Ward friends who write funny blogs and are hip on Twitter. (4) And others!

Was blessed by more great mentors
Like friends, a list of mentors I gained in Rexburg runs the risk of falling short of all the people who had an impact on my life. Some mentors helped develop skills in teaching and leading. Another got me started on my current path after college by referring me to two great internships. Another challenged my abilities to think and reason and in so doing helped me be a better "thinker". Some introduced me to different theories, ways of thinking about government, and case studies of actual events - providing a chance to think how you would act in certain situations. But all in all, they were encouraging, yet challenging; glad to guide, yet demanding.

Graduated at the right place and at the right time
As I mentioned before, my choice to go to BYU-Idaho helped me get internships that were unique and things in which I wanted to participate - but didn't know how to get involved. The way I planned my courses allowed me to get started at an ideal time, and stay "out there" across the country. I had, and continue to have, lots of wonderful experiences through my internships and the jobs that have followed. It also allowed me to make new friends; friends who "dragged" us from Boston to DC (with a chance to keep working!) and have been great to us since we've met.

Got both me and Jill the jobs we have today
Since this is probably the longest post I've written (it may be topped by my East of Eden reviews), I'll try to keep these descriptions short...
BOSTON: My internships were possible because of the connections I made. Jill got an interview that landed her in her first non-profit job because (1) she worked in Alaska, and (2) she was from Idaho [AKA Boise, since they all associated Boise with Idaho] -- and none of them had ever been there. Or seen real mountains. Or met a Mormon.

DC: Part 1. My first job here was made possible through a good friend at my previous job. Jill got her job because her boss, a former HBS professor, knew that BYU-Idaho was where Dean Kim Clark went to become President Clark.

DC: Part 2. Ran into my boss [RADM.P] today and spoke for a few minutes in the hallway. He asked me how my background check was going, and if I knew if anyone was running around Rexburg checking up on me.

I told him, Yes, I had actually received a phone call from the agent out there.

RADM.P then said, "I told you I visited there once, right? I was out there with my assistant--he was about your age--and we were walking around town. And I thought, this just isn't real. These people are too nice. All of them! What a great town."

I replied, "Yes, sounds about right. My wife actually grew up there."

RADM.P concluded, "Yeah, good town. I was very impressed. That's why I decided to hire you."

So, here I am.

Rexburg/BYU-Idaho: The Gift that keeps on giving.

[TEST] Windows Live Writer

Decided to give this a try.

Although- it took longer to open than a new tab in IE8… can’t be a good sign.

And is has silly default paragraph spacing on hard returns, at least in the “edit” mode; we’ll have to see how it turns out “live.” (clicked the fancy Source tab and realized a hard return in edit mode adds a <p> </p> marker to the prior text.

Live Writer	Blogger
“insert table”	can you do this?
how useful is it?	…

 

it’s like a scaled down version of Word. trying to decide if I like that Live Writer downloads settings/template info from my Blog. What else is it taking? Where does it all go? How much space is it using on my computer? And why do I need anything on my computer when the benefit of web-platforms is that I can take it anywhere, to any computer, and have the same access as at home…

 

well, it’s only been 5 minutes. maybe i’ll give it another go.

Painting with ...

... burger grease

Art + Food = Cool
Burgers = Really greasy = Not so cool