Ode to U

So last year I bet my colleague Jamie on the BYU and U of U football game. The loser was to write a sincere poem discussing the relative merits of the winning team and the inferiority of the losing team. Because of this bet, BYU's loss was therefore a doubly painful blow to my ego. This was written 2 weeks after the loss, but has taken me this long to post it.

Free Big Mac and a Lesson Learned

Free Big Mac offering (click on link and see the details of how to win a free big mac)
I posted a New Post on my other blog that tells of my first experience of trying to get to know and understand some of the homeless people that we see. www.bumstobloggers.blogspot.com

February 2009 in Review

So I promised at least a blog a month that would explain what I did the previous month. This is not just for your enjoyment, but a good time for me to reflect and remember what I did and decide what I am going to try and do better next month. I also find that when I write about what I have done and thought about, I learn, and I like learning.

Shaun invited me to an orientation for the BYU Executive MBA program and it is definitely something that I want to do, and I think it is the best program for the cost. I will probably wait a year or two before I start due to the cost and I will need to save up a lot, but I will get back into school someday. Work is going well and there is still a lot I have to learn before I am good at my job, so perhaps I may be here a little longer.

Our institute choir had the opportunity to sing at the fireside on March 1st, where Elder Hales spoke about finding and staying on the high ground. He said we need to stay on the high ground together and that we need not get discouraged even though all around us things are getting worse. He counseled us to learn how to budget our time and money, to not be wasteful, and to find joy in this life. He gave a few points as to what a couple has to do to maintain a great relationship and I have listed what he explained that both people in the relationship must do to be successful. They must:
1. Know who they are as children of God
2. Know the doctrines (specifically, temple covenants)
3. Choose to obtain God’s kingdom
4. Understand sealing covenant and that courting days are over
5. Think of the other more than self
6. Converse often and talk early about little hurts and offenses
7. See the good in each other by not nagging or speaking ill of each other, by being willing to change your heart and repent, and working hard at improving your relationship as well as cultivating a thoughtful spirit.

I believe this counsel, and I believe that if more people would live by these principles, more homes would find the happiness, faith and strength that is required to endure the tests of the tough times. I have been extremely blessed by the excellent example of my parents and my siblings as they live and have lived these principles.

I never thought that so much of my life would be in choirs, but I find myself in 3 choirs; ward, institute and temple. It takes a lot of my time, but I am learning how powerful music can be in teaching us the doctrines of the kingdom. I will expound on this at a later date.

Valcom reserved a suite at Energy Solutions Arena to watch the Utah Jazz beat the Memphis Grizzlies. It was a lot of fun and I am glad that Michelle could come. It was almost as fun as watching BYU beat the Utes.

So Mexico was a lot of fun. It’s hard to explain how much I love to fly in an airplane and the feeling of going somewhere else. I like the fact that at the end of the day on Thursday I could say, “It is amazing that this morning I was in my bed in Utah, and now I am walking on the beach in Mexico, and it is the same day. I love technology, and planes, and beaches.” We walked the beach, had dinner, and then went and played tennis. It was a ton of fun.

The next day we went to the jungle and went on the Ziplines. I highly recommend the zipline tour. We went through the company called Selvatica and it was a great experience. We flew through the trees, rightside up and then upside down several times. It was a blast, and then from there, we mountain biked to a natural spring (Cenote), which had a zipline right over the water and then a 15-20 ft drop. So we played in that for about 45 minutes and then mountain biked back. The zipline into the cenote was probably the highlight of the trip. As soon as I get the videos and pictures from Michelle, you will understand why I loved it so much.

The next day we went and swam with the dolphins and I learned anew why they are one of my favorite animals. They are super intelligent, kind, and quick and powerful. It was amazing to see their coordination as 2 dolphins would come up behind you at the exact same time and put their noses on the bottom of each foot, and propel you out of the water and carry you 15 feet. If you have the chance to do this, as they say, "Its an experience of a lifetime." Although if you have to choose between the Ziplines and the dolphins, choose the Ziplines.

Did I mention we got to see a 2-toed sloth? It was amazing to see how slow they moved. They really do move in slow motion and I thought it very entertaining to see them move like they were trying to not let a motion sensor sense them. I don’t know how animals get their names, but whoever named this one, did a great job, or did we get the word sloth from them.

I left my cell phone in the shuttle that brought us back to the airport, and I admit that I am addicted to having a cell phone by my side. I felt sad, distraught and lost. I have since invested in 3 more T-mobile dashes as backups, and I learned that if you lose your sim card and go to a T-mobile store they will give you one for free. I tend to lose or break about one cell phone every year and so I had invested in an extra sim card and so all was not lost. Besides they found my phone and so after a couple of long days I was reunited with my beloved companion.

I have recently been obsessed with learning about bloggers and blogging and SEO (search engine optimization), and how to use a blog as a tool for good. I’ll let you know what my conclusions with all these projects are when I know more. Recently (like 4 hours ago) I started the blog bumstobloggers. The name explains it, but the blog explains it all.

Lastly, I have listened to two additional books on tape. “The Audacity of Hope,” by super liberal and now President, Barack Obama, and “An Inconvenient Book” by Ultra conservative Glenn Beck. I guess I go from one extreme to another. My views definitely are more conservative than liberal, but I find the story of Obama inspirational and very interesting, while I view Glenn Beck as more open, honest, and hilarious.

Well that was February 2009.

Bums to Bloggers

Today I came up with another great idea (although the greatness may only be in the humor that flows because of how serious I am about what may seem to you a ridiculous idea.) I was sitting at the Salt Lake Library on the top floor looking out huge windows and being quite productive going through my emails and organizing my work life. I turned around and I saw a black man stretched out comfortably on the yellow couch holding open a magazine and fast asleep. It was his worn Russian looking hat and his handcart that carried his entire life’s belongings that indicated to me that he was homeless. I wondered why he was so tired, and if he stayed up late, or if he just didn’t have anywhere to go and thus wandered around all night, or maybe he just didn’t have anything else to do, or maybe that magazine was to him what my accounting classes were to me, or maybe he really wasn’t asleep and was just faking it like what I do in my meetings and in classes that bore me (I feel it important to give the presenter instant feedback as to whether his content is interesting to me). Anyway, this homeless man got me thinking that it would be interesting to know about the life of a bum, what they do all day, how they spend their time, what they think about, and how you survive as a bum. Then it came, I linked my latest obsession with blogging to this bum and thought the following thoughts (this stream of consciousness with only the commas should not be judged for the lack of punctuation ); I could go and talk to a bum in the morning and tell him that I will pay him at the end of the day for him to write down all the things he saw and did and then I would blog it, I could give him a camera and have him take pictures, but then maybe he would steal my camera, but I don’t think he would because I am going to pay him at the end of the day but how much would I have to pay him, I think it would be interesting to have him document the demographics of the merciful people that gave him money and write down whether it was a male or female, what age, and how much they gave him, how long he worked and what his sign said, actually I think it would be better if I gave the bum certain tasks to complete throughout the day, like maybe have him study a certain topic in the library and then write me an email or if he doesn’t have email it might be better to give him paper and a pen, but it would be easier if he could email me, so I might have to give him a computer that has Computrace (low jack for computers) and he could blog about his whole experience, maybe I’ll have to find a group of bums and have them all write something and then I’ll choose the most entertaining or insightful ones and just put them on the blog, but what would I call the blog maybe I could call it bloggerbums no I would need to call it something else, what am I actually doing, yes I am turning bums into bloggers so I’ll call it bumstobloggers.com or bumstobloggers, I would have an unlimited amount of blog posts and they are bound to be entertaining. I could pay these bums to write and then I would either just put their writings down, or I would blog about their experiences, this is a really funny idea, I think I have something here, I need to call and tell somebody, I will call my brother Josh, he finally doesn’t shoot down my ideas right when he hears them, he’ll also have a good laugh as he tells Alisa this idea, she is the hardest to get buy off from…(Dial Josh, get voicemail)…. “Josh I have a new great idea- its called bumstobloggers- give me a call,” wow he is really going to crack up when he hears that, should I call Michelle, she may just think I am crazy, but I think this idea is hilarious and it is a good idea, I mean what isn’t good about this idea- this has all the makings of a great blog and great blogs bring people and people will click on the links on my site and then I will get paid a penny for every click and then I could make a billion dollars off of this, and when I make money off of this I can pay the bums more money as they write better and then they’ll finally be able to afford a place to stay and then I’ll be helping out the world and all these bums will be happier and I’ll really change this world because of my website bumstobloggers.com which is available and I can’t think of why I shouldn’t do this, I really need to tell somebody…….(Call Michelle, no answer)… darn… I could call my friend Jeff or Scott they might appreciate it, what am I thinking nobody is going to appreciate this idea, but why wouldn’t they it could change the world and turn bums into bloggers and at the very least it will provide loads of entertainment value……..(Phone rings) “Hi, Michelle, thanks for calling me back, I just wanted to share with you one of the best ideas I have had today- its called bumstobloggers………..” “Uh, that is really funny and strange, how are you going to make money off of that” “I’ll figure that part out later, anyway, it’s a great idea isn’t it” “It’s an idea, what are you doing tonight………….” She thinks I am crazy, she is probably right, it isn’t the best idea, but it could change the world, maybe the only value in the idea is how fun it will be to blog.

Your Friend Jesus (hey-SOOS)

Mexico, February 2009. On our way to go Ziplining, our driver displayed this note. I thought it was so funny, I had to take a picture. Clever marketer I'd say, and I found it hard to say no to tipping my friend Jesus. I dare say a lot of Americans just think he is a religious driver who is appealing to the religiously inclined. Lest my title not explain it well enough, the driver's name is Jesus pronounced (hey-SOOS) and he just wanted to thank us for tipping him.

Mexico- quick post of Pictures

This bird looks nice, but it can bite pretty hard. The HP tour guide said I could hold them, so when I went to pick him up, he bit me like he is biting this wood.
Despite my usual tendency to sleep in on vacation. I wanted to get a picture of the sunset. This was taken about 6:25am and I took about 50 pictures. I have a lot of work to do to become a photographer. We were tired for most the day.

At night we had to find some entertainment that didn't include alcohol or dancers whose wardrobe, or lack thereof, reflected the struggling economic conditions. We went and sat on the beach the first night and walked around. This is me trying to take a picture of us and the beach.

We decided to go parasailing and this was our transportation to and from the boat.

This is us parasailing and the parasail design reflected our sentiments.
This was the beach at Playa del Carmen, where the waverunner came and picked us up to go parasailing. The man who hooked us up with the parasailing tried to convince us to go deep see diving. We were too tired after swimming with the dolphins and parasailing, so we turned him down for the opportunity to go fishing. Someday though, I plan to do that.

I took quite a few pictures and there will be more posts to come. Check out Michelle's blog for additional and better insights.

Wicked Karma

Los Angeles, October 2008
We fought the LA traffic and finally arrived at the Pantages theatre 2 hours early with great anticipation to see the musical Wicked. As we walked by the theatre, a man wearing wicked green yelled out ”2 minutes left to enter a drawing for 2 front row tickets for $25/each, must have cash, come and enter your names.” In Chicago, I had entered into the contest and lost, but some guy who had won two tickets gave me one, and so my first experience watching Wicked was front and center and cost me $25. So I was pretty optimistic we had a good chance of winning. Two hundred people surrounded the Green man and he started turning the cylinder that held our opportunity. Into his microphone he explained that 10 names would be drawn and 20 total tickets would be given out. He yelled out the first name and a few claps and a few mumbles oozed from the crowd. The Green man was disappointed and started explaining to his captive audience, “We have something in California that we call Karma, the louder you cheer for those that win, the greater your probability will be of winning. So I want to hear some cheering, believe me it works.” That was all I needed to hear. A principle with a promise, I wanted those tickets. The next name he called was Travis, and I went bonkers. At the top of my lungs I yelled, “Travis, you rock!!, Way to win the tickets, You are the man, yeahhhhhhhh!!!” I was ecstatic as I could be short of going and slapping him on the back. He had some time to walk and claim his tickets so I was pretty boisterous for the full 30 seconds. Michelle was a little uncomfortable and I got a lot of weird looks. Then all of a sudden those weird looks melted into envy as the name Michael Linton was pulled out of the golden cylinder and he who cheered the loudest won the tickets. I believe in Karma. “For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again…” (Alma 41:15)