The New Moon

So my wife got tickets to a VIP premier of the new twilight movie "New Moon" we had official lanyards and everything. So being the good guy that I am I went with her. I was fully expecting to be one of five guys there, but I was wrong. Surprisingly about 25% to 33% of those in attendance were male. So we had to wait in line for a couple of hours in the cold so I told my wife to wait in the car. I was surprised that this movie would draw this big of a crowd. There were tons of people and all of the theaters were both being used and sold out. I don’t know what it is but girls go crazy over “Jacob.” There is a scene where he takes off his shirt to wipe away some blood from Belle, and all of the females went nuts and screamed! They all have secret crushes on him, well maybe not so secret some even exclaimed “I love you Jacob!” Anyway it was all an interesting ordeal being there I have never been in the middle of female hysteria over a movie, but the movie wasn’t half bad because the werewolves were awesome they are way cooler than vampires so Belle should pick Jacob.

lants.

Bow down to Google the Great God of the Internet

So me and my friend we having a conversation how Google has become so wide spread that is it is taking over the Internet. Just to prove the point. Look at your google dashboard. You can access blogs, youtube videos, email, weather, document readers, translators, news, you can use it as a drop box, a history, a friend linking site. You can look up on google just how much information that they have on you. Your address, nationality, search trends, when you access the internet most, what time of day, what day of the week what month. Your top ten web sites, top ten searches. It has your blog, the blogs you are following. Who you have talked to using the internet, who you have chatted with. Google makes 12 cents each search that you make using their search engine. Ironicly I have given 56 cents while writing this blogs. I know that doesn’t sound like much but multiply that by 400 million searches a day. That is 4.8 billion dollars in one day. I don't even need to calculate that out over a year to know it will be monstrous. And just to prove the point the Google is taking over the internet. I used translationparty.com, which is powered by Google to translate a phrase into Japanese and back into English and see what it becomes:

Google is taking over my life.
=>into Japanese
Googleの私の人生を引き継いでいる。
=>back into English
Google has taking over my life.
=>back into Japanese
Googleの私の人生を引き継ぎました。
=>back into English
Google has taken over my life.

As you can see Google has already taken over the internet and your life too. But isn’t it great? You can do everything with it. (I didn’t mean that sarcastically, it IS great)

lants.

23

Well it was my birthday last week. I am now 23. That is kind of weird to me. It reminds me of the lyrics of a song from one of my all time favorite bands Jimmy Eat World. The song is entitled “23”

Amazing still it seems
I'll be 23
I won't always love what I'll never have
I won't always live in my regrets
You'll sit alone forever
If you wait for the right time
What are you hoping for?
I'm here I'm now I'm ready
Holding on tight
Don't give away the end
The one thing that stays mine

I guess this will be my theme for the next year of my life. To me the song seems like it is a turning point in his life and he doesn’t know if he’s ready to move on. So it seems that in the 23 year will be a nebulous state of existence for me. I am adjusting to married life. It is strange to make the adjustment from single life to married life, and I’m not saying I don’t like married life, because I love it! But it is an interesting transition to let go of things I once aspired to do. But I’ll be 23.

lants.

Look up...

Walking to school today everyone was in a rush. Everyone had their heads down as to avoid the snowflakes. What a wonderful scene to be seen if we just look up. The first snow of the year is here. Isn't it a miracle? It gently falls to the ground silently. I got out of my car and stood still with my hand spread and my head tilted to heaven letting the flakes hit me in the face. So many people spend all winter complaining about the snow. Why don't we just appreciate it and enjoy the beauty that it brings? I wish that I had time to just lay out on the ground and let myself be covered in the snow. I hope this storm proves to be bigger than expected—some areas are expecting one to two feet of snow. How great would that be? I think I’m jealous that Colorado already has two ski resorts open. I’m getting anxious. I went and watched the Warren Miller Ski video last week (I actually watched it twice). It is considered the first day of winter and now the snow is backing it up. I’m tired of just wearing my skis in my living room. I’ll keep day dreaming until I can put them on in the snow.

lants.

The game

Ouch. Saturday hurt my heart. The game was ugly. I feel that we need to start recruiting offensive players who have speed and them put them on defense. It worked well for Utah last year. Their start defender, Paul Kruger, got drafted into the NFL as a sophomore. He was originally supposed to be a quarter back. But they used his speed and helped him bulk up and put him on defense. We got worked all game long. Hall never got protection, and their offense walked all over our defense. It’ll take time to gain the speed we need. But that is why we are losing so bad to teams with speed like Florida State and TCU. I just want to forget about the game. It is time to win the rest of our games and especially Utah. I want to dominate them. That win makes everything better and leaves a good taste in our mouths for next year.

lants.

Perfect Saturday

Saturday was a great day! It all started with sleeping in. Then we ate a good breakfast, and lounged around a bit. Then we grabbed the climbing gear and headed up rock canyon. The canyon was gorgeous with all of the leaves changing colors! It was wonderful and the weather was perfect! We did a few climbs and it felt good to be on the rocks again. There is only one thing to climbing—go up. When we got home it was time for the BYU game! I barbequed some burgers and enjoyed them as we watched the cougars win! At half time I pulled out the slack line and we walked the line under a tree with brilliant red leaves and another tree with golden yellow leaves. The ground was carpeted by all the leaves and the mountains in the background were awe inspiring—it was picturesque! What a great day. Fall is the best time of year. It is too bad it is so short. But that is ok because winter is my second favorite season.

lants.

Snails

How many beautiful things in life do we miss because we are in such a rush? Sometimes having the ability to travel so quickly by planes, cars, scooters, skateboards, or long legs is a handicap that we have.

We pack our lives so tightly trying to fit as much in as possible, that we barely have time to breath. Many times we feel we much always be stressing over something. Understanding this, it doesn’t seem strange that we have reached escalated numbers of high blood pressure, ulcers and suicide trying to cope with the pressures of this high-speed life that is measured by MPH, upload speeds, download speed, mega hertz, and we stress if we can’t send a billion bites of information in a second, or that we are constrained to drive 35 MPH through a residential area when unknowingly we could travel to the middle of the North American content in one 24 hours period at the same speed only to miss millions of acres of the most beautiful landscapes known to man—and he grunt and the slow driver two bumpers ahead.

Everything that we do revolves around the same circular object. It is interesting to notice how many moments of the day people spend staring at the same object. We have clocks on the wall, microwaves, our wrists, in the car, on every electronic device known to man. How is it that looking at a clock and seeing where its arms are pointing causes innate anxiety? Who even invented the minute anyway?

People spend billions of dollars on finding ways to escape reality. Why is it that we seek to leave the life we’re living?

Maybe we’re going about life in the wrong direction—is a successful life really how much someone can accomplish with the time they have?

I envy the snail. We can learn so much from a snail—a small shelled gastropod that travels .03 MPH. Never hurrying, never overlooking a beautiful scene. Always surfacing after rain, when the earth is looking its best, to take a look and some deep breaths. Don’t they have the outlook on life that we should emulate? Sure, they may not be able to out run a predator, but it still seems desirable to me because I would rather die with a smile on my face, than a look of constant worry.

Just as I left class today I saw hundreds of students rushing off to the next class they had worrying about being on time or getting a good seat. Heads turned down to a race tilt for maximum walking speed I guess. In the mist of this rush-hour traffic on the sidewalk I stopped and lifted my gaze to the limestone stabs of the face of Rock Canyon dusted with new snow, and the highest peaks blazing with color from the rising sun. I slowed my breathing to take it in as zillions of people zoomed by so fast that they disappeared from my peripheral view. It was just me and the mountain beckoning each other higher, above the hassle of a pressure torn world.

I doubt any will read this but lets be snails because “Snails see the benefits, the beauty in every inch of life,” and shouldn’t we?

lants.