One Year

I'm really glad that when I think of days that I consider the best days of my life my answer always starts with the day I received my endowment, the last day of my mission, and more recently, the day that I got married. It's just the type of thing that should come up first, no?

We haven't really done much for our anniversary because Amy's brothers were supposed to come into town and then didn't, and our last minute efforts at putting together an anniversary plan didn't pan out, so we've just kind of spent this weekend just hanging out. But it has been really fun reminiscing all weekend about the events dating one year ago this day.

That day wasn't "perfect." It would have been nice if the grass were a little greener around the temple (although Amy did a good job of making it look like it was pretty green, see above). Our DJ who was supposed to provide us a mic at the reception didn't realize that we had actually booked him for Friday the 18th and not Saturday the 19th. Both my dad and his wife, and my brother and mom, didn't realize that Utah is on MST and not PST, so they were late to our reception. And I'm pretty sure a few other things weren't just right, but the day really couldn't have been more perfect. We had such a great day having everyone that we love in one place, celebrating with us, and enjoying what is the most important the day of our lives.

And I really like the kind of couple we have become. I feel like we are just the right fit for each other. Sometimes it feels like the little things are what you notice the most.

(Song to our first dance)

Since we've been married, here are some of the things that I appreciate most about Amy:

• She's just so happy. I don't think I know anyone who is more happy than she is. And she's really expressive when she gets really excited and likes to attack me and jump on me. When she's snowboarding or wakeboarding, she literally has a smile on her face the entire time that she's participating in that activity. The other night I spied her in our bed reading a book and she just had a grin on her face for like 20 minutes straight. She just can't hide when she's happy, and it's also a feeling that she feels very frequently. 
• I love that she's so about doing things and having fun. I can suggest almost anything and she's just about always up for it. She's loves to go on trips, go to events, and just have fun. She's a total "yes" person. Always wants to say yes and rarely has a reason for not doing things. And on a related note...
• Not only do I feel like we have a lot of fun together, it seems like we have so much fun doing the same kinds of things. I'm so glad that she grew up with so many brothers because she just loves being active, going to sporting events, and just about anything else I can think of. We can go snowboarding together. She's actually the person that got me into canyoneering, and she just loves the outdoors. She loves a day on the lake. We even go golfing together in the summer time. We must have had golf for FHE at least 4 or 5 weeks last summer, and this one will be no different. She'll even indulge my near constant urge to want to go to concerts.
• She loves my people. And her people are equally wonderful. And now they're all just our people and there's nothing we love more than just spending time with everyone that we can. Two weekends ago we had a really fun cabin trip with my best friends, Dave and Caitlin, and then last weekend we spent one whole evening just sitting on couches just chatting with some of our other friends, went to a volleyball game the next night with our dear friends, Jessica and Andrew, and the next night we hung out with her brother and SIL, Scott and Elisha. I feel like we're always strapped for time to spend with the people around us, and I just love it. 

So those are just a few. It honestly has been the best year of my life. I wish marriage would have come sooner for us, but I'm glad that it came when it did. We have had such a good year and I look forward to many more to come.

Happy Anniversary, Amy! I love you!

Friiiiiiiday

I've been a little MIA lately. That's mostly because I'm in lockdown studying for the GMAT. It's a tricky one. All of our weekend plans have fallen through, and even our backup to our backup plans aren't working out, but I think it just means I need to hunker down and make sure I put in all the prep I can into this test. So that's what this weekend is looking like. But I will send you off with this song that I can't get enough of right now. Have a good one, y'all!


(They sneak a colorful word in there. You've been warned.)

Can you feel it?

It's in the air. Mostly the temperature of that air. It's spring. It's right around the corner. This winter has been incredibly mild, to be honest, but something about a few of those weeks in February actually did make it feel, albeit briefly, like winter. But since our most recent storm passed, it has warmed up considerably. The biggest clue to the imminent arrival of spring (besides the calendar)? I've been running outside. At night. And I love it.

Bring it on. Bring on the camping, the outdoor running, the troping, the free mini golf. Bring on the sun. Bring on a new season of fun water-related videos with the GoPro. Bring it all on.

...in about a week...I have some studying to do between now and then.

Spotlight Effect

Growing up, one of the things that I was most self-conscious about was the gap in my front teeth. It was never a big gap, but because all my other teeth are almost perfectly straight, I never needed to have braces so the gap never got closed. But, boy, was I still so very aware of it.

I got into a regular habit of making sure my tongue was tucked firmly in behind my front teeth whenever I smiled so that it would hide the gap as much as possible. My first girlfriend after the mission even took some brownie one time and stuck it in her front teeth, laughed, and then said she was me. That got under my skin. And then at some point a few years ago I just kind of stopped thinking about it and it wasn't a big deal anymore. I'd notice it every now and then, but it didn't bother me in the same way.

Last year when Amy and I were sitting around looking at pictures, she asked me if I ever thought about getting that gap fixed. Thankfully, it wasn't in a suggestive-you-really-should-get-that-taken-care-of-kind-of-way, but really just wondering. The answer: Yes, a lot as a kid, some as a young adult, not really as an adult though. She mentioned someone else having a similar kind of thing and that it only took one visit to the dentist to get it taken care of.

So when I visited the dentist a month or so ago, he actually talked about how he would fix it with his dental assistant as if I weren't sitting in the chair with my ears fully functional, and that's when I decided I'd get it done. It really was such a quick visit.

The funny thing about it, however, is that no one else has noticed. I'm pretty sure it's not one of those things where they might have seen it and just not said anything. They just didn't seem to notice, and I say this because I actually pointed it out to two people after I had the work done and even when they stared at my two front teeth, it took them a few seconds to even realize what had been done.

Those kinds of things are funny. Those things that we worry so much about, other people hardly even notice. In psychology they call it the spotlight effect. What you think is a big deal to the whole world hardly ever gets any attention from anyone else because they're too busy worrying and wondering if you are noticing what it is that they are insecure about.

In some ways, I can really understand the value of cosmetic surgery. Sometimes there are disfigurements and things that change how people treat others, and those kinds of things are well within reason for getting fixed, at least in my judgment.

But then there are other things that you want fixed, but you even when the "problem" has been solved, you still find reasons to be insecure anyway. The problem isn't the supposed deformity, but your insecurity with it. If you haven't learned to deal with the insecurity, then fixing the deformity won't change the problem because you'll just find another thing to be insecure about.

I got the gap fixed, but wouldn't you know it, when I got home later that day, the next thing I noticed wasn't what a great job the dentist did in making it blend perfectly, but how my slightly chipped right front tooth feels more prominent because now the visible line of my top row of teeth no longer has a gap, but now it slants slightly upward on one side. Sometimes it's just too easy to focus on what's wrong instead of what's right.

Just musing is all.

Health Care Stuff

I read a couple of interesting articles this week. This one is about abortion. It's a little jarring just because of the way some people view the ethics of abortion. I guess jarring because of my morality, but knowing who reads this blog, you would probably agree with me. Here's the story. Excerpt:

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.

“We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”

As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.

The authors therefore concluded that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled”.  

And the other is an essay by Milton Friedman about How to Cure Health Care. What's really interesting in this one is how he talks about the origins of employer provided health care, and what the effects of that development were:

 The revival of the company store for medicine has less to do with logic than pure chance. It is a wonderful example of how one bad government policy leads to another. During World War II, the government financed much wartime spending by printing money while, at the same time, imposing wage and price controls. The resulting repressed inflation produced shortages of many goods and services, including labor. Firms competing to acquire labor at government-controlled wages started to offer medical care as a fringe benefit. That benefit proved particularly attractive to workers and spread rapidly.

Initially, employers did not report the value of the fringe benefit to the IRS as part of their workers’ wages. It took some time before the IRS realized what was going on. When it did, it issued regulations requiring employers to include the value of medical care as part of reported employees’ wages. By this time, workers had become accustomed to the tax exemption of that particular fringe benefit and made a big fuss. Congress responded by legislating that medical care provided by employers should be tax-exempt.

The tax exemption of employer-provided medical care has two different effects, both of which raise health costs. First, it leads employees to rely on their employer, rather than themselves, to make arrangements for medical care. Yet employees are likely to do a better job of monitoring medical care providers—because it is in their own interest—than is the employer or the insurance company or companies designated by the employer. Second, it leads employees to take a larger fraction of their total remuneration in the form of medical care than they would if spending on medical care had the same tax status as other expenditures.

Employer financing of medical care has also caused the term insurance to acquire a rather different meaning in medicine than in most other contexts. We generally rely on insurance to protect us against events that are highly unlikely to occur but that involve large losses if they do occur—major catastrophes, not minor, regularly recurring expenses. We insure our houses against loss from fire, not against the cost of having to cut the lawn. We insure our cars against liability to others or major damage, not against having to pay for gasoline. Yet in medicine, it has become common to rely on insurance to pay for regular medical examinations and often for prescriptions.

If the tax exemption for employer-provided medical care and Medicare and Medicaid had never been enacted, the insurance market for medical care would probably have developed as other insurance markets have. The typical form of medical insurance would have been catastrophic insurance (i.e., insurance with a very high deductible)."

Just interesting, I thought. It's a common point in economics that Friedman makes in this article. Nobody is more conscious of how your money is spent than you are, so when that power is given to a third party, they are much more frivolous with those expenses than you would ever be.

So So Tuesday for Mitt

The Romney campaign continues in its usual manner - winning the races it should win, but without much exclamation, and unable to pull off any upsets. He is narrowly project as the winner in Ohio, which he absolutely needed, but couldn't pick up anything in the south. He greatly outspent his GOP counterparts, but can't create any real separation from his competition.

This worries me. Mostly for this reason: Democrats want this presidential election to be about anything but the economy. What have the headlines been for the last couple of weeks? Everything about contraception and how Republicans want to ban it. I know that's not actual the argument, but it's the spin they're putting on it, and it's working. Rush fell for it and made it an enormous issue, and now the heat is off the President for the time being.

Additionally, Santorum's most obvious strength is his passion, but that is mostly concerning social issues, and when it comes time for a national election, it's going to come out that this guy is probably way too socially conservative for the taste of many voters. You'd be surprised at how wonky some of his views are. And he is the viable Anti-Romney at the moment. I just don't like it. Mitt can't inspire, even when he has the institutional advantage and money over his competitors. Makes me nervous.

So we'll see. Gingrich may continue in the race, but he is no longer realistic as a possible candidate, and I'm afraid his votes will go to Santorum before they go to Romney.

Sundry News Items

Have you been following the stuff in the news about all of the uproar over health care stuff and it providing means for contraception? It's not just any contraception - it's preferred contraception. Planned Parenthood receives over $300 million a year, so I'm pretty sure that if someone wanted to get a condom, they could find it. But what's more interesting is the various reactions some people are having around the country. At one university (not sure which), the health care offered by the university does not provide for preferred contraception, and so one female student spoke at and talked about how it was her preference, and she believed it to be her advantage to attend that university, but she felt that she was choosing between an inferior education but superior health care options to what she was being offered by her current university. Can you believe that? Thankfully, one person/organization spoke out against those type of comments stating that self-control is actually the first choice that a person has and people are not so helpless that they can't best protect themselves by simply practicing some self-restraint.

Have you heard about the uproar in Afghanistan? The issue is over some burned Korans. I didn't know much of the details until I read this article by Andrew McCarthy. He is probably the most knowledgeable person about all things Middle East. So the issue is the burning of Korans, only the military didn't know that they were Korans. They were books being passed around by prisoners that contained coded messages to each other that had to do with with escape plans and such, so the soldiers took the books and burned them to prevent them from communicating to each other. McCarthy raises the right question: how is it an appropriate response for some people to riot and kill other people when someone did  something unintentionally wrong? And why isn't it also defiling the Koran to write in it and raise insurrection? Because it serves their purposes. I posted that brief item last week, but Islamists (different from Muslims) are wackos. They will be a thorn in our side for a long time. An excerpt:

The facts are that the Korans were seized at a jail because jihadists imprisoned there were using them not for prayer but to communicate incendiary messages. The soldiers dispatched to burn refuse from the jail were not the officials who had seized the books, had no idea they were burning Korans, and tried desperately to retrieve the books when the situation was brought to their attention.

Of course, these facts may not become widely known, because no one is supposed to mention the main significance of what has happened here. First, as usual, Muslims — not al-Qaeda terrorists, but ordinary, mainstream Muslims — are rioting and murdering over the burning (indeed, the inadvertent burning) of a book. Yes, it’s the Koran, but it’s a book all the same — and one that, moderate Muslims never tire of telling us, doesn’t really mean everything it says anyhow.

Muslim leaders and their leftist apologists are also forever lecturing the United States about “proportionality” in our war-fighting. Yet when it comes to Muslim proportionality, Americans are supposed to shrug meekly and accept the “you burn books, we kill people” law of the jungle. Disgustingly, the Times would inure us to this moral equivalence by rationalizing that “Afghans are fiercely protective of their Islamic faith.” Well then, I guess that makes it all right, huh?

Then there’s the second not-to-be-uttered truth: Defiling the Koran becomes an issue for Muslims only when it has been done by non-Muslims. Observe that the unintentional burning would not have occurred if these “fiercely protective of their Islamic faith” Afghans had not defiled the Korans in the first place. They were Muslim prisoners who annotated the “holy” pages with what a U.S. military official described as “extremist inscriptions” in covert messages sent back and forth, just as the jihadists held at Gitmo have been known to do (notwithstanding that Muslim prisoners get their Korans courtesy of the American taxpayers they construe the book to justify killing).

Mitt won Michigan and Arizona yesterday. Good for him. I'm still hesitant about him, mostly because he just doesn't seem to inspire the base, so I'm afraid of how he'll fare in a general election. It may be the Obama is so vulnerable that almost anyone can beat him, but I feel like I'm rooting for a dark horse to come up at the GOP National Convention. I like him the most of what's out there, but there's a part of me that feels like there may still be someone better than him that hasn't been made available yet. We'll see next week with Super Tuesday.

Last, this article by Jeff Jacoby about LDS proxy baptism for Jews. Jacoby is one writer whose views I completely line up with, and this piece is no different.  An excerpt:

So now there’s a whole new commotion, with some prominent Jewish voices once again loudly expressing indignation.

“Holocaust victims were killed solely because they were Jews,’’ fumes Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “And here comes the Mormon Church taking away their Jewishness. It’s like killing them twice.’’ The Simon Wiesenthal Center, pronouncing itself “outraged,’’ declares that the latest proxy baptisms “make a mockery’’ of Jewish-Mormon relations. Wiesel himself insists that Mitt Romney, as “the most famous and important Mormon in the country,’’ has a moral obligation to tell his church: “Stop it.’’

But if anyone should be told to “stop it,’’ it’s men like Foxman and Wiesel, whose reactions to this issue have been unworthy and unfair.

For one thing, the Mormon Church promptly apologized for the listing of Anne Frank and the others, and firmly reiterated its policy: “Proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims are strictly prohibited.’’ Leaping to take offense at something the church has unequivocally repudiated is cheap grandstanding.

More odious by far is the accusation that a posthumous “baptism’’ to which no Jew attaches any credence is tantamount to a second genocide (“It’s like killing them twice’’). What an ugly slander. Even to the most zealous Mormon, proxy baptism is simply the offering of a choice — it gives non-Mormons in the afterlife a chance to accept the gospel, should they wish to. You don’t have to buy the theology — I certainly don’t — to recognize that its message is benign.

As a Jew, I am less interested in what other religions teach about the fate of Jews in the next world than in how they affect the fate of Jews in this world. Rafael Medoff, a scholar of America’s response to the Holocaust, notes that Mormon leaders were outspoken supporters of efforts to rescue Jews from Nazi Europe at a time when many mainstream Christians were silent. For example, Utah Senator William King — among the most renowned Mormons of his day — strongly backed legislation that could have saved Anne Frank and her family.

Outraged by proxy baptisms? Count me out. As my stunted family tree attests, the Jewish people have very real, very dangerous enemies. Mormons undergoing peaceful rituals in their own temples aren’t on the list. 

While listening to some interviews last year at the COB, one rabbi expressed a similar point of view. He stated that if he were to get outraged by proxy baptism then that would mean he was giving credence to a belief in a religion that he doesn't subscribe to. Makes sense, right? He felt that all the outrage came less from practicing Jews and more from the liberal ones. Thought that was interesting though.

Random Things

Was reading this morning and I thought this excerpt was interesting, especially the part at the end:

You know Bernard Lewis, the historian who is the dean of Middle East scholars, and a friend of National Review, and an NR cruiser. But did you know that he was leading a plot to divide Egypt into four separate states? Oh, yes. MEMRI -- the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute -- has the story, here.

It is not only the Muslim Brothers who are peddling this lunacy: It’s the official Egyptian press. Lewis is the “Jewish-Zionist Orientalist,” alternatively “the Zionist conspirator historian” -- etc.

I have said it for decades, ever since being exposed to the Arab world while in high school: The region will never, ever progress until the fever breaks -- until the culture of the lie, the culture of nutty paranoia, dies or weakens. More than poverty or anything else, it’s lunacy and lies that hold the Arab world back.

Many Arabs will tell you this, when they think it’s safe to do so.

Quick story -- a repeat: On 9/11 or 9/12, I received an e-mail from an Egyptian acquaintance, who lectured at the university in Alexandria. Very well-educated, Westernized woman. She said (in essence), “I hope you’re okay. And please know it couldn’t have been Arabs who did this -- it must have been the Jews.”

If she could do no better than that -- what hope was there for the man who emptied her trash at the university?

The same writer, Jay Nordlinger, had an interview with the New Mexico Governor, Susana Martinez. She's doing great things down there, but in reference to some reforms she's trying to bring about in education in her state, he quotes George W. Bush, when talking about advancing kids in school for social promotion, he called that the "soft bigotry of low expectations." I actually had an experience not unrelated to that with my work in the internship office. I can't believe some students have made it almost all the way through college.

Today is George Washington's actual birthday. Incredible man. I don't know a whole lot about him, but I have heard, I'm always amazed by. Anyway, here's a pretty famous letter he wrote to a group of Jews who had warmly greeted him. In it is a very famous affirmation of religious freedom.

Gentlemen.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, [1] from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

Go: Washington

And then one last thing from John Stuart Mill. You might hear a lot about people, maybe just politicians, that what we need to bolster the economy is more consumption. Mill touched on this topic long ago, and he's pretty compelling:

Among the mistakes which were most pernicious in their direct consequences, and tended in the greatest degree to prevent a just conception of the objects of the science, or of the test to be applied to the solution of the questions which it presents, was the immense importance attached to consumption. The great end of legislation in matters of national wealth, according to the prevalent opinion, was to create consumers. A great and rapid consumption was what the producers, of all classes and denominations, wanted, to enrich themselves and the country. This object, under the varying names of an extensive demand, a brisk circulation, a great expenditure of money, and sometimes totidem verbis a large consumption, was conceived to be the great condition of prosperity.

It is not necessary, in the present state of the science, to contest this doctrine in the most flagrantly absurd of its forms or of its applications. The utility of a large government expenditure, for the purpose of encouraging industry, is no longer maintained. Taxes are not now esteemed to be “like the dews of heaven, which return again in prolific showers.” It is no longer supposed that you benefit the producer by taking his money, provided you give it to him again in exchange for his goods. There is nothing which impresses a person of reflection with a stronger sense of the shallowness of the political reasonings of the last two centuries, than the general reception so long given to a doctrine which, if it proves anything, proves that the more you take from the pockets of the people to spend on your own pleasures, the richer they grow; that the man who steals money out of a shop, provided he expends it all again at the same shop, is a benefactor to the tradesman whom he robs, and that the same operation, repeated sufficiently often, would make the tradesman’s fortune.

In opposition to these palpable absurdities, it was triumphantly established by political economists, that consumption never needs encouragement. All which is produced is already consumed, either for the purpose of reproduction or of enjoyment. The person who saves his income is no less a consumer than he who spends it: he consumes it in a different way; it supplies food and clothing to be consumed, tools and materials to be used, by productive labourers. Consumption, therefore, already takes place to the greatest extent which the amount of production admits of; but, of the two kinds of consumption, reproductive and unproductive, the former alone adds to the national wealth, the latter impairs it. What is consumed for mere enjoyment, is gone; what is consumed for reproduction, leaves commodities of equal value, commonly with the addition of a profit. The usual effect of the attempts of government to encourage consumption, is merely to prevent saving; that is, to promote unproductive consumption at the expense of reproductive, and diminish the national wealth by the very means which were intended to increase it.

What a country wants to make it richer, is never consumption, but production.

 Anyway, just thought all of that was pretty interesting.

Winter Trop Sesh

For Andrew's bachelor party, he wanted to do a winter trope trip. So with snow blanketing the surrounding mountains, we swung from a tree rope into a pond of not-quite-but-may-as-well-have-been freezing cold water. It was actually really fun:

On Singleness

These aren't my thoughts, but those of a Catholic woman. I posted this on FB, but wanted to include it on here for anyone who maybe didn't see that, and I also include some more quotes and thoughts of my own. This was on NRO the other day and gives a great perspective on singleness and appreciating that time in our lives while still living full of faith and hope. I think anything that she says in this piece actually has direct application for anyone out there in the LDS faith and is still single. And from a guy's perspective, I think this probably applies as much to men as it does to women in a lot of respects. So here is the article.

This piece is actually an interview with Kathy Stimpson, author of The Catholic Girl's Guide for Surviving the Single Years. Some excerpts:

‘Singleness can very much be a cross, a source of struggles and suffering offered up to God as you journey towards him. It’s also an opportunity, however short or long-lived, to serve God and others in a unique way,” Emily Stimpson writes...

LOPEZ: A book called Embracing Your Single Vocation made you cry. But isn’t that what your book is advocating?

STIMPSON: Not in the sense that book meant it! The author of that book, God bless his well intentioned heart, had this theory that if you weren’t married by a certain point in life, your 30th birthday, you should just accept the fact that you were never going to get married and try to be happy about that. My book presumes just the opposite, that most young women reading it will get married one day, only that day will come a little (or a lot) later than it did for their mothers and grandmothers. Some of us won’t marry, of course, but most of us will. (At least that’s what the statistics say.) Accordingly, the Survival Guide’s goal isn’t to encourage readers to be happy about being single forever and ever — I hope they won’t be single forever and ever — but to offer some advice that can make the single life more bearable; suggestions that can help women not only to be sane and happy but also to become the woman God is calling them to be. Whether we ever marry or not, those ideas come in pretty handy, so handing them on is what my book is about.

LOPEZ: Which idea discussed in your book is our culture most in need of?

STIMPSON: Well, on one level, I think single women need some help navigating the challenges, both practical and spiritual, that come with being single in the post-college years. When it comes to issues such as vocation, femininity, dating, chastity, work, and finances, we’re facing challenges our mothers and grandmothers rarely faced. On a deeper level, our culture needs women who can be witnesses — witnesses to the dignity and vocation of femininity, witnesses to the beauty of chastity, and witnesses to what it means to trust God in the face of suffering. Ultimately, the book is call to young single women to be those witnesses. And hopefully, it’s a help for them in answering that call.

LOPEZ: “Learn to submit”? We have to be a nation of Michele Bachmanns?

STIMPSON: I’m not sure what goes on in Michele Bachmann’s house, but the type of submission I’m talking about in the book is not the kind that requires you to submit to your controlling ex-boyfriend. That’s a bad idea. I’m talking about submitting to God, to his will, and to his plan. And also to his truth. Too many of us have set ourselves up as our own pope, picking and choosing what we want to believe based only on what’s easy or convenient. But that doesn’t get you very far, at least not if happiness and holiness are what you’re after. Authentic freedom, loving as we’re called to love, comes from surrendering ourselves to God. It comes from dying to ourselves and letting our hearts and minds be conformed to Christ’s. That’s a type of submission we all need to practice — men and women.

I'm going to leave it at that. I only went through the first couple of pages and I pretty much just included everything from there. What I really like about the article is that the tone is very positive, which I think is really key to handling your single years gracefully and eventually what allows you to settle into a happy, healthy relationship. I think optimism is a natural outcropping of faithfulness, and until we can learn to be happy and content regardless of the situation we find ourselves in, it's not going to make a difference our marital/single status.

Let me speak as an "expert" after surviving (nearly...talking in terms of nearly first, not nearly surviving) my first year of marriage. I think marriage is kind of what it was like going from premortal life to mortal life. There were some great things about premortal life, I'm sure, but there were definitely more benefits to mortal life and that's why we ended up coming here. Being single should be a good time in life, and there are some things that can only really be done while single and it's great, but when it comes time for marriage and the progress and different set of challenges and circumstances that come along with that, then embrace it when it becomes available. Until that time comes, however, enjoy whatever your circumstances might be. Bloom where you're planted. You'll be much happier that way. When the time is right, it'll work itself out.

California Weird

Did you hear? I don't know how closely you all follow the Prop 8 stuff in California, but last week it was deemed unconstitutional by the 9th District Court, which wasn't a surprise at all. But...you know what is surprising? The 9th District Court had an reversal/vacate rate of 88% in 2009, 79% in 2010, and over the last 10 years, that rate has averaged about 81%. Do you realize what that means? 81% of the time a higher court chooses to either reverse or vacate the decision that was made by the 9th Court. It's the highest reversal/vacate rate in the nation, and with Prop 8, everyone pretty much knew that it was going to go that way. But what does that mean for the credibility of that court's decisions? The Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with it almost all of the time, so are they the ones that are wrong? I guess the SCOTUS has leaned a little more conservative over the last decade, but still, not that far off. That's quite extreme.

And in other news that was tossed around heavily on Facebook, fines can be given to those throwing frisbees or footballs on California beaches. Someone mentioned no digging holes either. So basically treat the beach like a cemetery and no doing beach things at the beach. Thankfully that's only in LA county at the moment and I've actually never even been up to any of those for actual beach time. Phew.

I just don't understand that state. I love it to death, but I hate it at the same time.

Happy Valentines!

Over-hyped? Over-commercialized? Yes and yes, and more. All the things that people say about Christmas being way overblown and how people lose the meaning of the holiday and all that can be applied to Valentine's day too. I've said it before on here, but for all of those people out there who say that they don't like some mass-market commercial holiday to tell them when to express love and well-meaning thoughts, that's a total cop-out. Shouldn't it just be nice to have an excuse to go ahead and be romantic and expressive for any reason at all? Isn't it nice to have Christmas time to have a deliberate season to reorient ourselves toward Christ and others? Why is Valentine's any different?

This video from the History channel explains some of the origins of the holiday. Like just about every other present day holiday, its placement on the calendar has a lot to do with Christianity trying to take over an old pagan holiday, but that doesn't do anything to invalidate the reasons and meaning behind the holiday itself.



And then here's a fun song. I probably posted this one last year:



I've always been one to do something for the holiday, even if I didn't have a specific Valentine in mind, whether it's just sending a funny card to a friend, or something romantic for someone I really care about. I guess I just have always really loved the holiday.

So there it is. Happy Valentine's day to my beloved, Amy. She's been doing a photography challenge with her sister and I just love her latest post because it's just so her - happy and active and cute. Check it out here.

Love you all and have a happy Valentine's day!

How Will I Know?

It's always kind of weird when a huge celebrity dies, especially ones that have kind of fallen by the wayside. The way I got the news, and this is probably true for a lot of people, is through status updates on Facebook or Twitter. Social media really does rule the roost when it comes to breaking news. I don't watch much live television, and I usually get my news through the internet, so it's pretty selective the things I'll hear, except for what comes through social media. It's how I found out about Osama Bin Laden, and it's how I found out about Whitney Houston yesterday.

The reaction that some have to celebrity deaths is interesting. I remember when Michael Jackson died a friend of mine didn't think much of it, even saying something like, "so what? The world is rid of another pedophile, good riddance," kind of thing. Others post tributes to that person and really lament that loss. So why do people mourn the passing of such flawed people?

I think it has mostly to do with the final realization that the person has utterly and completely wasted his or her talent. We do have some level of personal investment in these people because maybe Michael Jackson was the soundtrack to your youth, or Whitney Houston expressed what you couldn't in her cover of I Will Always Love You. There is some level of involvement, personally, that we have with these people, even if they are in every other way so completely distant from us.

So when we see them floundering and struggling through their trials and demons, we look at them often with scorn and disappointment, but the actual passing brings an end to the person who just couldn't ever turn it around, and that should be a sad event. It's not only of a life, but of talent and promise that could have affected many people in lots of good ways, but was left unfulfilled. That is definitely a sad thing to behold.

Anyway, I'm sad for Whitney Houston. Hers is a very tragic story. She has a lot of really great songs, but this one was always one of my favorites. I used to go to an 80s night with a buddy and we always really loved when this one would come on. It's just fun and happy. Here you go:

Running Season

For the last couple years my running season has started earlier and earlier. The first three marathons I ran were all at the beginning of Fall, meaning that I was doing the peak of my running in August and September. September is not a bad time to run in Utah, but August is kind of horrific, unless you can get out early, which I have always had a problem doing. Now that I'm running a marathon in June, however, my season starts this month and peaks in April-May.

Anyway, I really enjoy having a seasoned of heightened physical activity. Since about 2006 or so, I have actually been really good about exercising regularly. I was prompted by my fat period where I was about 20 lbs more than I am now, wondering how my diet of fast food and mainly soda were holding me down. Then I got a gym pass, lost more than 25 lbs in two months, and I've never really looked back.

I guess I don't ever really take a long break, but I definitely do ramp up my activity level, and this year I have added more lower body workouts to supplement my running. I had a nagging injury that I couldn't really pinpoint that started back in November and never really left. After talking to a few people about it, I started focusing more on strength exercises and weight training and it has made a world of difference.

In the last month I've run consistently 4 times a week, worked harder on my legs and maintained the other lifting that I do, and my 2 month long nagging injury is now only in the background and I hardly notice it now. Yesterday I did 60 lunges, hamstring curls, leg presses, calf raises, and then I ran 5 miles right after. The start of my run was tough, but by the end I was down to a 7 minute mile. I felt pretty awesome.

I even went out and bought a kettlebell that I'm looking to incorporate more into everything that I do. The standard kettlebell swing is great for the hamstrings and glutes, but there are a few more back exercises that I think will be really great.

So far I'm only signed up for the Utah Valley Marathon, but I will probably pick up at least one more half, a mud run (Tough Mudder anyone?), and maybe do my first tri this year.

It's just kind of exciting is all.

Interesting...

Two links I thought I'd throw out to you:

• This one is from Business Insider talking about how sales from the Iphone alone outdid all of Microsoft last year. Another blogger points out that it was not too long ago that some anti-trust lawsuits had been filed against Microsoft saying that the company was too big and that it had a monopoly over the market. For all you Iphone and Mac lovers out there, I hope that people don't start crying foul against Apple and trying to limit their business because other companies can't compete. From the article:
  

  It was not long ago that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was fending off those observing that Apple's market capitalization was closing in on Microsoft's by saying that, regardless of market cap, Microsoft's business was much bigger and more profitable.
  
  Not anymore.
  
  Now, Apple's business (in Q4) is more than twice the size of Microsoft's--$46 billion to $21 billion--and more than twice as profitable: $17 billion to $8 billion.
  
  And, needless to say, Apple's market cap now dwarfs Microsoft's. (Although, interestingly, Apple's market cap is not yet 2X Microsoft's, despite the difference in revenue, profitability, and growth rates. The market still appears to be concerned that Apple's "closed system" is vulnerable to the same sort of disruption by Android and other more open systems that Apple's Mac business was back in the 1990s).
  
  What's just as remarkable here is that Apple invented the iPhone business out of thin air in 2007. This is not an old product category. It's a completely new one. Which means that Microsoft or anyone else could have invented it.
  
  (The same can be said for the more recently introduced iPad, which is now cleaning Microsoft's clock in that category, too.)
  
  For the first decade of Steve Ballmer's reign at Microsoft, some folks cut him a break for the company's stagnant stock price by observing that the market had changed. But the market changed for Apple, too, and Apple innovated two huge new product lines, one of which is now bigger and more profitable than Microsoft's entire business. So Steve can't be cut a break for that anymore.

• And this post from a blog called Study Hacks. The guy is now a professor at some prestigious university, but what I really like about his stuff is that he's always talking about how the career worth pursuing is one found through the development of well defined skill sets. He talks about how Steve Martin is a good example of this: 

Martin’s Diligence

One of the things that has always impressed me about Steve Martin is his diligence. In his memoir, Born Standing Up, he emphasizes this theme — defining diligence not just in terms of persistence, but also in the ability to ignore unrelated pursuits.

Martin was, of course, being facetious when he pepped himself up with the idea that it would only take 40 years to get good at the banjo (he was playing at a high-level in his act within 5 – 10 years of starting his training), but this statement reflects a deeper truth: getting good at something is not to be taken lightly; it’s a pursuit measured in years, not weeks.

This diligence defined Martin’s path.

He spent decades focused intensely on his act, which meant two things: banjo and jokes.

After reaching the peak of the live comedy world in the 1970s he turned his attention for years to making movies.

Then he spent years working on fiction writing.

More recently he’s returned back to his banjo.

If you collapse Martin’s skills into a flat list, he sounds like a Renaissance man, but if you take a snapshot of any particular point of his life, you’ll encounter relentless, longterm focus on a very small number of things.

Diligence Versus the World

I’m reintroducing this idea of diligence because I keep encountering it in the stories of people with remarkable lives and yet almost never see it mentioned in the online community where Study Hacks lives.

And this is a problem.

We’ve created this fantasy world where everyone is just 30 days of courage boosting exercises and life hacks away from living an amazing life.

But when you study people like Martin, who really do live remarkable lives, you almost always encounter stretches of years and years dedicated to honing craft.


Anyway, just thought those were interesting. 

It's Groundhog Day!

At first I was just gonna post this clip sequence set to I Got You Babe just because I love Groundhog's Day (the movie), and then I came across this article and it's kind of amazing how seriously some people take the movie.

I've always really liked, and it's funny how many little things I find myself saying that come from this one.

Paaaaaaaaastry?

Anyway, here is an article that talks about it at length, and an excerpt:

Personally, I always saw Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal return of the same in this story. That was Nietzsche’s idea — metaphorical or literal — to imagine life as an endless repetition of the same events over and over. How would this shape your actions? What would you choose to live out for all eternity? Others see Camus, who writes about how we should live once we realize the absurdity of life. But existentialism doesn’t explain the film’s broader appeal. It is the religious resonance — if not necessarily explicit religious themes — that draws many to it. There’s much to the view of Punxsutawney as purgatory: Connors goes to his own version of hell, but since he’s not evil it turns out to be purgatory, from which he is released by shedding his selfishness and committing to acts of love. Meanwhile, Hindus and Buddhists see versions of reincarnation here, and Jews find great significance in the fact that Connors is saved only after he performs mitzvahs (good deeds) and is returned to earth, not heaven, to perform more.

The burning question: Was all this intentional? Yes and no. Ultimately, the story is one of redemption, so it should surprise no one that it speaks to those in search of the same. But there is also a secular, even conservative, point to be made here. Connors’s metamorphosis contradicts almost everything postmodernity teaches. He doesn’t find paradise or liberation by becoming more “authentic,” by acting on his whims and urges and listening to his inner voices. That behavior is soul-killing. He does exactly the opposite: He learns to appreciate the crowd, the community, even the bourgeois hicks and their values. He determines to make himself better by reading poetry and the classics and by learning to sculpt ice and make music, and most of all by shedding his ironic detachment from the world.

We're watching it tonight. That'll be good.

On a related note, I finished the 7th and final book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, which is proclaimed to be the magnum opus of all his work. I guess by now I'm a pretty big connoisseur of his work - I think I've read about 15 of his books - and I really kind of love him.

In one of his short stories he talks about how he actually believes a version of hell is having to repeat the same thing over and over. I don't think any of you are going to be reading any of his books anytime soon, so I'll spoil the Dark Tower for you: the gunslinger is doomed to continually repeat his quest to reach the dark tower forever, but with one caveat in the last few pages. He's actually atoned for one of his mistakes en route to the tower, so it's my contention that he is actually on his road to redemption.

Anyway, it's just interesting to think about how this relates to our everyday lives. While we don't repeat exact sequences and events in our lives over and over, but we do have similar trials and experiences through which we try and perfect ourselves until eventually we do overcome and find our own sort of redemption. Part of the human experience is being endowed with weakness and just general difficulty, and in the process of trying to overcome them, we find godliness.

So who knew Groundhog Day was such a deep movie? There ya go.

Like a Good Neighbor?

Several months ago I posted about how we had gone on a couples date with some people that lived right below us. At the time, I was sure that we would become really good friends, play games with each other all the time, and someday go on vacations together.


Things started out well enough. We're close in age to each other, so we seemed to relate on that point. We both got married a little bit later, but were also recent newlyweds. We conversed pretty easily with each other. We even had some common friends between us. We invited them for dinner and we played Farkle. Then they invited us over and we played bocci. They brought us some treats one time. They filled in for our primary class while we were in Europe. And then that was about it.

We would see them in church, but they never went out of their way to say hi to us or engage us in conversation. Ever. Even when we would pass them in the parking lot behind our place, they never said anything more than just a cursory "hi." And I don't know about Amy, but I did always try to engage them in conversation. I asked them about their Thanksgiving and how it was in California. When I heard they were going to have a baby, I congratulated them and asked them about the due date and how she was feeling. Amy made white chocolate popcorn and we went downstairs to drop it off for them and wish them a merry Christmas.


And then all of a sudden about a month ago we heard that they had bought a place and they were moving. The weird part is that before we found that out, through a girl who did Amy's hair, I had just stopped them in the parking lot to tell them that we needed to get together again soon and do dinner and games or something.

I don't know. I guess I felt like I needed to write about it just because I had been making comments to Amy ever couple of days or so about how weird I thought it was that they never once mentioned they were going to move, or even said goodbye, or a bunch of other things that I thought were off. I know she's probably tired of hearing about it from me, but I definitely feel spurned.

I like to think of myself as a person who will make a pretty good effort to maintain contact, to let people - especially ones that I consider friends - know that I am interested in their lives. (Even if I sometimes forget to acknowledge your birthday.) And it's weird to me that I felt like I made a pretty good effort at that, and then received nothing in return.I just would think that when you've invited someone in your home to sup together, when you've had at least a few meaningful interactions together that you'd do something as simple as say "bye," or just do something to acknowledge that you were more than just strangers to each other. That's not weird for me to feel that way, right?

I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that person who is completely detached from the people that are around me, from people that I have consistent interaction with.

I guess this whole experience just really reinforces that for me.

Random Thoughts

aBear with me, some of this might be interesting to you.

I went running last night at the gym because that's what you do on a Saturday night and your wife isn't in town. I loved it. I was listening to an episode of This American Life and it just kinda got me thinking about some things.

The episode in question was about jobs, stimulating the economy, that sort of thing. They talked at length about Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and some campaign promises about bringing back over 250k jobs to the state. The reporters questioned him at length about his philosophy and what it meant to be bringing back jobs.
The funny thing about the report was that the reporters just seemed to have a pretty fundamental lack of understanding about conservative politics. They just didn't get how Walker wanted to shrink the size of government and give incentives to businesses and stimulate the economy through economic growth rather than intervention. One of the reporters even made the point that by reducing taxes, the governor was promoting growth in the short term, but ultimately that would lead to a long term reduction in quality employees because people wouldn't come out well educated and they would be worse off as employees.

I marveled at that assumption: spending on education=better students/employees, etc. If the US is not already at the top of the list for spending on education then it's very close to it, but has that really meant better educated? Not necessarily. We are in dire need of some education reform. Other countries that are spending less are getting more out of their students. Why would that be the case?

One thought that came through my head was because of greater character and integrity. Someone with integrity naturally demands a lot out of him(her)self. If we fail to instill that in ourselves and in those around us, then no amount of spending will make up for the loss in quality of person, no?

That thought caused me to think about an article I read earlier this week that someone somewhere linked to about What's Wrong with Teenager's Minds. The writer speaks about how kids are reaching puberty at earlier ages than ever before, but reach adulthood at much later years. It's an interesting read.

And then that got me thinking about a conversation Amy and I had last week about how funny some parents are with their kids. Nowadays it kind of seems like some church members will have a newborn and then take Sundays off for a couple months like they've been given a free pass. I can't refer to any actual numbers and I probably sound judgmental, but that's just the feeling I get from people, you know? And we both remarked at how people from previous generations would have never let that stop them from attending Sunday meetings, how people with greater "awareness" and more available knowledge seem to be able to do less with it than before. Like I said, I'm not speaking to anything specific, just a feeling I have.

Last random thought from today: I got to sit in on a combined priesthood/relief society meeting because of it being the 5th Sunday. (Although I love my calling in the primary, oh how I miss regular church.) The subject was the priesthood and ward members submitted questions they had about it. I was surprised at how little knowledge some of the leaders had about the priesthood, but that's not my thought. One person asked about how he(she?) had heard of a sister bear testimony about giving a blessing by the authority of her husband's(dad's?) priesthood. The question was if that was proper. This isn't my thought either, but I'll finish this part to get to what I want to share. The bishop answered and said that the spirit will dictate what is proper in what circumstances, and while it's probably improper to mimic a priesthood blessing without being conferred the priesthood, faith can do great things.  I thought that was well put. I really do like our bishop.

This brings me to my thought:A sister behind me asked if the person was healed as a result. If so, then there's your answer, meaning that it would indeed be proper to act in such a manner, but I thought that was making too large of a jump. The reason that the person was or wasn't healed has to do with whether it was God's will. The outcome is not relevant to how the miracle happened because in the end, God's will supersedes all of that. Just because you got the desired outcome doesn't mean it was carried out in the proper manner. I won't bother with examples.

And there you have it. G'night, y'all.

Breakin Up

Last night Amy and I watched 500 Days of Summer. I was surprised at how much I had forgotten about the movie. I was also surprised by just how good the movie is at depicting the ups and downs of a largely one-sided relationship.

I love the method of story-telling in the film. I love both of the actors: Joseph Gordon Levitt is just always so good and Zooey is just perfect as the sometimes interested, but often distant not-quite-girlfriend. She's very selfish, but he's foolish for falling so helplessly. And the soundtrack is just perfect. Always, always love that.

As the movie proceeds, you get a non-linear story of what their relationship is like, jumping between different days, and early on he ruminates largely on the good parts, glossing over the many deficiencies that his relationship had, which doesn't really come until the end.

Without revealing too much (although I'd be surprised if anyone reading this hasn't seen that movie yet), the movie ends on an positive note, which makes it easier to revisit the movie because it doesn't leave the sour taste of disappointment with the viewer.

Mostly, it just made me really glad to be done with the dating part of my life and having to cope with the highs of potential and possibility, only to be met by the crushing agony of despair and dejection. I really am glad for the experiences that I had, and I think going through real, soul-crushing heartache is good because it gives you so much depth, I'm glad that whatever kinds of difficulties that are yet to come my way don't have to be of that variety.

Breaking up is just hard to do.

Lots of great scenes, but I'll just leave you with this one. I love how happy it is:

SOTU and the GOP

Amy is out of town and I'm left fending for myself. That meant that tonight I had steak nachos for dinner, and I watched a man movie: Walking Tall. You can't tell me that Dwayne The Rock Johnson isn't the best action star in Hollywood right now, although I think Daniel Craig is pretty darn close.

Anyway, just thought I'd comment on a few things:

• Didn't really catch the State of the Union, but we happened to tune in in time for the GOP response to the SOTU given by Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana. I was thoroughly impressed. It was such a concise and direct response to Obama's weak oratory. The only part that I really caught of the SOTU was when Obama was talking about investing in green energy and it just made me so mad to hear him talk down to American citizens as if Solyndra and all of the other failed green companies that were loaned enormous amounts of money didn't already fail, and that we have an opportunity to get ourselves on the way to energy independence and he won't sign off on the Keystone Pipeline. For this reason, I loved Mitch Daniels' response:

  The President's grand experiment in trickle-down government has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: a government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it...
  
  As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life's ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.
  
  In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe. But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade, we have a short grace period to deal with our dangers. But time is running out, if we are to avoid the fate of Europe, and those once-great nations of history that fell from the position of world leadership.
  
  So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality. The challenges aren't matters of ideology, or party preference; the problems are simply mathematical, and the answers are purely practical.
  
  An opposition that would earn its way back to leadership must offer not just criticism of failures that anyone can see, but a positive and credible plan to make life better, particularly for those aspiring to make a better life for themselves. Republicans accept this duty, gratefully.
  
  The routes back to an America of promise, and to a solvent America that can pay its bills and protect its vulnerable, start in the same place. The only way up for those suffering tonight, and the only way out of the dead end of debt into which we have driven, is a private economy that begins to grow and create jobs, real jobs, at a much faster rate than today.
  
  Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business, it's one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew. Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say 'First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you'll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love.'
  
  "The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.
  
  "That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates. A pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody. It means maximizing on the new domestic energy technologies that are the best break our economy has gotten in years.

• Not sure if Romney has actually been performing better in the debates, or if the tide is just turning against Gingrich, but Romney is coming back in the polls that matter: Florida. Polls through the 23rd had Gingrich pulling ahead of Romney, all the ones following the South Carolina results, but since then Romney has rebuilt his lead. Florida will go a long way in determining how long the not-Romney-moment lasts for Newt Gingrich. I just hope that he's learning that he needs to be a little more impassioned and human instead of so deliberate and prosaic. He needs to connect with voters and he has a hard time doing that outside of his regular supporters.

 That's all I got for that, as of right now. 

Can't Hold Onto Anything These Days

I used to kind of pride myself on not losing things. I'd forget things, or misplace things, sure, but I'd never actually lose things. My stuff had its places and I always knew where things were, although I can be absent-minded about remembering to take things with me. I'm bad at that.

But it seems that I'm bad at holding onto my stuff now. I blame marriage. Not my wife. Just marriage. That's the only thing that's really changed since I started losing EVERYTHING.

A few months ago I misplaced my wedding ring. Didn't have it for at least 2 months. Then all of a sudden I found it. Just sitting on the ground below my nightstand.

I thought I lost our GoPro chest harness, which had our tripod mount in the bag as well. I thought I might have left that in Vegas since that was the last place I can remember having it. It wasn't there. Wasn't anywhere. Then I ended up buying a new tripod mount. Turns out it was in my backpack this whole time. Found it this morning.

This morning I spent 20 minutes trying to find my keys. 20 minutes! I've NEVER been that person, but now it's happening all the time.

Now I can't seem to find my Ipod shuffle, which is actually a pretty big deal. I love having that thing on my long runs and I'm about a month away from ramping up my training for Utah Valley. I thought I left it in my office, but it turns out that it's, in fact, not here.

Ugh. I'm an idiot.

*UPDATE: Found my shuffle. In a pocket of my backpack that I would've never thought to look in if I wasn't actually looking for something else already. Phew. Doesn't change that I'm still dumb.

A Few Impassioned Items

Not me so much, but from these writers.

I've mentioned him before on here, and quote him frequently, but if you don't know Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe, you really should get to know the guy. I get his weekly feeds and he has the greatest perspectives on so many different topics, and he speaks so intelligently. I think he's pretty moderate, but leans conservative. He had an article last week about Tibet and the oppression from the Chinese government. He went on act length about self-immolation (burning oneself alive) and the kind of desperation that leads to someone committing that kind of suicide. Here is the article, and an excerpt from it:

NEAR THE KIRTI MONASTERY in a Tibetan area of China's Sichuan province, 21-year-old Lobsang Jamyang publicly set himself on fire last Saturday. It was the fourth time this month that a Tibetan protesting Chinese repression had resorted to self-immolation. When local residents attempted to retrieve his body from the police, Chinese security forces fired into the crowd, reportedly wounding two.

So far little is known about this latest Tibetan to burn himself alive. A few days earlier, however, a 42-year-old "Living Buddha" -- a prominent Tibetan monk named Sonam Wangyal -- swallowed and doused himself with kerosene, then set himself aflame in the western province of Quinghai. Sonam was an admired spiritual leader who had run an orphanage and a home for the elderly, and was regarded as the reincarnation of a high-ranking lama. Radio Free Asia reported that before immolating himself, he prayed and burned incense on a hilltop, and distributed leaflets calling his death a protest "for Tibet and the happiness of Tibetans."

Buddhist monks hold a candlelight vigil in Dharmsala, India, after learning of the self-immolation by Tibetan monks at the Kirti Monastery in China.

The Chinese Communist Party crudely suggested that Sonam had killed himself after being discovered having an affair with a married woman. Such vulgar insults say more about the regime that spreads them than about the martyrs it seeks to defame. So does Beijing's propaganda accusing the Dalai Lama -- the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate -- of orchestrating the self-immolations.

Since last March, 16 Tibetans -- nearly all of them Buddhist monks and nuns -- have set fire to themselves, desperate to open the world's eyes to the relentless brutality with which Beijing tyrannizes their people. The world is noticing. The wave of fiery suicides, the State Department's spokeswoman said last week, reflects "enormous anger, enormous frustration with regard to the severe restrictions on human rights, including religious freedom, inside China." In response, the Chinese foreign ministry sourly warned Washington not to use "Tibet-related issues to interfere in China's domestic affairs."

If you're anything like me, the "Free Tibet" slogan seems something trite and not really something consequential in my life, but it should be, you know? It's unreal the kinds of atrocities that go unnoticed because nobody really wants to rock the boat, except for some very brave and very desperate dissidents.

And then a post from the guys over at Powerline. I guess Obama, over the weekend, while commemorating the Roe v. Wade decision said, "government should not intrude on private family matters." That comment led to this post about all the ways in which public officials have intruded on private affairs. A long excerpt:

The subject of Obama’s declaration was abortion. But suppose your teenage daughter can get an abortion without your even finding out about it: is that a government intrusion on “private family matters?” Sure, but one that liberals like Obama favor.

How about the electricity that your family uses? If you have a large family, or one with a lot of computers and other electronic equipment, you probably use more electricity than your neighbors, and are willing to pay for it. But in many communities, there is a sliding scale for usage, so that if you consume, say, 20% more electricity than your neighbors, you pay a 40% higher bill. This is because liberals believe it is their business how we live, and how much power we consume.

Electric power reminds me of light bulbs. Did you think that your choice of light bulbs is a “private family matter?” Until a few years ago, it would not have occurred to anyone to disagree with you. But not today, as President Obama and his allies in Congress now dictate what light bulbs your family can use to illuminate your house.

Disposing of garbage used to be a “private family matter.” Not anymore. Every community has laws and regulations about recycling that inject the government into your garbage.

One might have said that providing for your family’s health was the quintessential “private family matter.” But that was before Obamacare, which not only will require you to buy health insurance, but will require it to be in a form dictated not by you and the insurance company, but by the federal government, so that you pay for dozens of coverages that your family doesn’t want or need.

Did you think that how your children plan their futures is a “private family matter?” That isn’t what the Democrats believe. If you have children in public schools, you are aware that they are constantly bombarded with global warming propaganda. Several years ago, when my youngest child was in the 4th or 5th grade, she had a homework assignment in which a series of questions hectored her as to what she intended to do in her future life to combat global warming. I was proud of her when she wrote answers like, “I will never fly in more private aircraft than Al Gore,” and “I will never live in a bigger house than John Edwards.” (That, by the way, was before we suspected that Edwards was destined for the Big House.)

Speaking of school: is where you send your children to school a “private family matter?” Of course not! The District of Columbia had a school choice scholarship program that allowed parents some discretion in selecting schools for their children, but Barack Obama and the Democrats killed it.

When parents think about private family matters, one thing that comes to mind is babysitters. Until now, you could negotiate a reasonable fee with a 16-year-old neighbor and, if you live in a neighborhood like ours, feel confident that your kids will be well cared for. No longer; not here in Minnesota, anyway: Minnesota’s Democrats are pressing for unionization of all child care workers! If they have their way, you and your wife won’t be able to go out to dinner without dealing with union bosses–not because of your free choice, but because of government intervention into private family matters.

The idea that liberal Democrats like Barack Obama regard anything as a “private family matter” is ludicrous. As far as they are concerned, every single thing that you and your family do is a proper subject for government regulation. The doctrine of “choice” ends once your child is born. If you think that there is some other aspect of your life, or your family’s that is so personal and so private that the Democrats couldn’t possibly want to regulate and control it–well, then, you are a fool.

I just thought both of these pieces were kind of cool because the writers feel so impassioned about the topics, particularly the latter of the two. I don't normally read their tone as being especially upset, but this time John Hinderaker was, and I think that's admirable. Not everything has to be measured, you know? Especially coming from someone who does approach things with a level head, it's nice to have the occasional outburst.

This and That

A few things:

• Romney is having a hard time right now and it mostly has to do with his decision to release (or not) his taxes for previous years. I was listening to Michael Medved and he thinks it was a huge mistake for the Romney campaign to not have anticipated having to release his tax returns in light of the fact that he would be running for the presidency and be subject to some pretty intense scrutiny. The reason why is because it's looking like he probably only paid the 15% rate on capital gains, which is lower than what most citizens are paying and further paints him into the corner of being among the elites who are out of touch with the country. I can see Medved's reasoning, but I can also sympathize with Romney. It's not likely he does his own taxes and whoever is in charge of his money probably thought they were doing him a favor not paying just a little bit more in taxes so as to avoid this issue. I don't know. I do think it's a mistake that they aren't acting more quickly on this and just getting the issue out of the way. Romney seems to have a lot of these types of seemingly non-issues that tend to become bigger ones because of how his campaign decides to confront them. 
• The Muppets movie is adorable. It's just so happy and very funny. Everyone should go see it.  
• I love Coinstar machines, the ones that count your coins. I had been avoiding these kinds of machines because they normally charge a fee to count your coins, but you can get e-certificates free of charge, and Amazon is among the retailers you can get them for. Perfect! I love Amazon, and now I love Coinstar. $40 in mostly pennies later and who knows what I'll be getting. It's awesome.
• Perfect practice makes perfect. That's what I'm counting on as I take the GMAT (again) this next month. Here goes!

Put Away Childish Things

Don't be misled by the title of this post. This isn't going to be too serious. I was just noticing the other night this guy that had gone out on a date. This was at least a second or third, and I was just taking note of his wardrobe for the evening. Knowing that he was interested in the girl, I was a little disappointed in what his "going out" clothes for that evening were.

When you're an older single, I think it's a good idea to have some go-to dating clothes. It's not that a person has to invest heavily in clothes, but it's definitely appropriate to have clothes right for the occasion. I think that's part of being a man, no? If you go to a wedding reception, out to the theater, or other somewhat adult functions, you need to dress to match. If you dress up for church, isn't it also a good idea to dress up for other things too, right?

Which is funny that I bring this up, because my brother doesn't have the same kind of philosophy. Even though we were both seemingly raised by the same parents, he has very little regard for clothes and the occasion, as evidenced by his wearing jeans and a pretty casual button-down shirt to my wedding.

Come on, man. Our parents are tailors. They fix clothes for a living. We should have a better sense of how to dress. Anyway, I digress.

When you're approaching 30, it's time to know. Time to put away childish things. Spend a paycheck on some decent shirts. Future you will thank me for this wise piece of advice.

Signs of Prosperity

There are certain times in my life when it becomes all too clear that I really have it good. This isn't a story that will make you go aww, but it still seemed so clear the time that it happened that I thought it worth mentioning.

I was on my way to school and I was listening to a Ted Talk using an app on my phone, while my phone was plugged into the audio jack that I installed in my car about 2 years ago. If you don't know what Ted talks are, you really should get acquainted with them. They are often these really inspiring talks given by really impressive people on an array of topics. The that I happened to be listening to was called, "Don't Regret Regret." Really good.

Anyway, I excited my car while still listening to the talk on my way to my office and it just dawned on me how good I have it.


I just can't believe how fortunate we are. Amy has a great job, and I have great opportunities ahead of me. We have this amazing technology available at such a cheap price, and I can ponder esoteric things like regretting regret without worrying about my health, finances, or living situation. It may be a down time, generally speaking, in the US economy, but neither Amy nor I have any concerns about our future prospects. I have a paid off car that has never given me problems.

We just have it so good. That's all I wanted to say.

Next: South Carolina

This is about Romney's win last night in New Hampshire from Rich Lowry:

New Hampshire is good, home territory for Romney and he’s worked it hard. It showed. The exit polls tell the tale of strength across-the-board: Romney won men and women; he won everyone over age 40; he won all education groups; he won everyone make $30,000 and up; he won Republicans by an impressive 49 percent; he won moderates, somewhat conservatives, and very conservatives; he won voters who support and who are neutral on the Tea Party; he won Born Again’s and Non-Born Again’s; he won Catholics and protestants; he won voters who think leaders should compromise and voters who think leaders should stick by their principles; he won in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

So, like, everyone, right?

I like Romney all right. I definitely was more all for him in 2008, but for some reason, I'm kind of skeptical of him right now. It's hard for me as a member of the LDS Church to want one of our own in such a prominent position of power. The Church becomes even more of a lightning rod than it already is, and I'm not entirely confident in his capacity to rise to that capacity. It's a little scary, isn't it?

What gives me more pause, however, is that he hasn't actually worked in an actual political capacity since his one-term as governor of a very liberal state, and his positions do seem a little too politically expedient, don't they?

But I don't have a better answer. I don't want to get behind the guy just because he's one of our own and that means I trust him, but I'm all for hoping that he will rise to the moment and be the type of person that the country needs him to be. For that, I think his life is a good testament to his unimpeachable character and dedication to right, and that's why I think I can support him in all good conscience.

Last night's win was especially big because it was so dominant. Yes, NH is right next door to where he governed so he had a built in advantage, but no other candidate can really seriously challenge him given how divided the rest of the field is. There is no single person for voters coalesce around, and Romney is already leading in the polls in South Carolina, in spite of whatever anti-Mormon sentiment may come from evangelical voters.

Like Rush Limbaugh and some others have said, Gingrich and Perry's attacks on Romney's professional career only highlights the strengths of the GOP argument versus what rhetoric the Democrats have when it comes to the strengths of capitalism.

At some point people will begin to favor Romney  because he really is the one with the most viable shot of unseating the current incumbent. So, onto South Carolina, and eventually (hopefully), the nomination.

GOP Nomination

I read this the other day from my guy, Jay Nordlinger:

Obviously, Romney has done a lot of tacking in his political career: first on the Massachusetts stage, now on the national stage. “Tacking” and “tacky” are words that sound an awful lot alike.

I believe that Romney is a conservative, and that he would make a very good nominee and a very good president. Furthermore, I believe he is the only Republican candidate who can win.

But how can you prove such things? You can’t, is the answer. Any of these propositions would have to be tested. Think Newt can’t win, or Santorum? The only way to prove it is to nominate him and see. Think Romney would go all Elliot Richardson on us if he were in the Oval Office? Only one way to find out. Think he’d be more like Reagan? Only one way to find out.

Etc. A very great deal of political discussion is speculation -- informed speculation, maybe, speculation of varying intelligence and credibility, but speculation all the same.

When people speak in absolute tones, as though their political opinions were chiseled on tablets from Sinai, watch out. The more people know about politics, I find, the less absolutely and obnoxiously they speak.

I really appreciated that. Anytime anyone tries to be an expert about this stuff, they are probably way off-base. Jay posted some of his reader response to this topic and one person who had close ties to someone that was highly successful in the market wrote about his exchange with this expert about what he thought about the upcoming year, to which he replied, "your educated guess is as good as mine."

That's all any of the punditry is. Careful of guys like Paul Krugman that pretend to be experts, and more especially, those who refer to him as if his columns were handed down from Mt. Sinai. That guy, and many others, most assuredly, are far from knowing everything about everything, no matter how much they might pretend otherwise.

Anyway, with all of that, just a few thoughts.

• My brother-in-law-in-law (that's right) made some comments on Facebook about Romney winning the Iowa caucus. I loved the short dialogue we had on there about it, and what I mentioned on there I'll say here also: That result is especially interesting because from the media spin, it would be hard to know that Romney actually did win that one. So many people, and many among the media, are in the mode of anyone-but-Romney. So far, Romney is the only GOP candidate not going away, unlike Bachmann, Cain, Perry, and Gingrich. Santorum will likely be the same, but we'll see.
• The nice thing about this primary season, and something that I had forgotten until I read about it recently, is that this year most states are going with a proportional system instead of winner takes all. Maybe you are aware, but in case you're not, in the primary season, a candidate receives the nomination by winning the most delegates from all of the states. States have a certain number of delegates allotted according to their populations. Formerly, and as recently as 2008, many states were winner-take-all. This meant that although a candidate might have only gotten 40-50% or so of the votes in a primary, that candidate would receive ALL of the delegates. A proportional system awards them based on proportions. Super Tuesday, which will be in early March this year, kind of became moot because candidates would drop out early because they wouldn't get awarded delegates because of the winner take all system and the cost of continuing what appears to be a lost campaign. This year, it will take awhile before the nominee is determined because there is no obvious favorite in the GOP field, including Romney. He's still the most likely, but it will be a fight until the end. But I think that will be a good thing because...
• This is the President of the United States we're talking about here. The last time we ended up electing....the current President of the United States.
• A lot is at stake, as always. May the nomination go to the candidate most likely to defeat President Obama, which at this point still looks like Romney.

California Christmas

I am behind on blogging. Sorry, folks.

Something that I always love about Christmas time in California is the stark contrast that it is going from Utah to California, but this year has been probably the most mild winter I've ever seen in Utah. It's unreal. I've been outside running twice this week and it's early January.

In any case, California still didn't disappoint in that department. We got there late Thursday night and stayed until Tuesday afternoon and the temperatures ranged from high 60s to low 70s and even the 80s while we were there. I got to go do my favorite run in Peter's Canyon while we were there.

The trip was supposed to be more low-key this time because we thought more people would be gone. Dave and Caitlin were the most notable absentees, but we just thought there really wouldn't be anyone around. We thought we'd have all kinds of time to explore the Southern California only things that I've never really had a chance to do with Amy, but instead it was one appointment after another, which we really love more than anything.

We started our first full day in California by heading to Magic Mountain. Always a favorite. We hit all of the big rides, and especially having the proximity of time for our last Disneyland trip so close, it was easy to compare the magnitude of awesomeness for each of the rides. Disneyland really is so much about  atmosphere, which is amazing, but nothing compares to those rides at Magic Mountain.

I was going to just try and describe some of the rides, but I have some footage so I may as well let that do the talking:


MMCA11 by silva888
Our schedule looked like this:

• Friday - Magic Mountain; Matt and Laura; Crash
• Saturday - Redfords and visit with Greg and Laura, Mom and Bro's family; Doug and Kris for games and snickerdoodles (woo!)
• Sunday - Our very first married Christmas morning; Church; Dad's; Doug and Kris to pick up present; Greg and Laura for games
• Monday - Shopping; Dave and Vanessa for lunch; Shopping; MI4 with Greg; Games with Greg
• Tuesday - Spur of the moment change in phone plans and upgrading to the Cool Kids Club with smartphones.

Someone was telling us that it gets kind of tired running around and trying to see everyone, but I hope I never feel that way. Seeing everyone and spending time with people was the best part of the trip. I can't believe how blessed we are to have so many great people in our lives. It's so great.

But yeah, we upgraded to smartphones now. Amy and I had been wanting to make the move for a long time now because with the Sprint family plan, it's actually cheaper for us to be on there than it would have been to continue like we had been. Dumb. We had been searching for awhile for someone to jump on with, when it finally occurred to us that Greg and Laura are not only family, but they would be good candidates to do it all together. So, without having to switch numbers even though none of us were local and we had a couple different area codes, we got our new plans that even came with a student discount for University of Pacific (BYU has one too, although not as good), and we've upgraded to this decade. Amy spent a good portion of the car ride black playing on her phone, while I spent much of the following week getting every free app that I thought would interest me.

And Amy and I made out pretty well for Christmas. She got a 35mm lens; I got a new laptop; we really upgraded our board game collection; some new clothes, and other fun things.

We had a long trip home because of Vegas traffic on a Tuesday afternoon. What? But we made it, and we were happy to be in California, but happy to be back now too.

Giving

This is a little late in coming, but still a great article by Jeff Jacoby. This is a big chunk of the article, but check it out:

I wouldn't presume to argue with the pope about the religious significance of Christmas, and I will readily acknowledge that the holiday shopping season can certainly be stressful, expensive, and more than a little materialistic. Nonetheless, as a measure of cultural and communal health, I can't help seeing this yearly impulse to shower friends and family with presents as one of our society's most endearing and heartening traits.

Ten days ago I took my 8-year-old son Micah to a local Dollar Tree Store, where he was eager to spend his savings -- 11 dollars and change, grubbily folded into a miniature wallet -- on Chanukah gifts for his family. We had done this together last year, and Micah had been besieging me to pick an evening when the two of us could make a return trip.

I found it a wonderful experience, no irony intended. Dollar Tree isn't exactly Tiffany & Co., and in any case Micah chooses gifts with all the sophistication and refinement you'd expect from a rambunctious third-grade boy who loves bugs and can never seem to keep his shirt tucked in. The presents he picked out for his mother included a desktop picture frame for her office, glow-in-the-dark necklaces ("Mama can wear them if she goes for a walk at night"), and two boxes of Milk Duds; for his teen-age brother he found an air horn, Lemonheads, and a container of "noise putty" that emits flatulent sounds when poked. A devotee of Martha Stewart Living the kid is not.

But whatever Micah may have lacked in style and taste, he more than made up for with the unfeigned delight he brought to the whole project. He couldn't wait to turn his little clutch of dollars into presents for the people he loves. He wasn't consciously trying to be altruistic or selfless; and he's never given 30 seconds' thought to the meaning of generosity. He was simply excited by the prospect of giving -- and indeed, when the moment came a few nights later to bestow his gifts on his recipients, he was practically bouncing up and down with elation.

If this is crass commercialism, let's have more of it.

Would modern society really be improved if the happiness of gift-giving were not an integral part of one special season each year? Granted, anything can be overdone, and materialism is no exception. And it is important to remember that the hustle and pressure of buying presents for loved ones doesn't reduce our obligation to give charitably and generously to the poor.

But how diminished our culture would be without that hustle and pressure. Children learn an important lesson when they see the adults in their world treat the joy of others as a priority worth spending time, money, and thought on. No one has to teach kids to be acquisitive and selfish -- that comes naturally -- but what an inestimable asset they acquire when they find out for themselves that it really is more blessed to give than to receive.

It is only a coincidence of the calendar that links Christmas and Chanukah; theologically the two holidays have little in common. But essential to both Judaism and Christianity is the principle of imitatio Dei, of striving to walk in God's ways, above all by being kind to others as He is kind to us. Isn't that what underlies the expense and scramble of our holiday gift-giving? In lavishing gifts on others, we reflect the openhandedness with which God lavishes gifts on us. Maybe that's not the entirety of the season's "true joy and true light." But if my 8-year-old's unaffected joyfulness is any indication, it makes a great start.

Hope your Christmas was merry and bright.