Warren and Obama Are Dummies

Hopefully you've heard of some of the news recently regarding Obama and his recent proposals. I'm not even sure how else to label them. Economic? Reform? Jobs things? Not sure. Anyway, much publicity has been directed towards Warren Buffets comment about how the rich need to shoulder more of the burden for government revenues, i.e. taxes, but his own situation is very unique indeed. The most controversial comment that Buffet made recently was about how he pays less taxes than does his secretary.

Thanks goodness for these guys and their dumb comments, right? Because of them, a lot of people have been fact-checking recently because it just doesn't seem to make sense. How can one of the richest people in the world be getting away with paying less than someone who maybe doesn't even make .01% of what we makes in a year? It's jarring to think, so as a result, a lot of people followed up on it.

This story from MSNBC gives a good overview. The truth is the wealthy bear most of the burden. From that article:

The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Economist Larry Kudlow elaborates further saying that the top 1% pay 40% of all the taxes, and 50% of income tax filers don't pay any taxes at all.  He also says in this post:

No one even knows what the targeted group is going to be. A New York Times story suggests that the Buffet tax will hit three-tenths of 1 percent of taxpayers, which could be 450,000 people out of 144 million tax returns.

A Wall Street Journal story suggests the Buffet tax would have hit just 22,000 people in 2009, those households making more than $1 million annually and paying less than 15 percent of income in federal income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center, doubling the tax burden of those 22,000 would raise just $19 billion a year. How silly is this?

...

And Paul Ryan makes another key point: Tax investment more, and you’ll get less of it. If these kinds of tax hikes are ever passed, the economy will be doomed to stagnation over the long-run. Penalizing incentives will do that. And lower growth means higher deficits.

Why in the world doesn’t President Obama follow the overwhelming consensus for fundamental tax reform to lower marginal rates and broaden the income base? Economists of all stripes agree on this.

At the end of the day, it sure looks like our president wants to raise taxes on wealthy Americans and large corporations in order to spend more and enlarge the size and scope of government. From the standpoint of jobs, growth, and prosperity, it just won’t work.

And I thought this blogpost was especially insightful from Mark Perry over at Carpe Diem. He cites a couple of WSJ articles that I can no longer find. But here are some excerpts from the post:

(WSJ: Millionaires Go Missing)"Those with $10 million or more in reported income fell to 8,274 in 2009 from 18,394 in 2007, a 55% drop. As a result, their tax payments tanked by 51% (see chart, from $110.8 billion in 2007 to only $53.7 billion in 2009). These disappearing millionaires go a long way toward explaining why federal tax revenues have sunk to 15% of GDP in recent years. The loss of millionaires accounts for at least $130 billion of the higher federal budget deficit in 2009."

(Perry) Even taking every last penny from every individual making more than $10 million per year would only reduce the nation's deficit by 12 percent and the debt by 2 percent.  There's simply not enough wealth in the community of the rich to erase this country's problems by waving some magic tax wand."

Bottom Line: As the WSJ points out, "If Warren Buffett wants to reduce the deficit, he should encourage policies to create more millionaires, not campaign to tax them more." 

And here's another post where Perry relates a Canadien perspective on the Buffet case. His point is mainly that Buffet pays too little in taxes, not because he's so rich, but because the US tax system is so poor.

The Obama plan to simply increase personal income tax rates on the rich and hike capital gains and dividend taxes will hurt rather than help growth. Higher personal tax rates will reduce the incentive to invest by entrepreneurs, who are most responsible for growth.  Capital gains and dividends (subject to federal-state personal tax rate of 20%) are currently highly taxed at more than 50% once taking into account the 39% corporate income tax rate that reduces the amount of profits distributed to shareholders or reinvested by the company. More double taxation of dividends and capital gains hurts the economy.

Already the highest-income taxpayers — about 5% of taxpayers — pay almost 60% of U.S. income taxes. The bottom half of the population pays only 3%. So any tax increase imposed on high-income earners should be in areas where some, like Warren Buffett, are paying far less than other wealthy individuals. Warren Buffett’s 17% tax rate results only because he gets a large number of breaks that other wealthier Americans, like doctors, cannot use.

Which gets to the main point. The United States needs major tax reform, rather than playing at the edges to make the system more progressive than it is already. U.S. income taxes are complex, inefficient and highly unfair. The statutory rates, once taking into account federal and state income and payroll taxes, are already high, even with the Bush tax cuts.  The problem is that too many targeted preferences reduce the amount of taxes paid, undermining economic growth.

The list of special preferences in the United States is mindboggling and could fill a book on how not to run a tax system. A major tax reform that lowers rather than increases personal and corporate tax rates and eliminates a number of special preferences would make the tax system more efficient and fair, and it would grow revenue over time by growing the economy.

Anyway, if you didn't watch it last week, watch this video now. It does a really good job encapsulating what needs to happen with tax reform and why.

Meet Us In Switzerland

Our flights were mostly uncomfortable, the day felt twice as long, and we were running on the fumes of the few hours of sleep that we had gotten in the prior two nights, but nothing could dampen the excitement of flying over new terrain that you know to be a world that would be new to the both of you. We landed in Zurich, Switzerland sometime around 8 AM on Friday. Our task now was to find the train that would take us to Bern, then to keep ourselves occupied until we would meet up with the Johnsons who were on their way from Germany. What we thought would be a minimum two hour train ride only turned out to be a half hour one. For about $100 Swiss Francs ($113 US) you would think that we would have been traveling a much farther distance, but this initial cost would hint at the high costs that everything in Switzerland would entail.

We arrived in Bern, the Swiss capitol, several hours ahead of the Johnsons. Exhausted, but excited to start wandering this new city and country, we had to find a place to unload our luggage. I was surprised that it took so long to find someone who spoke English who could direct us to where we could dump our stuff. I guess I am that Me-centric American that just assumes everyone would speak English. It was only a few minutes before we unloaded our things and began touring around on foot.

The were several highlights of Bern that day. One was the beach volleyball tournament that handed out the body wash and shampoo that I would use the rest of the trip. The train station had a very prominent Coke Zero promotion going on that whole day so anytime we needed a zero calorie, but tasty, pick-me-up all we had to do was walk through there. A public pool provided us with some shaded area and grass to perch ourselves, and a lovely lesson in how comfortable Europeans are with their bodies. Nicer still were the cobblestone streets, the gigantic cuckoo clock, local farmer's market, and the general taste of Swiss-European culture.

The arrival of the Johnsons was a nice boost to our travel-weary bodies. A family of 8 is always a spectacle in Europe as I would come to find out, but was an especially welcome sight when Amy and I had walked just about as far as we could walk while also not wanting to dish out more money just yet. With everyone together, we explored Bern with the help of Rick Steves. We went to the local cathedral and checked out the sights from up high. The warm weather left us desirous to jump in the river running right through the middle of the city, which was about when we realized that the locals commonly float the river as we saw some guys jumping off a bridge, the first one doing a backflip.

We left the city that evening to travel to what would be home for the next several nights. We had a lot of trouble before coming out finding a place that would not only accommodate 10 people, but also for a reasonable price. Given all of that, it shouldn't have been so surprising to find that our housing was everything that it was advertised as: a 400 year old farmhouse in a Swiss village not really close to anything. The ceilings were low. There would be no locking the front door at night, not just because the place was so safe, but because there was no lock anyway. But the place had its own charm and although we'd laugh about it for the rest of the weekend, it very adequately filled our needs.

The next day we visited Lauterbrunnen and took a gondola up to Mannlichen which is located up in the Swiss Alps. Before heading up we picked up lunch from a local Swiss grocery store. This place was so novel to me with all of its foreign (to me) products that I couldn't help but get excited about every item that I looked at. We eventually settled on salami and cheese sandwiches and a bunch of snacks that we had brought with us.

When I look back now on the pictures I'm still blown away at how amazing all of it is. From the peak we were on you could see down to some little Swiss villages, hear the clang of cowbells hanging from the necks of actual cows, and see the vast expanse of green lands and majestic peaks. It was really cool. What was supposed to be a 30 minute or so hike turned into a hike that lasted somewhere between one and two hours. I guess we were just enjoying the countryside from our perch on the side of the mountain.

After touring Lauterbrunnen for a bit, we had to forage for dinner. We eventually found a lakeside Italian restaurant that could serve us pizza for a very reasonable (for Switzerland) price. Amy and I got one that featured parmesan and gorgonzola cheese, with prosciutto and basil. So Italian, right? It hit the spot.

Our last day in Switzerland was on the Shabbat. We made our way out to Church that day, I forget where, but on the way we found a perfect spot to get some pictures of the cows that we could hear off in the distance from our rustic farmhouse. (Church was in Lausanne). Finding our lady photographers a curious sight, the cars pulled over and the cows wandered right up to the fence and Lisa and Amy were able to get some really great close-ups. They both lamented having to get back in the car for Church, but somehow pulled themselves away.

Church may have been my favorite part of the day. We happened to be in the French speaking part of Switzerland and without any hesitation or prompting, one of the young men who had blessed the sacrament was translating all of sacrament meeting for us. I was just so impressed by him and touched that he would serve us so unflinchingly. During the meeting I heard an American name I recognized mentioned in a French accent. Not thinking I would ever randomly run into someone I know on the other side of the world, I didn't think anything of it, that is, until the end of the meeting when I looked back and it was my freshman high school English teacher whose father was in my home ward growing up. I couldn't believe it. We had some fun catching up, and then I started talking to one of the missionaries in the ward. He impressed me so much. His family is Chilean so we had a connection there, and then he was also from Southern California, so he and I both had a good little conversation.

Turns out vacation church is some of my favorite kind of church. It's just so cool making connections with people, new and old, and seeing how easy it is to connect with other people in spite of cultural and language barriers when we all have a common gospel connection. It's inspiring and fortifying.

Lunch ended up being hosted by a local gas station in Montreaux on our way to the Chateau de Chillon that sits perched on the side of Lake Geneva. The gas station food turned out to be some of the best we had in Switzerland. The Chateau was just gorgeous and fun to tour through. I loved hearing (or was it reading?) the stories about famous writers from previous centuries visiting that same castle. Lord Byron was so inspired by a prisoner's story that he wrote a ballad about him, The Prisoner of Chillon. I'm pretty sure I heard Victor Hugo's name at every place we went. That guy seemed to get around.

And we ended that night playing Dominion. Always Dominion. I love that game. Loved Switzerland. For Amy's pics in Switzerland and blogposts, go here, here, and here. 

Monday, Monday, Bah, Dah....

You know that song, right? And onward...

For all of you who have been waiting to get one ever since you saw the Rocketeer, you're about to be very satisfied. The Martin Jetpack goes on sale in 2012 for $100,000. If you're worried about where you might be able to fly this thing or whether it's "street" legal, worry no more. It will comply with FAA regulations. You'll be able to fly up to 63 mph with a flight time of 30 minutes. Go here for more info.

My life is weird right now. The work I do doesn't have much to speak of in the way of tangible output. I have my own schedule that I set. I basically do what I want when I want. I've never had things this unstructured before. I'm getting used to it. I came up with a spreadsheet to divide up my time, downloaded an online timer that stresses the Pomodoro Technique, and have my whiteboard with my To Do's listed (I know that's not possessive, but it looks weird just as "Dos," right?). It's still weird though. My time will be divided between on-campus office hours, grading papers, working on my thesis, working on my fellowship, and now studying for the GMAT. It should be enough to keep me busy, but I'm still figuring out how to manage this stuff.

Speaking of GMAT, I talked with a few people I know that are recently enrolled in this year's MBA class. They couldn't have been more excited about what they were doing. I'm still leaning that way, but not decided yet. We'll see, but in the interim I have lots of math to brush up on.

I bought the STP greatest hits album the other day after discovering that I don't own have any digital copies of their music. It surprised me because I had a few of their tapes. You read that right: tapes. Anyway, I've been digging on this song lately:

Which has led me back to this song that I just loved during high school. In the mid-late 90's there was a Led Zeppelin tribute album and this was their contribution. I just loved it.

And then one last thing. Read this article from a pro-lifer over in the UK writing for the Spectator. You just don't get the same kind of writing here in the US. I just wanted post a few excerpts:

If you’re still convinced that all abortions, even the late ones for babies with hare-lips, are good, then here’s a question: how do you feel about killing kittens? I ask because it’s often abortion’s greatest fans who feel most indignant on behalf of animals. They’ll go to the wall to save a chicken-killing fox from hounds, but sod the babies. There was a story last year about a group of scientists who had decided that dolphins were so intelligent that they should be given official rights. ‘The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin relations,’ said the zoologist. Well great, let’s fund an inquiry into dolphin rights, I’m all for it. But what about that group of pre-born living beings whose neuroanatomy might suggest an even greater psychological continuity with our own?

If you want cold-blooded reason, look at it another way. A utilitarian calculus would, I’m pretty sure, tell you that the most ethical thing to do with an unwanted pregnancy, what would make most people most happy, is for the reluctant mother to carry an unwanted baby to full term and give it up for adoption. The adopted parents will be thrilled, and their happiness has every chance of lasting a lifetime — longer than the biological mother’s discomfort. And then there’s the child’s happiness to consider. It’s daft to ask which it would prefer — what would you prefer? Anyone would rather be adopted than aborted. To suggest otherwise is to spit in the eye of life.

That’s what I think of this very gung-ho attitude to abortion — it’s just bloody ungrateful. A spit in the eye of life. Yes, nature’s pretty cruel, but no sane, well-fed bitch would kill her healthy puppy because its lip was twisted. There’s a tragicomic horror about a society in which every year a few couples undertake the incredible business of making a new human, only to throw it away because a tiny bit of it’s folded wrong, and you know, the corrective operation might leave a scar. But far worse is a society in which even to raise some doubts about this is to be considered a laughable lunatic. The best and only explanation I can come up with is that secretly we all know this; we know the current consensus is wrong, but it’s just easier to stay in denial.

Just thought that was interesting. See ya!

Paul Ryan Explains Economics

Paul Ryan is a rising star in the GOP. He's a representative from Wisconsin and he is doing a better job than any other politician of clearly explaining economics. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, he is leading the way in economic political discourse by coming out with a series of videos explaining how America can get back on the path to prosperity. You can find the committee's YouTube page here.

This is the third video in that series of videos that explains tax reform and loopholes. Even if you're not interested in politics, this is explained in a way that's very accessible to the common citizen. It's amazing to be honest. It's really great. Please watch at least this video:

A Celebration...About Time!

I had a dream last night, I don't even remember the rest of the details of it, but the essential message was that I didn't get the sports consulting fellowship. I was really bummed in my dream. The reason they gave was insufficient funding, which I thought was weird because it's already an unpaid fellowship, so how do you get cheaper than free, right? I was disappointed, but I accepted it pretty quickly and felt like I was content to move on to other things, even after I had woken up.

I had a phone interview the Friday almost two weeks before we left for Europe, so that was August 26th or thereabouts. The guy said he'd let me know the following Monday. When I got no call, I followed up to let him know that I would be out of the country until the 11th. At first I was nervous when I didn't hear back, but then he let me know that he was also out of the country and would be getting back to me.

When we came back from our trip and I still hadn't heard anything, I thought that was a good sign because I figured if I didn't get it, I would have just gotten an email saying I missed the cut. But after a few days of being back and not hearing anything, I got nervous again, hence, the dream.

Then about a half hour ago an email notification popped up and the guy's name with the word "Congratulations" was immediately invisible and I got really excited after that. How do you celebrate at about 8:30 in the morning when everyone is at work and doing stuff, and you don't see anyone online?


The work is basically this: I will be assisting some professors at the University of Pittsburgh in research and manuscript authoring in behavioral trait research as it relates to sports. I will work directly with a senior member of the company and gain greater knowledge and experiences within the greater sports industry. Fun, right?

It's only 15 hours a week and I set my own schedule so I'm excited as this is just another resume builder for the next few months and one that could potentially lead to work directly related to my degree field in something that sounds right up my alley. I have to say, it's just really validating to get job offers and opportunities. When everything first started to unfold and it was looking like I was a shoe-in, I was feeling really confident about my career path and opportunities, but when it started to peter a bit, I was left feeling unsure of myself.

Don't worry though, because I'm feeling back on top of things. It's a nice feeling.

Back in the Saddle

Well, we're back. I have to say, I think it's so much easier to adjust to the time difference traveling back west than it is to go east. I don't think I ever really got used to being on Germany time, but after just the first night back, I feel like I'm already back to MST.

The trip was a blast. Switzerland is beautiful. The one piece of France we saw was so quaint. And Germany was just awesome. I had repeatedly had the thought that of all of the places to live in Europe, Germany has to be at or near the top of the list. Stable country and economy. Beautiful countryside. Rich history, even if some of it is simply awful. But just all around great and near so many cool places.

Our trip involved the following:

• 7 Rick Steve's walking tours
• Hike in the Alps
• A palace and 5 castles
• 5 or more cathedrals
• Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, Rise of the Nazi Museum in Nuremberg, and Museum of Torture in Rothenburg
• The night watchman tour in Rothenburg
• A bundesliga game in Stuttgart
• At least 10 hours of Dominion
• Many croissants, crusty roll sandwiches, some streussel, and some kind of turkey or pork steak with handmade noodles
• And pictures. Many, many pictures

Amy is working on her pics, and I'll link to her blog and post some of those on here also, and I'll start working on my account of our time in Europe.

And that's your preview, folks.

Time To Move On

Time to get going, what lies ahead...

Yesterday was my last day at the COB. Some things I'll miss about being up there every week, 2-3 times a week, in no particular order:

• The cafeteria. I LOVED their sugar cookies, and I loved the sandwich bar they had. Just great soft bread with a bunch of different meats and veggies. So great. That was my last meal there yesterday.
• Knowing the going ons of Public Affairs and the things that they're up to. Sitting in on meetings and hearing how thoughtful and in tune the employees of the Church are. So impressive.
• The people. Always people are what you miss about places, right?

Some things I won't miss:

• The time drain of going to and from Salt Lake. 

I think I'll leave that as the only thing, if only to emphasize just how nice it will be to have the rest of my schedule free up. I want to make significant headway on thesis and finish that in the next six months. I'm also still keeping my fingers crossed about that sports consulting fellowship. Was supposed to hear back Monday, but turns out the guy is out of the country. 

One thing I also really appreciated was how going up there somehow made that distance between Utah Valley and Salt Lake City seem not nearly as long as it used to be. I like downtown Salt Lake. I like the difference from the valley here. It's not the chore to go up there that it once was to me.

And I'll be moving on tomorrow to Europe! Woo woo! Amy and I head out in the morning for the next bit and we couldn't be more thrilled. Just some packing ahead of the both of us, and then about 17 hours of traveling later and we'll be in Zurich, Switzerland, trying to find our way around. Should be lots of fun.

I'll be taking a break for the next while, so until our happy returns, have a great one dearhearts!

Fun Work News for Me

So my time at the COB is wrapping up next Tuesday. Wow, NEXT Tuesday. I can't believe it's been a whole year. I thought it would be a little more bittersweet for me, but mostly it's just tasting kind of sweet right now. The intern I replaced last year expressed a lot of excitement about being done with the internship, and I can understand why now.

Although the work is interesting, the people are great, and most everything about it is really satisfying, it's also a big drain on my time and energy. I guess I'm in a different mindset than someone who is looking for a place of employment in which to reside permanently. I still have my program to finish up, and I'm not sure that it's a place I'd like to work at long term.

So with the imminent end of my internship looming, I've been thinking about what additional kinds of work experiences I might be able to get to continue to beef up my resume that might carry me from this year to next. (The life of a student is funny that way. Not a lot of permanence, just kind of whatever gets me from here to there, assuming that there is always a there to be had, and that here is not for long.) I've been considering changing course in my degree program, maybe applying to the MBA program and dropping the PhD, and whatever else out there might be available to me. In doing so, I've been keeping my eyes open to new opportunities.

I just didn't really expect for anything to line up in such a timely manner. I've been on a couple of email lists for a long time. One through university recruiting services and the other through the MBA school. Both of them have not been very fruitful thus far. Judging opportunities by the subject line, I rarely even opened the emails themselves, and when I did, they were rarely worth even the few seconds I took to look at them. Until last week.

Last Monday something came up in Sandy that seemed related to my experience in HR that I thought might be a good fit. Then only a few hours later an internship opportunity came up from a sports consulting firm based out of Chicago. I couldn't believe it. I wanted to apply to both. I updated my resume for the first time in more than a year, and I shot off my one response to the sports consulting opportunity. I didn't bother with the HR one. Less than a day later I got a response telling me that they liked my resume, and that I had to complete an assignment by this upcoming Friday. Doing so would likely get me the job. I can do the job remotely, so I don't even have to worry about a commute. Woo!

The company itself is in the business of helping athletes improve at their sports. Check them out here. They do a lot of research into things like what predicts success in the NHL, what mental traits determine success on the field, understanding the value of ground balls, among other things. Knowing me, it sounds like a perfect fit, right? I can do academic type research into what makes an athlete successful. Sign me up! The only downside is that it's not paid, but it's not a huge commitment in terms of hours per week or duration of internship. We'll see if it works out.

Then in one of my final meetings at the COB today, my boss mentioned bringing me back some time in the future as a consultant for future projects. Cool, right?

I feel so fortunate to have such cool opportunities. It feels funny sharing about it here, but it's what I'm most excited about right now, so there you go.

Recap: Walton Family Party In Reno

Warning: Will be boring for anyone who isn't interested in personal details about my life.

We made our way out to Reno last week for some Walton family togetherness last Wednesday and got back this past Sunday. Why Reno, you ask? It's not as bad as you might think. Check that. As I might have thought. For outdoor enthusiasts, apparently, it has a lot of things that those types might enjoy. I'll tell you one thing though - that drive between here and there is quite mind-numbing. I don't understand the draw for some people to go to Wendover. That place is garbage. It's like a mini Las Vegas but without any of the fun of Vegas, so what's leftover is cigarette smoke indoors. Gross, right?

Anyway, Reno was a lot of fun. All of Amy's immediate family made it out with the exception of the Johnsons who still reside in lovely Germany. Many games were played including Seafarers, Bang, and Telephone Charades. We went to a terrible waterpark one day, which still was a lot of fun, and then we went to Lake Tahoe the next.

Tahoe, I think, had to be my favorite part. I have never swum in water so fresh. I've been to Tahoe several times on ski trips, so I have some fond memories there, but of the lake itself, I have none. One thing I do remember is the flight attendants always saying as we were about to land was that Lake Tahoe is among the freshest bodies of water in all of the world. It sure does taste like it. Swimming in there felt like what I'd imagine it to be like swimming in bottled water. It was amazing. And just so crystal clear, no matter what depth you're at. I swam out to a buoy and even in that deeper area you could see straight down to the lake floor. We did some rock jumping there, and the kids never seemed to tire of playing in the sand just kind of crawling around on the shore. Then again, when do kids ever get tired of that?

We played many games of ping pong. Amy and I were able to score some new wardrobe items at the outlet mall. And Reno is home to what is supposed to be the world's largest sporting goods store. I believe it. It's like if you were to walk into a huge Macey's dedicated to all things sports. And fudge. And home decor. And some other random things.

One thing the Reno trip conjured up for me though was that I'm on a mighty losing streak. I'm not faring well in board games, ping pong, or any other type of competitive venture. It's kind of irritating.

Last thing: the Walton family is amazing. I tell Amy this all of the time, but it's amazing to be around an entire family that all loves being together so much, and who are in themselves, all so easy to get along with. Even all of the in-laws are really, really awesome. I could hang out with Elisha or Sarah all day long if I had to. They're just all so great. They have come from that kind of circumstances their whole lives, so I wonder if they (YOU) all realize what an amazing, amazing blessing that is. It's incredible to be around a family that is so stable and loving toward one another. It's not just a facade. They're like that all of the time. It kind of throws me off sometimes, but of course I just love it.

The trip was especially fun for me because I feel like I was able to form some closer bonds with Dan and Sarah's girls, not to mention most of the rest of Amy's family. And I can't wait for Germany next week so that I get to do the same with the Johnsons. Fun, fun.

Magical Mystery Tour

Ours is continuing to Reno later this afternoon. We just spent a weekend in California with wonderful family and friends, attending an awesome wedding, and just having a great time. This weekend it's Reno. Two weeks it's Europe! Woo woo!

Life is just great. We have trips and such planned through the second weekend of October. Just about every weekend between now and then is booked and I just love it.

Something I've been wanting to comment on that I don't have time for right now: I have several friends getting back into lengthy relationships after having done the break-up and get back together cycle multiple times. Don't worry. It's not any of you that I'm talking about. I haven't even spoken with either of these people in months, but it still breaks my heart nonetheless. These are people who have been in relationships that have gone on for longer than a year and have broken up and gotten back together more than five times (which in itself should tell you something about the relationship, right? Stability, people! That's what we're shooting for with long-term relationships).

A word to the wise, or to the oft-lonely and broken-hearted: Do not get into or stay in a relationship because you're feeling lonely. The old adage, it's better to be in no relationship than a bad one, is still true. And it only gets more true with marriage. Be not faithless, but believing! If you think that it's God's plan for you to one day get married, then let his plan work itself out for you. The worst problems arise when we are trying to assert our will above His own.

I was talking to a friend of mine today and he's training to become a clinical psychologist. Not that it really makes him smarter about relationships, but he does spend a lot of time observing people. I mentioned this pattern to him and he said that he thought that people often get caught into bad situations when they can't envision for themselves anything better than what they're currently getting. Makes total sense, right? So envision for yourself great things! Envision for yourself happiness and security and a healthy life-balance and eventually you'll happen upon it. Don't settle for mediocrity, or think you can't do better unless that's what you really desire. Dream great things! Work towards that and you'll eventually find it.

Sorry for that. I just hope that we can all desire more for ourselves. I was talking with a coworker yesterday and he asked me simply, "what kind of difference do you want to make?" And then we had a long conversation about what we would like to do and the visions that we have for ourselves. It left me feeling inspired, and made me wonder how much alignment I've had in my life lately between my day-to-day and what I'm working for in a year, or five, or 20.

My mission president always used to say, "if you have petty thoughts, when will you ever have time to achieve great things?" Small minds live simple lives. Desire and yearn for great things! I think we all deserve it.

I'm done now. Have a great week(end), dear ones!




(I just love this song, Actually, this album. Just great. Beatles are great.)

The Gathering of Israel

There are a lot of things on Facebook that just bug me. I'm talking about comments that people make on their statuses, especially political ones. I was just telling Amy the other day that I hate bumper stickers. Even when I agree with them, I just don't like seeing them because I don't really think that we need to be inflicting our opinions on people at every opportunity. (Obviously I feel differently about the blog, because you intentionally come here, although I'm not entirely sure why, but I do appreciate it. Anyway, it's your choice to have my opinion inflicted upon you.)

I don't mind articles or videos because they're at least informative, but I just hate statements that people make because they inevitably are going to fire someone up, right? And you may be surprised by this, but a lot of people just don't know what they're talking about. They just don't. Surprise! Most of the time I feel like I can just brush things off.

And then there are other times when something just sets my on fire.

I think to myself that there is no way that I can't respond to such and such inane comment about the government or whatever. That person has to know that someone else has an opinion in direct conflict with what he's saying. That's when I chime in, and fifty or ninety comments later, it's over. I'll usually participate for about a dozen or so responses, and then I'm done. Mostly because I don't want all the email notifications.

I have one friend whose comments I just cannot stand. I like him in real life, but his online persona bothers me to no end. I vehemently disagree with everything that he says.

This brings me to my point. I started thinking about this yesterday after speaking up on Facebook, about how some people become so grossly misguided about governance, politics, and the like. Disagreements about politics was a driving force behind so many of the wars in the Book of Mormon. In the last half of Alma, it talks a lot about the kingmen and how they lobbied for power, but the freemen put down their rebellion for the sake of the Nephite nation. It is this same kind of conflict over freedoms that prompted the pilgrims to settle in America. It's what prompts most of the world conflict today. And it will be what precipitates and serve as the cause for the wars and rumors of wars that will precede the Second Coming.

You can see evidence of it by the way the country divides itself politically. The borders of the country are clearly blue states (Democratic) while the red (Republican) states are in the mostly central part of the United States. There is not a perfect delineation between the people in these areas, obviously, but it's becoming more polarized, and you can see moving patterns that suggest that people do move their residence towards friendlier political climates. Texas has seen a huge surge in moving because they support conservative principles, so there is a huge shift in people moving from places (California, especially) for that purpose. That's based on actual data, although I'm not going to bother finding the source right now.

This is how the gathering will occur. People don't realize it, but it's truly that way. In the coming years, people will continue to coalesce into like-minded groups and they'll be receptive to the gospel because much of what propelled them to gather to where they have will be based on the ideals that they share in their localities. That's how it's happened before, and will continue to play out in the future.

It's just amazing to me to think about the signs of the times and how watching current events will give so much insight about how things in the scriptures are, indeed, coming to pass. You can see the patterns unfold and the circumstances develop to where those events prophesied of in the future will eventually come to pass, how it will occur.

The gathering is happening. It's going on right now. People don't need to be told by a prophet to go to certain areas because they can already anticipate the changes that are unfolding. They sense the shifting ideals in the places where they live and will go to new areas that will be more welcoming for their kind. This is as true for those with the gospel as those without.

I just hope that it's in a place with nice weather and a body of water nearby.

Kersploosh!

Can you believe this character....




Is the same as this one...




Or this one?



For the record, I actually really, really love the TV show. It's so campy and goofy and just wonderful. And, I also really loved Michael Keaton as Batman, way more, in fact, than Val Kilmer or George Clooney.

Anyway, just that first clip was awesome, and then it blew me away to think that these were all supposed to be the same character. For the dorks out there who read this, they're all correct. Batman in the comics was at one point that campy, cartoony character, but then in the 80s Frank Miller reinvented him as the dark character we've become more familiar with in his graphic novel, The Dark Knight returns. There ya go.

Life in a Day

One of my favorite blog reads these days has been the National Geographic Travel blog. I know that I've said that a few times before on here. They always post fun things on there, this movie trailer being one of them and I thought I'd advertise it for y'all. Something about it made me feel kind of emotional. It looks so interesting to me. And then I lamented that we don't really have more independent theaters around here even though the Sundance Film Festival takes place right around the corner from us. Weird.

A caption for the video reads:

What happens when you send a request out to the world to chronicle, via video, a single day on Earth? You get 80,000 submissions and 4,500 hours of footage from 192 countries. Producer Ridley Scott and Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald took this raw material — all shot on July 24, 2010 — and created Life in a Day, a groundbreaking, feature-length documentary that portrays this kaleidoscope of images we call life. National Geographic is bringing it to theaters starting July 24, 2011. Prepare to be amazed.

Amy and I went on a date with a couple that lives downstairs from us. They just got married about a month ago and I think we're going to become really good friends with them. Couples dating is really funny. We walked down one night and invited them to dinner and to play games with us and it felt like asking for a date. Amy and I had a post-game chat afterwards about how much we liked them. You know what else? They asked for the next date with us while we were still on the date, so you know that one went well. Plus, they friended us on FB the very next morning.

Really, we have been so blessed to have so many people around us that we love spending time with. We are never hurting for things to do or people to hang out with, and I couldn't love it more. The people in our lives are easily the greatest blessings that we have, of which there are many. It's really great.

Sundry Comments from NRO Contributors on Marriage

As a response to what happened in New York recently these writers write the following.

Ed Whelan:

The idea that a man could “marry” another man (or that a woman could “marry” another woman) could be taken seriously only in a culture that has become deeply confused about what marriage is. That confusion is largely the result of what heterosexuals have done to marriage in recent decades. It will not be easy to rebuild a sound marriage culture. But the spread of same-sex marriage would make that rebuilding project impossible, as it would sever permanently the societal understanding of the inherent link between marriage and responsible procreation and child-rearing. The more confusion there is about the mission of marriage, the less well marriage will perform its critical mission. And the millions and millions of victims — children born into unstable or nonexistent families — will continue to pile up, with all the attendant disastrous consequences.

Matthew Franck:

What has been gained by the forces behind this act? Certainly not marriage for same-sex couples. They have gained a name, but not the thing it names. They have only destroyed a word’s meaning. And they have harmed the thing it does name, by teaching — one of the things the law does — that marriage has no connection to children and families, but instead is just a bundle of privileges from the government, to be taken up if it is in one’s self-interest. New York has struck a great blow, in the name of a false “right,” against real freedom. Same-sex marriage is inseparable from authoritarianism, as we will see when New York’s Christians, Jews, and Muslims lose the religious freedom to act on the truth about marriage as they know it.

Glen Stanton:

Marriage is so much more than a religious, Western, conservative, modern, or legal idea. Anthropologist Donald Brown, in his book, Human Universals, examining the qualities that all cultures at all times hold in common given their shared humanity, lists marriage as one of these universals. And for all the varied ways that different cultures have done marriage, one thing remains commonly consistent – or at least it did until the last few nanoseconds of our human experience. Marriage always brought the two amazing and mysteriously distinct parts of humanity together into an exclusive, socially valued, and protective union. Marriage has always existed to solve the paradox that humanity exists in male and female. 

Each of the couples we will see on Sunday — together with the New York legislature which enacted this new law — is proclaiming with a loud and powerful voice that male and female are now merely sentimental terms. Have a husband and wife, mother and father in your family if you like, but no one really needs them anymore. Male and female become to the family what the service agreement on your new SUV is: optional, based on your personal preference. This is exactly what New York marriage law now teaches, and it will not be without widespread consequence. How can it not?

Just thought those were some interesting points. Emphases are my own. For the whole article, go here.

Sasha and Twitch

One from last week's performance episode. I love Sasha, and anything that Twitch does has me sold too. It's just another one of those where everything just intersects perfectly - dancers, choreography, music, and performance. Loved, loved, loved this one.

Barefoot Running

This is all for you, Laura. Before I forgot to say anything about it. Yes, I've read Born to Run, and read some other things about the barefoot running revolution. These are all just my person opinions. I'm not an expert, but I guess I have some idea about this stuff. Here's my take on it:

If it isn't broke, then don't fix it, right? If you're running and everything is feeling okay, meaning that when you are in decent shape, you can run 3-5 miles without any unusual kind of pain, then it seems that regular running shoes work well enough, right? I have run 4 marathons. I'm partial to the Brooks brand of shoes. I have a neutral gait, so everything works pretty well for me.

I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. One of the biggest reasons why people get injured is because they don't have the muscle composition to support the activity that they are doing. Being strong and having good muscle tone is the biggest factor in preventing injury. I think I've been able to run with so little injury concerns is that I've always done running activities my whole life, and before I even took up running, I was regularly working out 4-5 times a week. That, in addition to eating well, are the two biggest factors in allowing a person to exercise without injury concerns.

Anyway, the people who are the most fit are fit in every way. That's what's so good about people who do Cross Fit, because it's a whole body work-out regimen. That's why triathletes are so fit, because they are wholly fit. They can run, bike, and swim. The best runners are the ones who can do all of those things, and will do a variety of different kinds of runs - hill work, speed work, long runs, interval training, etc. Running only short runs, doesn't necessarily mean you are fit. It just means that you can do short runs. And runners should try and run on a variety of different surfaces: grass, sand, dirt, asphalt, etc.

I think the same applies to barefoot running. Although the type of stride is different when running barefoot as opposed to running in shoes, I think it gives you dimension in the way your body can bend, flex, react, and absorb different patterns of running.

I'm actually interested in trying it out at some point, just to see if it can help me add some depth to my running. The Vibram 5 fingers are popular. I think I'm most interested in some of the other minimalist running alternatives. The Nike Free shoes sound pretty cool, Nike Zooms, FeelMax, among others. I think all the major brands are coming out with their own variety.

Anyway, take it for what it's worth.

Deseret News Marathon

I had all kinds of hesitations about this race. I was worried about the race temperature because of a mid-summer race time; I was worried about how that temperature would affect my training; More recently I've been worried about how an achy back from sleeping on a bad mattress would affect my running. There were a number of things concerning me.

And all of that has contributed a lot lately to just not wanting to run much recently. I got through my 20+ long runs, but my most recent one was my worst ever. I couldn't run the whole time. I had weird chills going through my back and shoulders. I just really struggled with it. My previous one was fine, but it just really left me not feeling very confident at all about my training.

Flash forward to this morning. We got a nice hotel room at a nearby Marriott and Amy took me at 3:00 to catch the 3:15 AM shuttle up to the start of the race. The temperature was fine down in the valley, but we started from Big Mountain which is 7000 feet higher in elevation, so I was pretty cold up at the top. I had about an hour and a half to kill before the start time which would be at 5:30 AM.

One of my favorite things about running these races are the random little friends you make along the way. I happened to meet a guy named Carlos, about age 30, from Brazil, also running his fourth marathon, also in a Phd program. Turned out we had a lot of things in common and we talked for about 30 minutes, and then we ran about the first 5 miles together before he dropped off behind me.

I felt okay for the first half of the marathon. I did have to go to the bathroom once, which is not great, but once I did that I didn't have much problem with my digestive system afterwards. My first half was about 1:50 or so. Not great, but okay considering that I wasn't trying to set any PRs this marathon. And that's when the struggles began.

Around mile 17 we finally got out of the mountains, crossed up around, over, and passed Hogle Zoon, and I was just having the hardest time. I was not in the right kind of shape for this marathon. My calves were tightening and I had to stretch them out a couple of times. The quadriceps become your shock absorbers when you are going down an incline, and mine were just shot. I told Amy that the very fastest I would run would be 8 minute miles, but I was nowhere near that. I was between 9-10 minutes from 17-22, and then almost 10 through the end of the race.

The night before the race we had seen the mile marker for 21 which was right by our hotel, so I was pretty sure I would see my wife there. I thought really hard about just giving up when I saw her. I was worried about having her get back to work at a decent time, and I really was just dying. I knew that I could finish a marathon so that wasn't a motivating factor for me to get through the end. I knew that I wasn't going to break any records either. To tell you the truth, I'm really not sure what it was that kept me going through the end. I knew that I would have a horrible time, and it's actually kind of humbling for me to acknowledge finishing at such a slow pace for me, especially when I remember how old and slow the runners were who I ended up finishing with.

My first half put me on a 3:45 finish time, but my second half slowed down to a near crawl, closing up at 2:24, so a full half hour longer than my first half for a total time of 4:14. I walked a lot of the last few miles, but I did manage to run most of the last couple miles, albeit at a very slow pace.

I thought the course was really pretty. For a small marathon, I actually thought it was pretty good. So far the Long Beach marathon is my least favorite of them all. The weather was very, very accommodating today too. I think the race start temperature was in the low 70s, and was overcast at the end, maybe high 70s.

I finished it. This was by far my hardest marathon. This was about 100x harder than running the 3:28 in St. George was last October. I didn't have enough training for this one. The 7000 feet of descent just destroyed my legs to the point that I couldn't really run on them from mile 17-18 on. I was in so much pain, in fact, that I was just about in tears following the race. I didn't have much cramping afterwards because that actually came during the race. It was just really, really hard, but I did it. I finished it, even though I didn't have anything to really prove, other than the fact that I'm just kind of stubborn. This is going to sound dumb, but I think my two biggest motivators were that I knew Amy had to get back to work, and I wasn't going to see her anywhere else other than the finish line, and that I wanted the finisher's medal. I wanted to have this race under my belt and say that I had run it, even though it just about killed me to do it, and I'm not proud about my time or how poorly prepared I was for it.

I'm happy I did it. I didn't injure anything. No muscle pulls/strains, and my joints are all okay. Everything is pretty sore, and climbing down stairs is a huge chore, but that's always the case with marathons. Amy asked me immediately after I finished if I wanted to run another, or take a break for awhile. I just told her that I couldn't answer that question yet. It really is the furthest thing from my mind at that point. All I could think about was how much everything was hurting.

My sincerest thanks goes to my wife. I hope she already knows that. I think I thanked her at least several times on the way home. Thanks also to all of the wonderful, wonderful volunteers, especially the policemen directing all of the traffic for us slow runners even though we totally held people up. They never made me wait at an intersection, and they really were just so cool the whole time. I really do want to volunteer more for race support at these things. I can't even say how much I appreciate all of the people who help out through the whole thing. Thanks to the random girls at about mile 23 who were handing out Otter Pops. That really did save me at the time, even though it did make me walk.

And thanks, race people, for playing Milli Vanilli when I was running through the finish. Now this song will be associated with the Deseret News Marathon for me.

Overcoming Pride

Sometimes I take the bus to work. Every time I take the bus to work, I end up getting pretty good naps in. While it takes a little bit longer to take the bus (a little over an hour, as compared to about 45 minutes driving myself), I don't have to pay for gas because of my awesome bus pass that only cost $100 and is good for the whole year. The biggest selling point for the bus, however, is that I get to take a couple of good naps. Frankly, I'm amazed at how rested I feel with them even though the seating is just a little bit tighter than is comfortable, and it's mostly upright. 

Well, sometimes I'm really sleepy on the bus, even after I take my nap. And sometimes I wake up a little late and miss my exit. It's never been more than one or two exits which is not a bad walk.

But maybe this time I woke up and nothing looked immediately familiar to me. And maybe this time I realized that I was almost in Orem, which would be about two cities over from my home destination of Pleasant Grove. With my wife out of town, I didn't have the obvious person to call, but there were still others that I know in the area that could have helped me out.

Sometimes I'm prideful, so prideful, in fact, that I would rather just walk the two plus miles in my suit and in about 90 degree weather. 

Sometimes I think I have too much pride. And then sometimes I post things on my blog and I think that if I can laugh a little bit about my plight, then maybe I'm overcoming my pride. 

Just a little bit.

This and That

• I was reading an article about sprinting a week or so ago. A researcher of the mechanics of running said that the root of sprinting is essentially how hard your feet hit the ground. He then said that the world record holder in the 100m hits the ground with more than 1000 lbs of force with each stride he takes. 1000 lbs!
• But in the end, humans are naturally adapted to running long distances. This is our evolutionary advantage over other animals. We're not even close to being able to run faster than other animals, but we can run much longer than any of them over long distances. Even horses.
• Read this post yesterday about what brick and mortar restaurants and Borders bookstores have in common. A hint: adaptability.
• There is a trailer for the Amazing Spiderman movie that is coming out next summer. It looks cool, but I can't believe they're rebooting the series so soon. It's been less than 10 years since the first, and I thought that one was really good to begin with, soooo...why the reboot?
  
• I run a marathon in 4 days. I'm feeling okay about it. 
• I miss my wife. She's been gone since Sunday. My house is quiet. I think the solution is for us to get a dog to keep me company.
• I love these:
  
  
  
• Funny how white that audience is, isn't it? Like totally white. As evidenced by the dancing.

That's it. That's all I got.

The End Is Here: HP 7.2

Amy and I caught the last Harry Potter movie on Friday. It was really good. It's hard when expectations are skyscraper high, but I think mine were just about evenly met. What's really nice about the movies is that they are able to stand alone. Having read the books, you can watch the movies and still really enjoy them without feeling like they didn't get it right. And you can probably watch the movies without having read the books and still be quite entertained. They do a really great job with all of it.

I can understand that the nature of the story is not one that grips every reader/watcher. Fantasy and magic and wizards and witches just may not be your cup of tea. At the same time I still have a hard time understanding when people feel like the series is overrated. Set aside the thing about how Rowling creates this whole alternate world and weaves a wonderfully fantastic tale through 4200 pages of literature. Every time I revisit the story I remember how perfectly she illustrates core principles and values that everybody should cherish and yearn for more of always - loyalty, devotion, determination, courage, among others. Are those not things that we yearn for?

I wrote this post a couple years ago when I got through reading the series, and I still feel this way now:

Several years ago Orson Scott Card spoke at a symposium at BYU. From what I can remember, his topic focused mainly on the importance of fiction and how it shapes societal trends and values. He brought up an example from the TV show Friends when Ross's ex-wife gets married to her lesbian partner. The ceremony is performed, and sanctioned by a religious minister, and one of the father's of one of the bride's attends in his military uniform. Symbolically then, the show portrays the acceptance of same-sex marriage by both religious and government leaders. This was not by accident.

Card's point in this example is that fiction often presents the breeding ground where ideas and principles are placed. How we embrace the stories put forth often leads to the adoption of the associated ethics and morals that are on display in the piece of fiction, and conversely, our rejection of the story necessarily leads to the denial of those same values. I've made this point on here before, so I'll spare you the same argument again other than to simply say, it's not ever just a story/book/movie/tv show. Our patronage of these products facilitates their growth and acceptance, not of just the final product but what values they promote.

My point (as well as Card's) in bringing all of this up is that Harry Potter is the kind of story that we should want to embrace. It is the kind of book that parents should be reading to children. Not only is the story itself very compelling and entertaining, but Harry is truly a heroic character in spite of the flaws that Rowling clearly portrays him having. He constantly sacrifices, conquers in the face of heartbreaking tragedy, and triumphs over evil. His friends perfectly characterize loyalty and devotion. The story deftly illustrates good and evil and the type of dedication that is required to overcome. Rowling draws from her own loss of her mother to describe Harry's struggles with loss. In the form of the dementors she personifies the suffocating effects of clinical depression. It really is amazing how much real life is captured in her fictional books. I love love love these stories.

And the story really is so much about relationships. You see it when Professor McGonagall stands up to Snape. You see it in (spoiler!) Snape's relationship with Harry's mother and how much he cares for the boy, but Rowling does so well to keep that point hidden until the very end, when it becomes most crucial to the plotline. You see it with Harry and his friends, Harry and Dumbledore, Harry and everyone else in the story. And then of course there is the contrarsting example of healthy relationships that is portrayed through Voldemort and all of his followers. His hold was always tenuous at best over his minions simply because he governed through fear when love is obviously such a greater tactic. The flaws of his leadership is characterized best by the Malfoys who desert him in the end because of the love that they share with one another, even though they may hate Harry.

This series reminds me of growing up reading the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid. I just loved Peter's courage and I wanted to be him. Obviously Aslan was an inspiring symbol as he was used to represent the Savior. But this is my point. So much teaching comes through these stories, and we could do worse than to have kids wanting to be like Harry, to be the kind friends that Ron and Hermione were, and to entertain ourselves through literature that supports the kind of values that we hope to perpetuate.