May 2013 - Toronto

The Dark Knight Rises

I can't believe  how excited I am about this movie. I guess the last movie I was this excited for was either the last Dark Knight movie, or maybe even Inception. Christopher Nolan can simply do no wrong. I have never had such consistently high expectations and had them so consistently met at the same time.

The amount of hype surrounding the movie is crazy. Tonight, at our local theater, there will be 11 showings at the midnight hour, meaning every screen in that movie theater will be showing The Dark Knight Rises. I've never seen anything like that before. I'm not even sure that The Avengers had that kind of hype.

Rotten Tomatoes shows reviews at around 87%, which is really great.

I just can't wait. Just over 30 hours to go. I'm so glad we're going to see it in the IMAX.

Summer Has Arrived!

This is my jam lately. This album just released this past week. I'll take a closer look for y'all. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Birch Hollow

This last weekend we went down with some friends to Zion and did Birch Hollow Canyon. The canyon was perfect for this group since several of our people had never been canyoneering before, but the canyon is still interesting enough that anyone can enjoy it. It includes about 10 rappels, ranging from 20-120 feet, and it's a dry canyon, so just one less piece of equipment to worry about, but the best part is that it's actually just outside of Zion so no permit is necessary for this one, so you can go whenever you like.

Some people from our group were worried about my little wifey and her 22 week pregnant belly, but I knew she'd do great. She just loves this stuff too much to let anything like being a little pregnant get in her way. And she actually did just as well or better than any of the other girls with all of the hiking and rappels and what not. I'm just proud of my little lady, and everyone in the group. We met some new people and made some new friends, and everyone did really great with the rappels even though several had never been down anything that big before. The scariest moment of the day actually was on the first rappel, which was also the longest, because the cliff face is made up of a lot of loose rock. Some pretty big chunks ended up falling down and caused some havoc for those below, but thankfully no one really got hurt.

I didn't think I really got enough interesting footage to do a video, but it actually worked out okay, so I whipped this up the last couple nights and now you can see our little adventure:

So Good

I love B.o.B. This one will get overplayed for sure, but for now, I just love it. Something about his songs also lack the trashiness of other hip-hop artists. It's nice. I've loved his stuff from day one. Good stuff.

We're going to see Hunger Games tonight and go to the Colors Festival tomorrow, and maybe the Real Salt Lake game afterwards. So our weekend is pretty packed. Hope yours is a good one too.

Friday Round-Up

Random bits:

• So among the worst passwords of 2011 are the typical "1234" or "password" but I guess a lot of people are also using "monkey," "dragon," "trustno1," and "letmein." I love those. I hope some of you are using them. I think I might pick one of those up.
• The Denver Broncos keep winning. No explanation whatsoever. It's so weird. That is all.
• I hate BYU's sports schedule. I don't care about any of these games. Have you seen the basketball schedule? How in the world am I supposed to be interested in a win against Dixie State or their game tonight against Longwood? Where in the world is Longwood? I've never even heard of that school. Don't worry though, tomorrow we play powerhouse New Mexico State in football. Look out Aggies! You'll be the second team of Aggies we'll beat this year. Yay?
• I can't believe how spoiled some people can be by just a little success from their sports teams. I had some back and forth last night with a guy on Facebook about the Angels being able to bounce back after last season. He thinks we're in bad shape as an organization, but they've made the playoffs in 6 of the last 10 years, and the 2002 World Series is still pretty fresh on my mind. How bad can they really be doing, right?
• The Help. We saw that movie earlier this week and I really enjoyed. I really like the lead, Emma Stone, and I love movies that take place in the South, and I love stories about race relations. While there is still much progress to be made, it's amazing to think of all of the progress in just the last several decades. In the lives of many people still alive, things have gone from intolerable to pretty good. Very good movie though. For a time I was pretty fascinated with literature from black authors, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and the like. Here's a famous one by Hughes that I always liked: What happens to a dream deferred?
  
  Does it dry up
  like a raisin in the sun?
  Or fester like a sore--
  And then run?
  Does it stink like rotten meat?
  Or crust and sugar over--
  like a syrupy sweet?
  
  Maybe it just sags
  like a heavy load.
  
  Or does it explode?
• Not sure how I missed this song before the last couple weeks, but I just love it. Have a good weekend, y'all.

Davies Fall Out

This whole Brandon Davies thing has been really interesting. There has been tons of media attention on BYU and the Honor Code, and it has implications on the impressions that people form about the Church. You know what was really cool? This morning sitting in a meeting with one of the higher-ups in the Public Affairs Committee discussing this particular issue and what it means for the Church. It's fun working up here.

It's interesting what this does for public perception of the Church. My suspicion is that if you ask most Evangelicals what the Church should have done, they would have said, "let the kid play ball." Their view is probably one that argues more heavily for mercy than for justice, for grace over consequences. Our Church just happens to have a different conception of what is entailed in Christian doctrine.

It means not only holding ourselves to a high standard, but being accountable to that standard. Hopefully the fall-out over this drama will help the university and the Church to also learn how to emphasize the compassionate side as well, because out in the media wasteland all anyone is talking about is how the law is being applied too harshly, but bravo for sticking to our standards.

I don't know. It's an interesting topic though, no?

With that kiddos, have a good weekend! And this song has been in my head all this morning.
People are making all sorts of attributions, but I'm not sure that anyone has any firsthand knowledge about what actually transpired, how it came about

Coming Home

This song seems appropriate for this weekend:

This morning I was doing some reading and marveling to myself how amazing language is. The thought came up as I was reading about stress and how it affects our physiology blah blah blah, but I noticed a missing quotation mark, and it just blew my mind - not only can someone whom I've never met communicate to me really complex ideas, but if that person happens to be a good writer, I can also understand the nuances, subtleties, tones, and the like with every well-placed punctuation mark or correctly chosen word. It's amazing, isn't it?

You know what else is nice? I could not be one iota/unit/quantity/bit/other-vague-term-of-measurement more content with my situation in life. I have an amazing fiancee, single friends, couple friends, married friends, family, prospective family and I just can't believe how fortunate I am to have the people I know in my life. I have awesome work/school/professional opportunities. There is just a lot to be grateful for and excited about.

Tell the world I'm coming home.