Trip to Boston - Day 2

My 2nd Day in Boston was a Sunday, so I started it out with a little public transit journey to church. There was a light snow falling but nothing serious. I made my way to the nearest T station and took it back toward downtown and then transferred lines and headed back to Cambridge, heading out to Harvard, where the singles wards meet.



I arrived at the Harvard Square station with a little time to kill, so I took a little detour over onto the Harvard Campus where I took some photos of some buildings that looked cool, but I really have no idea what they are.







I then made my way over to the chapel and got to remember what it's like to be new at church, something I haven't done in a loooong time. For the most part it wasn't too bad. Finding Sunday School was a little tricky, and the time between sacrament meeting and sunday school was kind of awkward.

After church, as I wasn't going to have much time to be a tourist on Monday or Tuesday, I resolved to go see some of historic Boston, aka the Freedom Trail that pretty much everyone had recommended to me. I hustled home after church, changed, and headed back to the train. I decided to skip the northernmost portion of the trail that only seemed to have a couple sites and would have made the overall distance considerably longer.

I got out in Boston's north end and headed over to a cemetery near the river that I found especially interesting. The headstones were so thin and old. Very different that what I'm used to seeing. The Old North Church (of Paul Revere lantern fame) was just down the street from there, and continuing southward there was a Paul Revere monument and Paul Revere's house (which I opted against paying to enter).


The Boston Garden is historic, right?


Looking toward downtown from near the Garden.




The Copp's Hill Burying Ground


The Old North Church


Paul Revere monument

After crossing a newly created park that goes over the freeway, I found myself closer to downtown, and saw Boston's Holocaust memorial, and then Fanueil Hall, and the Quincy Market. The meeting hall upstairs in Faneuil Hall was closed to the public as there was some kind of Pearl Harbor memorial service going on up there.


Holocaust memorial


Faneuil Hall decked out for the holidays

Continuing along the trail, I saw a few more old meeting houses and churches, and finally found myself at another very interesting cemetery. This one had the graves of patriots Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock.


I thought this was a church, but it's actually the "Old South Meeting House"


Samuel Adams' Grave


Granary Burying Ground


Paul Revere's Grave


John Hancock's Grave marker.

Just around the corner from this cemetery was Boston Common, a big park in downtown. It was decorated for Christmas with a tree, lights, and an ice rink where people were out skating.



Christmas Tree at Boston Common


Ice Skating on the frozen Frog Pond

At this point I was pretty worn-out and also starting to feel the cold. I grabbed a bite to eat at a little Greek place (chicken kabob wrap) and then headed home to my hotel where I cranked up the heat and went over my slides for my presentation the next day.

Trip to Boston - Day 1

Got up pretty early this morning and finished my final preparations. Julie and Megan came and picked me and drove me to the airport (talk about true friendship). Both my flights were less than full, which resulted in my not having to sit next to someone on either flight. Plus, on the the SLC->JFK leg, because it was an "international flight" the in-flight movies were free. So I watched "Get Smart" and "Hellboy 2", two movies that I didn't get around to seeing this summer. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

Anyway, I arrived safely in Boston, managed to find a shuttle over to the "T" station, and make it to my intended final stop. After getting off the train, I was unsure of which direction I was facing, and I ended up walking a couple blocks in the wrong direction before figuring it out, and then coming over to my hotel, a Holiday Inn Express in Cambridge.

After unpacking, and watching the 4th quarter of Florida's win over Alabama, I headed out to find some dinner, ending up eventually at a Cheesecake Factory in a mall not too far from where I'm staying. Just a little weird eating there alone, but as a bonus, I didn't have to share any of the bread.

I took a few photos on the way home, but don't have them on the computer yet.

Tomorrow I'm heading out to find a singles ward near Harvard, and hoping to hit the Freedom Trail as well. Good night.

Update: Here are some photos from my night walking around east Cambridge.


This tall building dominated the skyline in the area I was staying. I was thinking maybe it was some tall, skyscraper prison, but it turned out to be just a courthouse. Of course, that could also mean there might be some prisoners up there.


The crookedness of this house intrigued me. I could never live in a house like that.


I got a cozy room at this luxury hotel for a pretty good deal (~$80/night) thanks to Hotwire.com. My biggest fear using Hotwire (where you don't know which hotel you are booking until after you've booked it) was that I'd end up far from public transit lines, but it turned out to be only a few minutes walk from the nearest T station. Really no complaints about the hotel. Wireless internet worked just fine, free breakfast was satisfactory.

Old Book, New Book #12: The Best of H.P. Lovecraft -> The Miracle of Forgiveness

After what seemed like a pretty long time, I finally finished up "The Best of H.P. Lovecraft", and I have to say that it was a pretty good collection of short stories, and especially interesting considering how old these stories are, written at the beginning of the 1900s. Lovecraft has some favorite words ("eldritch", "Cyclopean", "foeter") that appear in probably all of these stories, and most of them fit within a mythology all of Lovecraft's creation, commonly known as the Cthulhu Mythos. The crux of this mythos is that at one point in the far distant past, the Earth was ruled by "Great Ones" who came from outside of our solar system and then were somehow killed off or forced to hide under the sea. These Great Ones, including Cthulhu, are waiting for their chance to retake power and rise again, and dark cults deal with them and work for their renewal. There were many variations on this theme in the book, dealing with creepy things coming from space or from under the sea. Other common themes were dreams, the ability to travel across space, and the ability to separate one's consciousness from one's body. Anyway, towards the end, the theme seemed to feel a little repetitive, but overall it was a decent read. The other interesting thing that Lovecraft almost always does is start the stories at the end. Like "the story behind the mysterious death/disappearance/etc of so-and-so is an interesting one". That kind of thing, where you usually already know how the story ends. Which is definitely not typical in today's fiction, and, for me at least, seemed to limit the suspense of some of the stories. However, sometimes there was a twist in which the story then continued forward once we'd caught up to the beginning, after going back and telling the backstory, if that makes sense.




The next book I've started is obviously a big change in theme, topic, subject matter, etc. I'm generally not the best at reading non-fiction, including books of a religious nature. But I was at the library the other day with just a few minutes to find something new to read, and after looking for a few works of fiction that I've been meaning to get to and not finding them, I remembered that I'd been thinking about reading this one. I've already heard "The Miracle of Forgiveness" spoken of highly, but at the same time, it seemed to carry a stigma with it along the lines of it being something that was only read by people working through serious sins. Which, from the few pages I've read so far, doesn't seem to be the case at all. A lot of what Pres. Kimball is talking about is the universality of sin and the universal need for repentance and forgiveness. Certainly having heard about this book for a very long time, it feels like I should know everything that's going to be said, but I'm sure there's more to it than might be assumed at first glance.

Lauging at Illiteracy #1: Re and Acting

I always laugh when I see people who use the wrong word in a common phrase or think that it's made up of other words than it actually is. Seriously, so blessed! is great at using these, but lately I've just seen a bunch in my daily interactions with people that I know and thought it might be fun to catalog some of the ones that I come across. So today, I bring you the first in a series of "Laughing at Illiteracy". I was looking at some Facebook photos today and saw a picture of someone's hand with two fingers up in the peace sign. One of the comments said, "Haha! Special Shout out to JewBug for re and acting the Thing for us! lol" I had to read it twice to realize that this person thought that reenacting was actually made up of three words: "re and acting". Ah, illiteracy.

Update: Not quite as funny, but another comment on this same photo said, "It's 'Thing' from 'Adam's Family!'" Who is this Adam guy?

Watch This Wednesday #48: And you thought chickens weren't all that amazing

I saw this video the other day and found it to be pretty fascinating. And since it's Thanksgiving week, I figured a poultry-themed video might not be too out of place. Enjoy.

I am a Utah Man sir and I live across the green

Still working on finishing up the final bit of writing that my committee has asked for, but in the meantime, I did find time to enjoy the Utah football victory over BYU on Saturday. My good friend Jon, of Spring Break trip to NYC fame, flew down from Seattle with the primary purpose of being in attendance at the game, and thankfully the Utes did not disappoint.


Our game day experience started at the Muss (that's the Utah student fan club) tailgate, where we ate chicken wraps and marveled at Ute fandom.


I even got my picture taken with retired long-time Utah play-by-play man Bill Marcroft.


There was a superfan contest judged by no others than Crazy Lady and Jared from Subway (wearing a Utah jersey). From what we could tell it looks like Jared might not be eating at Subway as much any more. Working on a bit of gut. I'm just saying.


After the tailgate we headed down to the stadium with plenty of time to watch some pre-game warmups.


Just across the aisle from our seats there was a group of about 20 BYU fans (in the Utah student section mind you). They certainly took a lot of abuse throughout the game, but were wise enough (or maybe just really patient) to avoid starting any physical violence, because things might have gotten really bad then.


Watching warm-ups


Marching Band - Script "Utah"


It was also Senior Night so they had all of the Seniors come out individually. The timing of this was all screwed up, with the PA guy saying their names waaaaay after they had run out and was usually 3 or 4 people behind. It's too bad, we had some great Seniors who deserved better if you ask me. Oh, well. Oh, this picture is of P/K Louie Sakoda who at one point a few years ago was, IMO, the best player on our team.


Now, BYU has a tradition of doing a polynesian war dance called the Haka before their games. As they were lining up to begin said dance, some Utah players took issue with them war dancing on our field, and wandered over to exchange some words.


Before long most of the team had joined them.


And after some posturing, BYU decided maybe it wasn't the right time to being Haka-ing.

Then the game finally got under way, and I really didn't do a good job of taking pictures during the game. For one, I was sitting too high to get decent pictures, and for two, I was too busy watching the game. Here are a couple decent shots:


Louie kicking a PAT. I especially like the way the focus was on the hands near me.


Shot looking behind us at the Muss. Actually during a quarter break while some kid was down there shagging punts for cash.


Driving for another TD


Here's Brent Casteel Tip-toeing down the sideline for six


I took this video just hoping to get a shot of the Muss doing their "3rd Down Jump", but it also ended up being a play where DE Paul Kruger made a sweet interception of Max Hall. However, at that point, I stopped filming because I was so excited to watch the game.

Utah went on to win the game in convincing fashion, which meant that we had finished our regular season 12-0 and are pretty much a sure lock to go to a BCS bowl game. And as my personal rule is that if the Utes ever go undefeated and qualify for a BCS game then I have to go out on the field, we made our way down toward the field and prepared to make the 10 foot jump down from the student section.


A quick video of the immediate aftermath of the game.




We decided to stop and get pictures showing the crowd on the field


At first, we were just down there, looking for anyone we knew or anything going on.


Eventually we figured out that there was a truck over on the far side where they were going to award the conference championship trophy. So we headed over there and watched as Coach Whittingham, Brian Johnson, and Paul Kruger accepted the trophy.




Good times


We eventually made our way off the field, which was kind of slow moving. Along the way, we passed DB Sean "The Legend" Smith who was up in the front row of the student section signing autographs and taking pictures with people and just having a good time.

Anyway, it was a really fun game, although perhaps not as euphoric as the first time we went undefeated and qualified for a BCS bowl. Definitely this team had more ups and downs in their undefeated season than the 2004 team, which certainly led to its share of heart attack finishes over both Oregon State and TCU. I'm excited to see what bowl we end up going to and considering making travel plans to join them. Guess we'll see.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #19: Resigns vs. Re-signs

Saw this headline today, "New Mexico coach Long resigns after 4-8 season", and at first was thinking that he had re-signed -- signed a new contract. But after a second glance, I'm sure that it means that he resigned -- quit, and actually reading the article confirmed that. I just thought it was interesting that those two words are so close and have such opposite meanings.

FSS Sin Numero

Today at the Big Digital we're breaking out the old FSS tag. This last weekend was fairly eventful. Thursday night I already discussed (see previous post) and the excitement that was Utah's comeback victory over TCU. Friday night I went to the Jazz game with a large group (~38) from my ward. I had a good time driving to and from the game with some girls from my ward. Apparently the Oklahoma City Thunder were not a hot ticket. We got ours for $7 each and they weren't even the very back row or even in the corner. We were behind the basket, but up very high. The Jazz won without really being tested and it was Jerry Sloan's 1000th victory as head coach of the Jazz.

After the game some of us ended up at one of the guys' house and watched "The Man Who Knew Too Little". I fought off falling asleep until just minutes before the end of the movie.

Saturday I slept in a bit, and then worked on a few things (paying bills, preparing a Priesthood lesson). The evening wasn't as eventful as Friday, but I did end up stopping by a friend's birthday party for the pizza and cake portion, skipping the bowling portion that concluded the festivities, and opting instead to meet up with some other friends and check out an indoor soccer game, which was not all that exciting, but did conclude with an exciting last second penalty kick finish.

Sunday I taught EQ, had a home teaching visit, went to a dinner group, and finally to ward prayer, after which I headed home because I wasn't feeling so hot, and also had an early dentist appointment this morning -- got a post put into the root canal to support the permanent filling that went on top of it. So far I'm cautiously optimistic about my dental future.

Another ridiculous Utah victory

Last night I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the Utah-TCU game, where two top-ranked teams met with conference championship and BCS-bowl implications. After a defense slugfest where TCU missed two short FGs in the 4th quarter, Utah had one last drive to finally score a touchdown and win the game. Very similar to the ridiculous finish against Oregon State a month ago (also a Thursday night game, coincidentally). At least this time we were only down by 4, instead of 8, so I guess this comeback was more probable, although still very unlikely given our anemic offense up to that point. Anyway, a great game and lots of fun to come out on top of close ones like that. Here are some highlights from around the Internet, courtesy of other people.

An update to the tooth situation

Went in yesterday and got a root canal, and spent the rest of the day in bed, watching TV shows online. If you would have asked me last night I would have said that the procedure was a total failure, based on the pain I was having last night. I was downing pain pills every couple hours just to keep my sanity.

Luckily when I got up this morning, things were feeling better. Maybe better than before the root canal, which, of course, is a pretty low bar. So far things are going okay today. Not sure I'm ready to eat some solid food, but last night I wasn't even up to the task of eating soup.

So...things are marginally better and trending upward. Let's hope.

The Big Digital Has a Toothache

So for about the last year or so I've been having pain in one of my molars and my dentist and his team of assistants have been unsuccessful in fixing it, to the point that for a long time I just gave up on it, and avoided eating chips or at least chewing them on that side of my mouth.

Anyway, about a month ago I had a regular check-up, and the assistant suggested that probably I needed to get a crown on that tooth to fix the problems, so I reluctantly agreed, thinking that if I could get it fixed and be able to eat normally again that would be worth whatever trouble it would be to get it fixed. The first step was getting a temporary crown put on, and then waiting 3 weeks for the permanent crown to be ready. With the temporary crown on, the problems I'd been having continued, but I wasn't surprised because the temporary was modeled after the original tooth. Anyway, I got used to taking Ibuprofen a couple times a day.

Finally, it was time to get my permanent crown on, and that day went pretty well, and the dental team assured me that it might be sore for a day or two, but that it ought to start feeling pretty good soon. This was about 4 days before my defense. I was still noticing some pain in a couple spots and maybe some problems with my bite that were affecting the tooth behind the crown. But as I had my defense coming up, I put that on the back burner for a couple days, and as you may know went on to successfully defend.

The next day I called and scheduled an appointment to get my crown adjusted. Unfortunately it would be over a week until I could get in have that done, but I figured I could tough it out. A couple days later, I was still having a lot of problems, so I called again just to see if there was any way I could get in earlier. Turns out they had had someone cancel that day and I was able to go right in and get my crown looked at.

After checking my bite and making some adjustment, things felt better and I was optimistic that the problem might have been fixed. I ate lunch that day (this was last Thursday) and didn't have any problems. Then that afternoon I just happened to bump my tongue against that tooth and noticed that it was pretty tender and sensitive. I thought maybe it was due to the drilling that had been done on it, and hoped that it would get better as the day wore on. Sadly that was not the case. The tenderness of that tooth continued throughout the day, so much that I called my dentist that night to see if he could look at my tooth again on Friday. Turns out Fridays are dentists days off, but he said he'd be willing to come in after a training that he had in the morning.

Friday morning I woke up at 3:30 am, because of the pain in my tooth, and after taking some Ibuprofen was finally able to get back to sleep for a couple hours. Then I woke up and sat in semi-pain for most of the day waiting to hear back from dentist around 3, when he'd told me that his training would be ending. 3:00 came and went, no call. Finally at 4, I tried to call him. No luck. Finally at 5:30, he called me, and let me know that bad news -- that he had gotten severely ill and was home in bed.

We talked a little about my pain and he said it might be an infection of some kind, or it might be an abscess. Either way he phoned in a prescription for Codeine and Amoxycillin which I went and picked up. I should mention at this point that I hadn't been able to eat solid food since Thursday at lunch, and I was now being told that the earliest I'd be able to get in to see him would be Monday morning. Let's just say at this point I'm tired of eating soup and Instant Breakfast.

Anyway, just called to find out when I could get in, and after trying to push me off to tomorrow morning, I was able to get an appointment for 2:30 this afternoon. Sadly, it sounds like I may be getting a root canal on this tooth that I just paid a lot of money to get a crown on. I hope this is the last time I have to deal with this tooth, and maybe this dentist as well.

Watch This Wednesday #47: Back from Hiatus

I know I've been blogging quite a bit less lately, but maybe now that I've successfully defended my dissertation I might be able to get back into a more regular cycle of posting. Anyway, the big news in online video this week is MTV making a huge archive of music videos available (20,000+) at www.mtvmusic.com. Hard to just choose one of those videos for today, but for now I'll give you this classic video from Oasis, which will always be one of my favorite songs, and maybe the only Oasis song that I really even like: Wonderwall.

Oasis |MTV Music

Dissertation....Defended!

This morning I successfully defended my PhD dissertation! It feels really good to have it over and done with. Obviously you expect to pass it, but when your fate is in the hands of other people, you never know for sure how things are going to turn out.

Basically, now all I have left to do is address a final list of revisions to my manuscript that my committee has promised to give me, and then get the final manuscript formatted properly, and then I'll be completely finished!

Quick Update, Pt. 2

Still working on that defense presentation. I've got a set of powerpoint slides put together and have been running through them, giving my presentation to the wall in front of me. I've been through the whole thing 3 full times now (at over 40 minutes per attempt), and tomorrow I'll be heading up to school to run through it at least 2 more times -- once in the conference room where my defense will be, and once more for a professor whose opinion I respect and who won't be able to attend my actual defense due to scheduling conflicts.

Suffice it to say that giving 40 minutes presentations to a wall is a daunting task and it's taking quite a bit out of me to give them. It's good practice, though. I've made several changes to my slides as a result, and have also realized that it's important to breathe sometimes, or else I get light-headed. The hard part is trying to fit 3 years of research into just 40 minutes.

Anyway, aside from defense prep, I got my permanent crown put in today and can only hope that things will be looking up from here dentally. Its been a rough 12 months for 3 of my teeth and I'm hoping that this finally gets the problem solved.

I'm also still looking for a career, hoping to hear back on the position I interviewed a couple weeks ago, but haven't really worried about pushing for an answer from them as I've had other things on my mind (see paragraphs 1 & 2).

And finally, I did manage to find 2 new roommates to take the place of the one who already moved out and the one who is going to move out. Big changes taking place here, but it doesn't really feel like it yet. Also the one who moved in today apparently doesn't have a checkbook (sounds a little fishy), and paid me in straight cash (homey) for the end of this month and next month's rent, so let's just say somewhere in my house right now there is a very large stack of bills that I plan to take to the bank tomorrow morning. So hopefully by the time you are reading this I've already deposited them. Either that or I'm pulling a Pac-man Jones and makin' it rain.

Quick Update

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. Got a lot on my plate with preparing for my defense on the 27th, looking for a job, looking for 1-2 roommates, and I guess just life in general. Doing pretty good most days, though. Sorry I haven't had more to say.

Watch This Wednesday #46: Band Montage!

This week's video is all the rage in Internet land, so you may have already seen it. Its "Take On Me" by Ah-ha, but with words describing what's going on in the video. There is a tad of mild cursing (very minor tad), so if you're bothered by that, feel free to skip it.

Highlights from last night's ridiculous Utah-Oregon State game

Sorry for no video this Wednesday, maybe this will make up for it. I'm still hoarse this morning from screaming so much at the end of last night's game. Utah was down 8 points with 2 minutes to play, and from there on out were amazing in scoring a TD, 2 pt. conversion, getting the ball back and getting a last second FG to win without needing overtime. Versus.com has an embeddable video player, but it doesn't work like you'd want it to or expect it to. It seems to always go to the most recent video, rather than the one you select. Anyway, there are about 8 highlights from last night's game that you can check out.

Old Book, New Book #11: The Gypsy Morph -> The Best of H.P. Lovecraft

Finished up The Gypsy Morph about a week ago. Yes, it was good. No, it was not the best Shannara book ever. I enjoyed it, but would probably never read the series again. I do like how Terry Brooks has tried to bring the Knight of the Word trilogy together with the Shannara world, I just haven't enjoyed his more recent stuff as much as his older stuff.



As for the new book, I put a request on this H.P. Lovecraft book on the library website back at the start of the summer, and despite just being the second person waiting for it took until now for me to get it. Kind of weird for a book that was published (in this edition) in 1983. Anyway, it was so long ago now that I don't remember the exact reason that I wanted to read it at the time. Its a collection of short horror stories from someone who wrote around the turn of the 20th century. I've finished the first couple and I'm definitely interested. I haven't got to any of the Cthulhu stories yet, which is what I think Lovecraft is most known for. In fact I saw a trailer for some Cthulhu story a month or two ago. Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes.

Watch This Wednesday #45: Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

The Office is back for Season 5, starting tomorrow. I'm interested to see how this season shakes out. So far I've thought that Season 2 has been the best, and since then the episodes have suffered from plots that were a little too ridiculous (Michael driving his car into the lake on the advice of the navigation system) or were too much about relationship drama.

I've always felt like the strongest aspect of the show is Jim's interplay with Dwight. When Jim moved to the Hartford branch, this aspect suffered to the point that they started having Jim interact with Dwight over the phone or via fax. From Dwight. From the future. Anyway, someone put together a nice compilation of Jim and Dwight interactions that I'm sharing today. Far from a complete compendium, its definitely a good start, featuring the Conflict Resolution scene with a large list of pranks, and culminating with Jim dressing as Dwight.

The Big Digital Hits The Big 3-0

So...today is my 30th birthday. And it seems like it should be a time for reflection, not that I don't do plenty of that already. Seriously though, how often is it that a person has a 30th birthday? Not very often. Birthdays marking the decades of one's life are pretty big milestones on the journey of life. 10 years ago, I was in the MTC, still about a month away from leaving for Argentina. I didn't even have my first webmail address yet. 20 years ago, I don't really recall where I was, but I was in 4th grade. 30 years ago, well I don't remember much of that.

Definitely this 3rd decade seems to have gone by the quickest, but in retrospect, I still managed to accomplish quite a bit. I finished one degree (Computer Science) and nearly completed another (Biomedical Informatics). I've managed to stay out of debt and even save up a bit of money. I own two computers (and gave away a third). I've made lots and lots of friends. And considering that when I returned to Salt Lake following the mission I knew at most a handful of people. I feel lucky to have been blessed with all the great friends that I've made along the way. For all my work with computers, I definitely still think that people are what make life enjoyable.

I am, of course, still single, a fact of which I am very much aware, and with which I sometimes I think am getting a little too comfortable. I certainly don't spend all my free time scheming of ways to find me a wife. But I do think about it, and I do try to be out there looking, dating, you know, doing the thing that we single people do. Seeing my brother's family, I definitely can see that there is a lot of great things that I'm missing out on. I don't feel like I've had moments where there was someone I could have married and I turned my back on that, so I don't generally feel too guilty about not being married. I just haven't found someone I wanted to marry who wanted to marry me back. Still looking. Hopefully ten years from now I'm not having this same discussion with myself.

In the next ten years, I do also hope to get a job with benefits. I guess I've had things like health insurance during my last four years as a full-time graduate student, but I definitely wouldn't call that a job. Working regular work hours five days a week might be a pretty big shock to my eternal student workdays that are pretty flexible, so long as I get done what needs getting done. But I'm sure there are benefits to the old 9-to-5 grind. Not having to scour the internet for new roommates every couple month would be one of those. I also have a dream of some day driving a car that was built in the same decade in which I'm driving it. Yes I know, my dreams are lofty, but they say that you should aim for the stars.

Anyway, at this milestone in my life, I guess I feel pretty okay about things. My life is far from perfect, but at least I have an idea of where its headed and I feel pretty good about the direction.

Watch This Wednesday #44: I got a hot date tonight. A date. Dinner with friends...

Some more Simpsons goodness courtesy of Hulu:



Perhaps the most humorous use of a lie detector ever. And yes, I've seen Meet the Parents. Not even close.

Old Book, New Book #10: Brave New World -> The Gypsy Morph

Finished Brave New World the other day...I have to say that I was definitely impressed by how prescient some of the aspects of the (dystopian?) future depicted therein. Obviously we aren't yet to the point of embryonic conditioning and relegating people even before birth to specific roles within society, but I could definitely see a lot of points that related to our current world. Things like the push to make everyone a consumer, and a densensitization toward all things immoral. Also there was a moment when Bernard and Lenina were in a helicopter looking at the ocean, alone with their thoughts, and Lenina could hardly stand the silence and lack of external stimulation. I would guess that few people (myself included) take much time to meditate, and feel much more comfortable with something else going on, be it television, music, or for the younger generation, a constant stream of text messages. Not sure this book will find its way into my all-time favorites, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Anyway, I've moved on to the final installment of the latest Terry Brooks trilogy, The Gypsy Morph. Once again, very pleased with the Salt Lake County Library network's hold request system. I added this before the book was even published, and eventually I worked my way to the top of the list, at which point I got an email and just had to drive over to my local branch to pick it up. Kind of like Netflix for books, except that I have to drive a few blocks, and that its totally free.

The Big Digital goes on the defensive

Sorry for no video yesterday. But I did finally find a date on which to defend my dissertation which works for all five of my committee members, and even my department chair, after some schedule wrangling on the part of her admin. Mark your calendars for October 27, 2008. It could quite possibly be a really big day in my life. (Let's hope so.)

FSS: Fun & Stress Edition

This past weekend was pretty full. Friday night started out slow, but did include a viewing of Hellboy and a moment where someone yelled "Psst" at me, but I thought it was the surround sound, which then resulted in that someone climbing in through the window.

Saturday I went boating with my ward up at Jordanelle and had fun riding a tube. Then I came back to Salt Lake and went to the Utah-UNLV football game. It was kind of stressful for a half, and then Utah came out in the 2nd half and put things out of reach early.

Also on Saturday, I found out that my newest roommate is going to be moving out at the end of the month, leading to some stressing about what's going to happen next, given that at one point our apartment manager had said that if that happened, we'd either have to move out or just pay the full rent with less than a full house. I talked with her about things today and she was much more positive about our chances of being allowed to find someone to move in to replace him. Guess we'll see what the big boss has to say when he gets back on Thursday.

Sunday was a typical full slate of meetings, but also I got a new 2nd counselor to replace the one who is getting married this coming Saturday. I'm excited about the new guy, and will definitely miss the old one.

So Long, Rong Jon Silver

Today my good friend Jon is leaving for Seattle to go get his PhD in Chemistry. I've known him for just about two years and I would say we've been good friends for about a year and a half of that time. Even though he's a little younger than I am, I feel like I really found a kindred spirit in Jon. We don't see eye to eye on certain things (music from the 90s, for example), but somehow that hasn't seemed to matter. Jon is that rare friend who can call you on crap that you probably shouldn't be doing (wasting time at work, hanging out with girls who are only going to break your heart, etc.).



Things that will remind me of Jon:

• The word "emo"


• Our trip to NYC


• Whitecastle


• Coheed & Cambria


• Motion City Soundtrack


• Huzzah!


• Rock Band/Guitar Hero


• "Throw your diamonds in the sky if you feel the vibe!"


• All the Murray people that I now know through Jon


• Stomp the Yard


• and of course..."Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm

So long, Jonny-Cakes. I'm gonna miss you.

Watch This Wednesday #43: I'm Wearing Boots of Escaping!

This week's video comes to you from Comedy Central's website. Its an older clip from Reno 911 in which two guys have been playing some live action Dungeons & Dragons. Featuring Patton Oswald. I'm pretty sure Geo told me to check this out one time, so kudos to him.



P.S. I totally got this ready this morning thinking that tomorrow was Wednesday, but as I looked at the calendar I realized that today is actually Wednesday. Not sure why this week has been so confusing for me. Its not like I've never had a Monday off before.

FSS: September is Here

September is my favorite month for many reasons: Cooler, fall temperatures. Football season (Go Utes!). My birthday (Big 3-0 coming up!). Back when I had classes, September was a month when school was still exciting and not just full of homework.

This past weekend, I went to my little brother's football game (at least until it got seriously out of hand), watched Utah beat Michigan, hung out with my good friend Jon several times in preparation for his moving to Seattle this week, played a couple hours of indoor volleyball, played some Rock Band (got a flawless 100% playing lead guitar on "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" on Hard), bought a new pillow, and finally found some slides that I could live with to replace my old holey ones, and found a new counselor to replace the one who is getting married on the 13th.