Random Thoughts.

My mind has been kind of random lately, with lots of different thoughts about a wide variety of things.  I have listed below 10 of my most recent thoughts for your perusal / enjoyment:

1.    I kind of wish that more roads were toll roads and that I could drive on them so I wouldn't hit as much traffic.  Only if my work is going to pay for them though, if I have to pay for them I want them all to be free but only I can drive on them. 

2.    I am very glad that I am not morbidly obese… for a lot of reasons.  I hope to never be "morbidly" anything in my lifetime. 

3.    The ending to the phrase "If wishes were fishes…" has always eluded my memory. 

4.    Often times I miss my friends from up at school, but then I realize that they are still my friends… and that they probably don't miss me as much as I sometimes miss them.  This helps me stop missing them so much.

5.    Sometimes I wish that TV was my reality, and sometimes I wish that my reality was TV.  Though I don't know how I would feel about cameras following me into the bathroom. 

6.    Blogs are great ways to get to know people better, and generally it helps me to understand and like them better as well.  Sometimes blogs confirm what I already knew about people, that they are idiots. 

7.    Not worrying about dating / girls can really simplify a guy's life.

8.    Currently I am kind of obsessed with basketball.  I have always enjoyed basketball, but I can't ever remember it being to this level where I want to watch / play it ALL the time.  I am going to attribute it all to Jimmermania.  The limits of Jimmermania have yet to be found. 

9.    Work will always be there, have fun while you can and live life such that you can enjoy every single day.

10.  After casual observance over the past 4 months, I have come to the conclusion that the moon is severely underrated. 

These are just a few of the random thoughts that I have been able to remember over the past week or so.  Any comments or thoughts are appreciated.  Have fun! 02-21-11

Contentment.

It's a beautiful warm and slightly windy day here in Texas.  This comes as a nice change of scene from the bitter cold and biting wind that we have had here the past few weeks.  As I went about my day from early church this morning, to meetings and ward potluck afterward, I couldn't help but sit back and reflect on how perfectly content and at peace I am at this time in my life.  Not that I am generally not at peace or full of discontent, but for some reason the happiness that I am currently feeling transcends any other type of contentment that I remember feeling recently.  I have felt very happy at other times in my life and for specific events or periods such as excitement for when my favourite sports teams do well (BYU), or the bliss of being in a healthy relationship, but this level of peace and contentment has been harder to capture since I returned home from my mission. 

 

At the very end of my mission we had a testimony meeting with all of the missionaries that would be leaving the mission together.  There was a pretty big group of us that all came into the mission at the same time, and we were probably the biggest group of American missionaries the mission had seen in a long time.  The mission had been shut down to missionaries from the United States because of the Zapatista rebellion that occurred there several years beforehand, and we were some of the first to be allowed back into the region.  The testimony meeting was great and included some of my best friends from the mission for the past few years.  As it came upon me to take my turn to bear my testimony and kind of recap what I had learned from my mission, the one overwhelming thought that I had was that of gratitude for the opportunity to serve, as well as the happiness that I felt being able to have the gospel be such a big part of my life.  It was on my mission that I realized how happy simply living the gospel can make people.  You really don't need anything but a knowledge of God's love for you, and a desire to serve him and do his will.  Dedicating your life to serving the Lord helps you realize what is important and helps you focus on the things that are important and not get caught up in the day to day minutiae that is always bombarding us.  It is through accepting the Lord's will that we realize the happiness that the Lord has for us as part of his plan.  

I think the thing that has helped me get to the point I am at now is a shift in my mindset.  For a long time I have let myself be worried and focus on trying to change things that I have little to no control over.  I feel like I have gotten to a point now in my life where I am ready to accept things as they are, understanding that this is what the Lord has planned for me right now, and just sit back and try to enjoy every single day.  Often before I would let things that were out of my control frustrate me and that would take up a lot of my focus on a day to day basis.  Living life like that makes it a lot harder to focus on the positive, as well as enjoy the day to day gifts that life brings to us on a daily basis.  There is a lot of good in life, and we need to be looking for it and willing to accept what the Lord has in store for us to truly take advantage of the happiness that he wants for us.  It is important to trust that he knows what is best for us in the end, and that often times not getting what we want in the moment turns out to be a tremendous blessing for us in the end.  Sometimes we are privileged to see the end result, and sometimes we are not, but I am confident that when we get a chance to look back on our lives and see what the consequences of our unfulfilled wants and desires would have been we will be very grateful.  02-15-11 

Dreams.

Some of my favourite things to talk about and remember are dreams.  I suppose for me it is because dreams are something that I really don't know very much about.  What my subconscious does while I am asleep has always been something that interests me.  I also have a strange feeling that dreams come true… not necessarily in the traditional "Disney" sense that is often associated with that phrase, but more in bits and pieces.  I know that some of my dreams most definitely won't come true.  Those are the weird dreams where I end up stealing the "D.A.R.E." car, or hide in the attic of my grandparents old house (which doesn't have an attic as far as I know) because I am being chased around by rogue F-16s.  Most of my dreams however don't consist of crazy scenarios or implausible situations, but seem like real things that could actually end up happening.  They often feel very familiar and when I wake up instead of thinking "what a crazy dream", I think "I wonder when that is going to happen".  

With that in mind, in 2011 I have noticed an increasing trend of mine for me to be able to remember my dreams.  That coupled with all of the new goals and ambitions I have for this year has led to a lot of situations where I am excited to see when what I have been dreaming about will happen.  I don't expect all of my dreams to end up happening, nor do I expect everything that happens in my dreams to happen, but one of my favourite things about dreams is that I have noticed they often lead to déjà vu which I am a big fan of.  I really enjoy that 1 or 2 second interval when I see / hear / experience something, and I know that I have experienced that before.  It is a slightly eerie feeling, but I enjoy it quite a bit nonetheless.  I feel like dreams can be tiny glimpses of our future that the Lord allows us to have to help us know later on that we are on the right track.  Little pieces of personal revelation for each and every one of us that is able to remember what we dream about.  I don't know if that is entirely true, or much about the science behind dreams at all, but there are lots of accounts of people in the scriptures having dreams that end up coming true so is it so crazy to think the Lord may allow us to have some of the same more personalized experiences?  I don't really know what got me so interested in dreams at the beginning, but I do know what has helped my interest in them continue up to this point.  Thanks Inception.  01-23-11

Multi-tasking

One of the things that I have been ever more aware of the past few months is how much multi-tasking I do.  It seems more and more that I am becoming almost incapable of simply focusing one activity.  The one thing that I do take comfort in is that it seems that I am not the only person that has been inflicted with this condition.  Every day the world seems to be getting faster and faster, with more and more things to catch our attention on a daily basis.  There are many times in the morning where I find myself getting ready for the day, while eating breakfast, watching Sportscenter, and listening to music.  That is just one example of the ways in which multi-tasking has taken a hold of my life.  While I was in school, I found that I had a hard time focusing on my homework or what I was studying for an extended period of time as well.  When I did my studying I actually often found that I did a better job of getting things done and retaining what I was studying when I had music / television on, or both. 

The interesting thing to me is that the world seems to be ever more oriented towards a multi-tasking mindset.  Gone are the days when you could simply focus on one thing at a time.  There are so many competing sources for your attention these days that it is no wonder that so many kids have diagnosed or undiagnosed ADD and other disorders which make it harder for them to focus.  I was wondering the other day what it would have been like to live 50 or 100 years ago when there were not so many things to distract us.  Would I still find it difficult to focus on things for an extended period of time?  Would there be as many kids with trouble in school due to their inability to pay attention?  One of the presumed benefits of the ever increasing multi-tasking society we have become is that it helps people get more things accomplished.  We have become a society in which things need to get done, and they need to get done now.  I can't help but wonder as we continue down this path of trying to fit more activities and entertainment into shorter periods of time, what the consequences will be for each one of us individually and for the world as a whole.  01-09-11

* I have however found that blogging while trying to watch TV / movies makes the whole process a lot slower…

2011.

Another year has started.  I am pretty excited about it for a lot of different reasons.  This is going to be a really good year, I just have a feeling.  Not only because 11 is my favorite number, but it is kind of just one of those premonition type things you feel occasionally.  As a random side note I have already had déjà vu twice today which I think is a good sign for the year 2011.  I also seem to have a renewed sense of purpose, as well as some fresh ideas / mindset of what I want to do / get accomplished this year.  I am excited by quite a few of the goals or "resolutions" I have come up for myself this year…

·         Make a trip to Europe

·         Go skydiving

·         Weekend trips to the closest temples: Oklahoma City, Houston, San Antonio, Lubbock, Albuquerque, St. Louis, Nauvoo, Baton Rouge

·         College football games at cool stadiums: Ole Miss, Texas, Provo, Notre Dame?, Florida?, Hawaii?

·         Finish at least 3 songs I have started but never finished

·         Go to the temple at least once a month

·         Exercise and get my body in shape and maintain throughout the year

·         Smile more to demonstrate my internal happiness

·         Make more friends both in / out of the ward

·         Stay in touch with at least 2 new people a month

·         Learn to ollie on my skateboard

·         Do at least 2 snowboarding trips

·         Take the GMAT and apply for MBA schools

·         Fill out at least one room upstairs in my house / get blinds for upstairs

·         Read at least 2 books per month

There are other things that I want to get accomplished this year as well, but these are the ones that come to mind at present.  I mostly just want to have a lot of fun in 2011, and enjoy living.  Also, I HAVE to do something super awesome on 11-11-11.  If you have any ideas of something awesome I should consider, I am open to advice / suggestions.  Also, if you would like to join me on any of these adventures, please let me know.  The more the merrier in 2011.  May you be successful in all of your upcoming endeavors and resolutions this year!  01-01-11

2010 Review.

Another year has come to a close.  It surprises me how quickly time seems to go by lately.  One of the results of getting older year by year seems to be the perceived increase in the speed with which time passes.  Very rarely do I find that time goes by slowly anymore, but quite often I find that it has passed quite quickly.  This is quite the opposite of what I remember of my childhood when a week seemed like a year, and I couldn't even understand how long a month meant.  Since the year has come to an end I thought it would be good for me to kind of do a recap of some of the highlights of my 2010 as I look forward to an even more eventful 2011.  

 

In case you missed it, here is what has happened with me in the calendar year 2010:

I purchased a new house - although I enjoyed living at home and was able to minimize my expenses significantly by being there, as a 26 year old man with a good job I just didn't feel good about living at home with my parents anymore.  It was a good time to buy and I took advantage of some government programs at the time in order help myself feel better about my purchase.  

Lots of travel - well, relative to the rest of my life at least.  Most of my life I have not travelled all that much.  This year allowed me to go to a lot of new places that I have never been before.  List of places I visited this year includes: Detroit, San Francisco, Orange County, Los Angeles, Denver, St. Louis, Nauvoo, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Washington DC, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Provo, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Albuquerque.  

Car troubles - ran rampant the last half of the year.  After about 3 years of not having to really worry about anything car related, I got in a minor car accident at the beginning of August.  Little did I know that this would just be the beginning of a 4 month car carousel, which HOPEFULLY ended yesterday.  After about a month and a half of juggling cars with the parents I purchased a cash car from a used car place for very cheap.  It ran perfectly in the test drive, and promptly died less than 48 hours later.  The engine was destroyed and cost a lot to fix.  I then went back to the same used car lot to see if they would give me a discount on a different car since they sold me a dud.  I purchased another car for them for fairly cheap, but more than the first car.  It ran well for about two months and then they engine blew up on me after my trip to Albuquerque for the New Mexico Bowl.  Yesterday I went and purchased a certified used car from a Honda dealership with all of the extended warranties I could get.  I look forward to not having to worry about car troubles again for a very long time.  

BYU sporting events - all in all I am pretty pleased with my attendance at BYU sports this year.  Living in Fort Worth, TX is not the most conducive place I can live in order to attend BYU sporting events, but in spite of this I was still able to attend: Mens Basketball at TCU, Football at TCU, Football vs. Washington, Football vs. Wyoming, Football vs. UTEP (bowl game).

Church - has kept me very busy throughout the year, even more so than usual.  My calling kind of makes it so I feel a bit more obliged to be at all of the activities I can get to, as well as all of the responsibilities I have on top of it.  I was also able to go to the temple a lot more this year than I ever remember going previously.  I was able to visit several different temples this year including: Dallas, Los Angeles, Nauvoo, Washington DC, Mt. Timpanogos, Salt Lake, and Provo.  

New friends, old friends - this year was a year of finding new friends here in Dallas, as well as staying in touch with old friends both back in Provo and on / home from missions.  It was a lot of fun making new friends, though it has taken me a lot longer and been a lot harder than I would have liked.  Good friends also returned from missions and set off on missions this year.  It has been fun reconnecting and staying in touch with them as well.  

All in all, it has been a great year.  I have had some of my highest highs and lowest lows that I can remember this year.  I feel like a real grown up now having purchased both a new car and a new house.  As great as 2010 has been, there were also a lot of trials and difficulties that helped me grow a lot in many different areas.  I look forward to a new challenge and many fun times and connections in 2011!  Have fun tonight.  12-31-10

New Mexico Bowl.

So this past weekend I decided to go on a road trip.  It was kind of a spontaneous last minute trip (or at least it felt that way) which is not something that I generally do.  My little brother and sister finished up finals week at BYU and were driving home for the Christmas break.  I decided I would meet up with them in Albuquerque and we would hit up the bowl game since they would be passing through New Mexico at about the same time the game was going to happen either way.  I tricked my friend Audi into making the 1300 mile, 18 hour journey with me and we took off once I got off of work on Friday.  It was a very quick and hectic trip but it was a lot of fun.  I have included a few pictures in order to help give you an idea of the fun.    

First is a picture of Audi and me in the car as we started on our way to Albuquerque.  We didn't get on the road until about 6pm, which was a lot later than I had thought, thus giving us an ETA in Albuquerque of 3am.  We had to get stoked in order to be able to make the journey…

After we made it to Albuquerque, we went straight to bed and got up in the morning ready to cheer on the Cougars to victory.  These were a few pictures of us on our way walking to the game. 

The game was a lot of fun, as we arrived at the stadium we were able to see some of the pregame festivities.  The highlight of the pregame was when the microphone didn't work for the girl singing the national anthem, so the crowd got restless and decided to sing it for themselves.  

As I am sure everyone knows, BYU dominated the bowl game and won by the score of BYU 52 UTEP 24.  We got to go down on the field after the game for the trophy presentation and for some of the interviews with the players.  We got a few pics from down there as well.  

All in all it was a really fun trip.  It was a LONG time in the car, but it was worth it to see the Cougars win.  The only unfortunate event from the whole trip was that my car blew up when we got home at like 3:30 in the morning.  It blew a head gasket and is completely gone now, part of the reason it has taken me so long between posts.  Also, I have been busy with the holiday season.  BYU should have a really good and talented young team next year.  Rise.  Merry Christmas yall!  12-25-10