State of the Union

My fellow bloggians,

I didn't watch the State of the Union address, but my question is this: did I really need to?

The answer is: No. Nobody did. Why?  Here's 5 reasons:

5. Somebody thought that this would be funny: http://youtu.be/UWEyJjNX4gA

4. I'm not interested in a speech full of partial truths.

3. ZZZzzzZZZ

2. It's too similar to "glee" and "The Biggest Loser" which were also on last night.

1. No 72-minute speech deserves 20 standing ovations unless it is a 72- minute speech announcing the creation of a new cancer-curing, weight-reducing bacon that is just as delicious as regular bacon except it makes your breath smell as fresh as a Himalayan blizzard. Seriously. Why do they do that? It's obnoxious (see #2).

Time to dust off the blog.

Hello,

I'm sure my 2 readers have been disappointed to see that I have not updated this blog for a solid 10 months. It was kind of sad to see all of the dust and cobwebs that were here when I finally logged back in.

I'm not sure what to write about. Life is pretty good. I'm having ups and downs, just like normal. I will say this, though: The Lord has been good to me, and I have so much to be grateful for. I have been blessed with a lot, and have been surrounded by great people who help build me up and make me want to be better.

Life is a good thing.

Good things in life.

There's plenty of negative media out there. TV, movies, and music are soaked with negative and degrading thoughts and images. I love to find TV shows, movies, and songs that bring out the happy side of life. I heard this song the other day by Carrie Underwood and looked up the lyrics. I love it. Great message. Here's the words:

There's a place out there for us,
more than just a prayer or anything you've ever dreamed of.
So if you feel like giving up cause you don't fit in down here,
fear is crashing in, close your eyes and take my hand.

We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe.
It's written in the stars that shine above,
a world where you and I belong, where faith and love will keep us strong,
exactly who we are is just enough
there's a place for us, there's a place for us.

When the water meets the sky,
where your heart is free and hope comes back to life,
when these broken hands are whole again,
well will find what we've been waiting for,
we were made for so much more

We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe.
It's written in the stars that shine above,
a world where you and I belong, where faith and love will keep us strong,
exactly who we are is just enough,
there's a place for us, there's a place for us

So hold on, now hold on,
there's a place for us

We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe.
It's written in the stars that shine above,
a world where you and I belong, where faith and love will keep us strong,
exactly who we are is just enough, exactly who we are is just enough,
there's a place for us.

6 fastest days of the year.

I can't sleep. Christmas just ended almost 2 hours ago. It's now "officially" Sunday, which begins the 6 days of the year that disappear quicker than any other days on the calendar. I don't know where these days go, or why they go by so quickly, but looking back I can only remember a couple specific memories of things that happen between Christmas and New Year's Eve (I count New Year's Eve as one of the six because that day doesn't really become significant until it's almost over).

This year will be different. Maybe. As of right now the only thing on my schedule for the next six days is an 11 hour car ride home and a dentist appointment. I will make them significant, though. Maybe not with memories, but now is the time to make sure I'm geared up for the new year.

I always suck at resolutions. Probably because I either A) don't know what I should resolve or B) am not ready to start resolving yet. Usually what happens is I forget about them until January 3rd when somebody mentions one of their resolutions and then I make up a couple of quick ones on the spot. These never last very long. During the next 6 days my task is simple (... but maybe not easy): decide on some good New Year's Resolutions and prepare to do them.

People almost never accidently accomplish anything great that lasts. It has to be done on purpose. New Year's Resolutions are the perfect opportunity for me to get things in gear and to start to make good things happen.

6 days to go... Time to make them count.

A moment re-lived... and not a moment too soon.

It's 1:30 in the morning. At 5:30 in the morning I'll be headed with my family down to Mesa, Arizona to spend Christmas with my Grandparents. Definitely exciting. My family used to make this trip almost every winter from the time I was 10 until I was 18. It has been 6 years since I've been.

I used to hate this trip. When I was younger it was because of all the time in the car (11 hour trip). As I got older it was because of the time away from my friends. Now... I can't wait. I still don't love that I'll be in the back seat most of the way (I would much rather be driving), but I am very, very excited to go somewhere warm with my family and get out and spend some fun time on the road and visiting my grandparents. We don't take trips much, especially now that I don't live at home, so I guess this means a lot more to me now than it did ten years ago.

Grandma, Grandpa, I'm on my way.

P.S. Why am I up so late? I've learned a thing or two after all these years of making this trip. The drive goes by a LOT faster if I'm asleep for the first half of it :-) Good night, ya'lls.

Philosophical question of the night:

Here it is: If a robot from the future tried to kill you in the past... can you trust him to protect you in the present?

BYU-utah @ SLC

Saturday I went to my 4th BYU-utah game, but my first one ever in Salt Lake City. It seemed like a bit of a bold move. Besides, utah fans are all "classless" right? I was ready for some fun.

So, to be honest, I probably didn't start things out on the best of foots. We got to our seats in the north end zone and the bleachers were wet from the snow storm that had hit over the last couple of days. Well that wasn't the best, but lucky for us some sponsors had put some little red ute flags wrapped up in plastic on the seats. Well me and my buddy Garrett unwrapped our flags and used them to wipe up our seats. Once our make-shift towels had done their jobs we balled them up and threw them on the ground. There were still a lot of fans that weren't there yet, but the ute fans a few rows back saw this and weren't impressed. They didn't get confrontational, but they told us sharply that if we didn't want our flags that they would take them. We kindly obliged :)

That was pretty much the worst of it, other than a guy a few rows down and a ways over tried to get everybody in the section to boo us for sitting by them. Only a few joined him, but I thought it was hilarious. After that the fans sitting close to us were pretty friendly and we were friendly back.

The ute fan sitting to my left was one of my favorite ute fans that I'll ever meet. He was an old (70-something) man wearing a red sweatshirt and a black leather jacket. As soon as he started to shuffle down the isle and saw that he'd be sitting by me, he laughed out loud and said "uh oh, we don't have trouble-makers sitting here with us, do we?" in sort of a warm, grandpa kinda way. I told him he had nothing to worry about and patted him on the shoulder when he sat down. The reason this guy was so awesome in my book was because of the comments he made a few times during the game. In the second quarter when Austin Holt went down and the guy who hit him got flagged for a personal foul, all the ute fans started booing. Even when Holt got up and was helped off the field the utah fans were booing like crazy. Well the guy next to me started saying "come on guys, show some class!". Later when the first half ended and the teams were headed back to the locker rooms I could see the fans in the south end zone throwing stuff at BYU's players and coaches on their way into locker room. I leaned to the old ute fan and said "wow can you see what they're doing?" and he said "ya, and quite frankly it's embarrassing." I laughed a bit, and he said "No, I'm serious. They shouldn't do that". I was in awe of his overall coolness.

That guy was awesome, but to be honest all the ute fans sitting around us were pretty friendly. I definitely didn't tame down my fan-nes during the game. I cheered like crazy when BYU scored and made big plays. But that didn't alienate anybody around us. We tried to be respectful to those around us and those around us were generally respectful back. Immediately after utah blocked Payne's kick a bunch of the fans around me were way gracious about the win. In fact the guy in front of us turned around and said "wow. sorry guys. BYU definitely deserved this one. I'm way glad we won, but this one was a gift. Good game, guys". I have heard that other people didn't have quite the experience I had and were met by some pretty dumb fans. There was 1 other BYU fan sitting close to us and he said just after half-time that he almost got in a fight in the bathroom because some idiot started bad-mouthing the Book of Mormon and making fun of BYU fans, and he stood up to him. Obviously there were some of the uglier sides of the rivalry present on Saturday, but I do want to acknowledge the decency of the fans that I sat by. They were pretty good folks.

After what I experienced on Saturday I will never miss another BYU-utah game in person again as long as I can afford to go. Especially in SLC. It was way too much fun. Here's 2 reasons why:

Reason 1: It was awesome wearing blue in a sea of red. It is a pretty hard-core feeling. In my section there were 2 of us in blue. Me and my friend Garrett. The BYU fan sitting close to us was wearing grey. As nice as people were, we did catch a few dirty looks from people as we were walking in and taking our seats. I liked it, though.

Reason 2: It is awesome cheering for BYU while being absolutely SURROUNDED by utah fans. When Jake Heaps threw his TD pass to McKay Jacobsen, when Jameson Frazier intercepted Cain, when Shane Hunter also intercepted Cain and every other big play we were going nuts. It was a bit jarring at first because I noticed that nobody was cheering around us. I thought the play had been whistled dead or something so I kinda hesitated, but then I remembered "oh ya!HA! Everybody else is ute fans!" It was an awesome feeling.

Anyways, it was a great experience. It sucked watching BYU lose, but everybody around me kinda left with a look of relief rather than joy. They barely squeaked that one out. For me, I was upset about the loss, but I feel like I got to see a small portion of how great things can be next year. Jake Heaps showed that he's got what it takes when the game is on the line. He got the team in position to win it, in one of the most chaotic environments he could have possibly have been placed in. He is going to have an incredible career at BYU. I definitely think BYU will beat utah the next 2 or 3 times if not more. utah has some problems to work out. No doubt. Their qb situation is pretty sorry. Wynn is not a good qb at all.