Thoughts on Inauguration

Like many people across the country, and probably world, I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama this morning. I was impressed by how many people were there in D.C. just to watch the thing on big screen monitors. It seemed like they had so much patriotism and hope for this country. I only hope that these feelings last a long time and that they weren't merely a show. I should probably watch the speech over again because the internet was being very stubborn and I missed about half of it. So I will try to comment on that later. But I did want to make one more comment about Bush. I still like him. I think he's a great guy. The whole time I saw him today on TV he was smiling, asking people how they were doing, and just being friendly. I particularly liked how he was giving high fives to the security guards lining the path he walked on. Despite what anyone may say, I feel that he did what he thought best for the country always. This is the same thing that president Obama is going to do. And I'm sure that most presidents have tried to do the same thing. But I was amazed at how the crowd erupted into a "No More Bush" cheer at the inauguration when he was introduced. Two thumbs down for them. He gives his entire life, doing his best for the country for 8 years, and that's the thanks he gets. I for one am glad he was president.

Book Review: Romeo & Juliet

So, because of some conflicts between seminary and advanced english my freshman year in high school, somehow I had never read Romeo and Juliet before. I think that we might have watched it in english class or something. This Christmas break Shanna was cleaning out her stuff at her house, and she threw the book out on the table. It was short so I decided to read it in my free time. It was really short and I enjoy reading straight dialogue.

I suppose that I enjoyed the book. I just read straight through without stopping to look up what certain things meant, so I didn't understand everything, but I caught the main story line. I guess it's worth reading at least once just because it's such a classic. But I only rate it a 1 out of 3.

Trip to Target

Yesterday, I went on a trip to Target with Shanna to buy some stuff, I don't remember what. But while I was there, I made some observations that I have thought about quite a bit since then.

Observation 1.
Target carries golf equipment. All sorts of stuff. Putters, drivers, towels, bags, etc. Target carries frisbee equipment. Mainly just frisbees. However, Target does not carry frisbee golf equipment. This is in my opinion a major oversight on their behalf. It's kind of like carrying black cookies, and carrying white frosting, but not carrying oreos. Kind of like that.... So holiday shoppers, if you're looking to give the gift of a 175 gram driver disk to that special someone this Christmas, you won't find it at Target.

Observation 2.
Whoever has the job of building miniature tents to put on display at stores has it going on! Can you imagine your boss coming in to you and saying, "Hey Jack, we're going to need this tent, but about 20 times smaller." He spends all day sewing mini tents. He probably burns the midnight oil sewing extras that he can sell on the side to the Borrowers and other holiday shoppers looking for the Barbie Let's Camp collection that just sold out. Now I've realized that these miniature models have run over to sleeping bags as well. Seriously, I'll bet they could sell them for Barbie...

Observation 3.
For some reason, people take their kids Christmas shopping with them. Not only does it spoil the surprise of Christmas Day, but it clogs the aisles with those extra long look like a race car style shopping carts. A single one of those can block the entire aisle. Then you have kids hanging out the sides, grabbing toys, and causing trouble. You can always tell that the parents are fed up with it all.

Observation 4.
I really want a large hi-def flat screen tv with a blu-ray dvd player. Movies are really cool looking on those. It's like real people inside of your tv.

CO Close Call

Had a scary experience today. I was working downstairs in the PARACad lab today with some other people when we heard a siren-type noise. It sounded like a police car but inside the Clyde Building. I looked at the person next to me and said, "I wonder what that was...". She later left for a class and returned about 2 hours later.

When she got back she told me what had happened. This is how I heard it. I don't know for sure if it is true or not. She said that there is a lab in the Clyde basement that has Carbon Monoxide tanks that exploded. The alarm was the carbon monoxide alarm. Apparently, the people from that lab evacuated everybody from the basement,.....except for us. I mean, what's the deal? If you're going to evacuate the basement,...evacuate the whole basement. In the mean time, I was studying and I got a huge headache and felt really drowsy. Luckily I'm ok. If I had died, nobody would have heard my story.

Next Week's Police Beat

At nine o'clock AM on Tuesday Nov. 4th, police were called to investigate reported gun shots behind the Clyde Building. Cautiously, two patrol cars investigated the situation. As they poked their car nose around the corner, they saw nothing but a group of students huddled in a circle. Slowly they approached using all of their investigative skills. As they drew close to the group, the students looked up and laughed. The huddle parted to reveal a formula one race car. It was found that the "gunshots" were actually caused by the student built race car backfiring repeatedly. The officers told the students to try to get the engine timing problems worked out.

Don't be surprised if you see this in the Police Beat next week. It happened to us today. It was really funny. The officers were being so cautious. Then they were really relieved to see it was just us. Eventually a ME faculty member told us that we had to stop the engine because there were too many people around without earplugs even though there was a whole cubby full of earplugs in the facility. He said not to run it again until we had the problems worked out. The only thing is, we have to run it to iron out the problems.

Well, the car is running now anyway.

Book Review: Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids

This book is a biography of Jon Finkel, a professional gambler who has appeared in the World Series of Poker who got his card playing start from the game Magic: The Gathering. I found the book very interesting because it not only talks about Finkel, but about the actual games (Magic, Blackjack, Poker, etc.) and the hundreds and thousands of kids who were influenced by them; especially Magic. The author clearly depicted the culture of the Magic tournaments as well as the type of people who were drawn to it (generally smart nerdy kids who dont have the ability to excell athletically). I guess this was interesting to me because I played Magic for a while with some of my friends, so I knew a little bit about it already. Even though I don't gamble, I enjoyed reading about how Finkel and his team of card counters and big players took casinos for tens of thousands of dollars in a single night and then wok eup the next evening to do it again. If you enjoyed the game Magic or the movie 21 at all, this book would be an interesting read for you also. I give it a rating of 1.5 out of 3.

A Few Pearls of Wisdom

Well, I'm only 23 years old (almost 24) but I feel like I still have a few nougat filled morsels of wisdom that I can pass on to a lot of people. Enjoy...

1. Rules are usually rules for a good reason and yes, they do apply to you. - A lot of times, people think that rules somehow don't apply to them. I see this all the time at work. People carelessly take a Jamba Juice into the theaters even though it's posted in 3 inch letters not to. This almost always results in a large carpet cleaning job. They blatantly cross caution tape and wet wax signs in order to tromp through the hallway, leaving their size 9's imprinted in the otherwise glassy floor wax. But I guess the most blatant abuse of a rule was witnessed by me this morning on my way to work. Imagine my surprise when I looked up at Y Mountain in the early twilight to find it on fire! What happened was no mystery to me. Obviously, some geek decided to light fireworks on the Y in honor of Pioneer Day and shot a roman candle into a dry tinder-ized bush. The fire spread from the bottom right corner of the Y to cover about 1/8th of the mountain face. Here's a tip... Next time, when the firework stand says don't shoot off fireworks on the mountain... DON'T DO IT!!

2. Global Warming is real. - If you don't believe me on this one, go ride your bike behind a bus for 15 seconds.

3. If you see a movie on the opening night, DON'T talk about it except the following subjects: who acts in it, if you liked it or not, if it was scary, the amazing graphics, and if you would see it again at full price. Nobody wants to know how so-and-so kills who's-it. They don't want to know what amazing trick the protagonist does on a unicycle to save the damsel from the mutant cheese blob. Just keep it to yourself. There are great things called journals and tape recorders that would be glad to listen to you. But seriously..... I had the whole beginning of Batman: The Dark Knight ruined for me at work this past week by one kid who's seen it twice already. Show a little respect.

4. If you don't know how to do something, ask. - There's a kid who really has this one down at work. Yesterday, he was asked to sweep the floor. He said ok, but then asked, "After I sweep it, what do I do with the stuff I sweep up?" I guess he's never used a dustpan before... Now, he may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he figures out what he needs to do and then he does it.

Most who read this blog have probably already mastered these traits. But I know that you know people who haven't, so spread the word.

Book Review: Positively False

This is the book written by Floyd Landis stripped 2006 Tour de France winner. The subtitle of the book is "The real story of how I won the Tour de France". The first half of the book is a general biography showing how he got into pro cycling. The second is about the Tour doping accusations. Starting out the book, I knew that it would be all about how the claims were preposterous. The events are laid out in chronological order and are very detailed. I sometimes wonder how authors can remember word for word what was said to them or by them, but that's getting off topic. I really enjoyed the storytelling.

The book really takes off after the Tour when he is accused of doping. I'll come right out and say it,... I believe that Landis should not have lost his title. I'm not saying that I'm positive that he didn't dope, but his team of supporters found mistake after mistake in the testing and procedures. The arguments made by him and his defense team are very viable and after reading I feel like the test was botched beyond a reasonable doubt and that his result should not have been deemed positive. There are a few main points which are explained in detail throughout the book and in pointing these out, Landis questions both the procedures, desires, and accuracy of WADA and the USADA, the world and united states anti-doping agencies.

It's a great read and leaves you with both the evidence and defense for you to make up your mind. Again I give a 3/3. (Maybe because I find the subject matter so interesting)

First Crash

Well, there is a first for everything, and today is the first time that I have crashed on my new bike. I'm actually kind of embarrassed by it too. You see, I'd like to say that I was soaring down a steep road when a car pulled out in front of me. I'd like to say that it was either bail on the side of the road or eat a big fat delivery truck tail pipe...But I can't. All I can say is that my stupid pedal clips were strapped on too tight.

I was out on a ride around and through BYU campus when I decided that I had better be prepared for my big bike trek tomorrow to Saratoga Springs, 25 miles each way. So I pulled off the road next to Outdoors Unlimited to pick up some spare tubes and a water bottle. As I stopped my bike on the sidewalk, I pulled my right foot out of the pedal strap and began shifting my weight to my left side. Simultaneously, I pulled my left foot out of my pedal strap and planted my foot firmly on the ground. I noticed something was wring when my weight continued to shift further and further to the left. Alas, I hadn't pulled my foot out of the pedal clasp. By then I knew I was going down, but in the 2 seconds or so before I hit, I tried unsuccessfully about 50 more times to pull my foot out. I hit the cement, foot still firmly attached to the pedal. I reached down, loosened the strap and pulled it out.

I could tell immediately that I wasn't hurt bad. I basically fell straight over on my side from a complete stop. I began to do a little self examination. Head,...check. Shoulder,...check. Wrist,...ouch! My wrist was really sore. I figured that it was just an impact injury that would go away in a few minutes. In the meantime, I went inside to transact my business. On my way out, I glanced down my leg which was covered in black grease and oil. I noticed a weird red pattern. It took me a while, but I figured out that my front two chainrings had cut my leg up pretty good. Luckily they weren't bleeding a lot. As I mounted my bike, I realized that I couldn't put any pressure on my wrist or squeeze without pain. I continued on my ride trying to decide whether to finish early or go the whole route. I was dead set on ending early, but when I got to my turn, I decided I had recovered enough to finish the whole thing. I hope that you enjoy the cool design that my chainrings left in my leg. I know I will for a few weeks...

Great Start, But Still Depressing,...Sort Of

Well, it's been 5 days now in the 300 mile challenge and as of right now, I have ridden 77.7 miles. That leaves me with 222.3 miles to go. Shanna and I rode up to Bridal Veil Falls on the Fourth of July, which was such a nice ride that I wanted to do it again. So I did it again today. The ride is very flat (except for the portion right next to Wymount which is very steep) and can go fairly quickly. The ride is 19.7 miles long, which added about 40 miles to my total in just 2 days. If I ever fall behind in my goal, this is a ride that I can catch up with. It is not difficult at all to do daily.

The only depressing part of my start this month is that today the Tour de France started. That's not depressing in and of itself, I actually am excited to follow the action this year. The depressing part is that today's stage was 197.5 kilometers long. That is equal to around 123 miles. So, while I've been working on my goal for 5 days now, the riders in the tour rode farther than me in one day. Not even a day. In 4 hours. Today I rode the 20 mile trail in just over an hour. That means that if I had ridden it four times for a total of just under 80 miles, the other tour riders would still be 40 miles past me. I guess it's not so much depressing as amazing how fast tour riders really are. And their Stage 1 ride involved climbing up mountains too....