Last blog... for now

Last blog of the semester.  So all in all, I feel like MCOM has been a fantastic class.  It has been one of the best classes that I have taken at BYU.  Although trying to write something in a blog each week has been sort of a pain, I feel like it is good to at least have the habit of writing frequently.  My teacher has been great, and I really have learned a great deal in his class.

I am pretty relieved to be finishing the rest of my classes this week.  This semester has been pretty crazy in school and with work.  I really look forward to having a good break where I don’t have to think about any more tests or projects.    Plus going to CA and Texas for winter break should be way sweet!  I can’t wait to hang with the family and just relax.  We’ll see if this blog keeps going after this semester?

Find someone more stressed than you

This week our teacher gave us the assignment to find someone more stressed than you.  We were then to do something that would help that person.  Most of my friends were actually all pretty good, and were not too stressed out.  My sister, however, was a little stressed out with school and with the car she just brought up.  The car she had brought up from home needed a few repairs, and she had never been to an auto place before.  She needed help getting a ride after she dropped off the car, and also she needed help getting a ride there to pick up her car once it was finished.  None of her friends were able to help her because they were too busy with school.  I was able to help give her a ride, so that she would be able to take her car in to get it fixed.  I could tell that it helped relieve some stress that she had been feeling.  All in all, it was a good assignment and definitely made me feel like a better person.

Thanksgiving Break

Not gonna lie...Thanksgiving break was really sweet!  It was a great week to be able to relax and hang out with the Fam.  I flew down to CA with my brother and sister.  It was cool having all all the family together this year for Thanksgiving.  It was the first time in four years.  This happened because my brother and I overlapped on our missions.  I got lots of good food, and lots of time having fun with the family. 

So my brother and I are pretty comptetive at everything since we are only a year apart.  This Thanksgiving it was Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii.  It was hilarious because I am sooo bad at it.  My little sister and brother kept teasing me about how bad I was at it and how slow I was.  Every time the game started my two brothers and sister would all team up and go after me because I was the easiest to eliminate...hahaha.  All in all it was really fun.  It was a good bonding experience with all of them.  

The Golden Years

So do to the fact that my job has been keeping me too busy, I gave my four weeks’ notice...haha.  This last Wednesday was my last day at work.  Not gonna lie, it was pretty sweet knowing it would be my last day.  Of course someone had to call in about five minutes before my shift was over, so I had to stay an extra 45 minutes.  I got out of work and when I came home I noticed that the light was on, and that the door was locked.  When I opened the door I noticed that a bunch of my friends had thrown me a surprise retirement party! haha  It was way sweet.  There was a bunch of ice cream, cake, and most of all...oreos!  All my friends dressed up in nice shirts with ties.  It was pretty funny.  There was a sign that read, "The golden years are ahead!"  haha  We all hung out for awhile, and then in the end we watched psych.  All in all, it was sweet!  I recommend retirement to all! 

Prince...and the revolution

So last Friday we had our first intramural soccer game.  We attempted to change our team name from YSA 170 to Prince and the revolution.  Although the name of our team was not changed like the intramural office said it would, I think this attempt still gave us some luck.

Not gonna lie, we were all way stoked for this game.  Our team is just a ward team...so yea...we have only won one game.  Nonetheless, we were excited for this game.  We all got there early to warm up.  Our team played the best they have all season.  We ended up winning 2-0.  It was pretty awesome!  One of the goals was just plain awesome!  I crossed the ball from a corner kick and one of our guys came in with a sweet header.  One of our other players, Gentry also had an incredible goal.  Granted...it was very lucky, but it was still awesome!  Overall, it was a great game!  We are all way excited for our next game.  Hopefully we can play just as well and take home the ship!

End of the week cram

So this weekend has been crazy busy with homework, but one thing that turned out to be really cool was my research paper.  I think it was one of those things that initially when I heard of it I instantly thought...awww man....those are the worst!  I ended up find a cool topic that I was super passionate about!  Not only was I passionate about it, but I felt that it was something that could be super useful to me in the future.  I wrote about whether it would be better to rent or to buy a condo if living here in Provo for five years.  I did a bunch of research and tried to analyze every aspect of it.  Basically in the end, I came to the conclusion that unless the condo depreciated by more than 25 percent it would be better to buy a condo than to rent.  The hypothetical couple that I used in my example ended up saving over $30,000 dollars!  It was pretty fun and cool for me to do.  My paper was only suppose to be three pages and between 800-1000 words.  It ended up being close to 2,000 words and about 7 pages.  So I don't know what will happen when I turn it in.  It would be interesting to get points taken off for writing too much.  I mean obviously that would suck, but I guess that is life.  I honestly felt like no mater what this paper was very useful to me because I learned so much about buying houses, and the same equations and research I used in it I could easily use sometime in the future of my life.  Well, I gotta go...but it has been fun.  Till next week.

Jet Packs...Bond or for Reals?

So today as I was reading up on some college football. I saw this picture with a caption by it for the Purdue vs. Michigan game. The caption stated that the game ball had been flown in by a person with a Jet pack. I thought for sure there had to be some sort of parachute or something because I thought that jet packs were just in the James Bond movies or other things of that nature. So I went to youtube and watched a video of it. It was a legit jet pack. The game ball was flown into the stadium by a guy in a jet pack.



I then became intrigued by this video and tried searching for other videos on Jet Packs. My next search then came up with one of the most awesome videos I have ever seen. It was a bunch of these guys flying out in the ocean with a water jet pack. CHECK IT OUT!






Yea...this is going on the bucket list

Community...To You Girtree

So one of my roommates has been telling me about this show called Community for about a year now.  He kept telling me almost everyday about how awesome it was.  I always thought that he was crazy though because I had sat down and watched about three or four episodes with him and I never was a fan.  About three weeks ago this all changed....

One of my roommates got season one on DVD, so I started from the first episode.  I think around the third episode there was an episode about Carpe Diem.  It was probably one of the funnies shows I had ever seen.  So as much as my pride didn't want to admit it, I fell in love with Community.  My roommates and I have now see all of season one and we are starting on season two.  It really is a really great show.  I think one of the funnies moments was when the main character of the show tricked Pierce (Chevy Chase-old man in show) into dressing up like the cookie wizard!  Or another episode where Abed (Indian guy) dresses up like Batman, and does the Batman voice.  It was pretty awesome!

All in all, I admit.  Community is pretty awesome!

Buy someone a coke...well sort of

This week our teacher gave us a goal to "buy someone a coke."  This meant basically that we buy something for someone, without expecting anything in return.  So this could be as simple as buying a candy bar for a stranger.  I thought that this sounded like a pretty cool idea.  So one day, I decided to buy my sister a Little Caesars pizza (because I know she loves this).  I told my sister that I would buy her a pizza, and she thought that sounded great!  So I went and bought a Hawaiian pizza from Little Caesars, but as it turns out...she doesn't like Hawaiian pizza.  So she decided she was hungry and bought her own pepperoni pizza...haha  In a slightly selfish way though, I decided that this was great!  I love Hawaiian pizza!  More for me!  Haha

I do, however, feel that "buying a coke" is a good idea.  Although it did not go as planned this week, I plan in the future to accomplishing this goal.  I'm sure it will be a great experience because like the subway example my teacher mentioned in class, I know that I have been that guy who has forgotten his wallet when going to pay for something and someone else in the store payed for me.  You can't help but highly respect someone who does something like that for you.  Like my professor also mentioned if I put more good in the world, it is bound to come back my direction someday.

Win, but still sorta boring

Saturday's BYU football game I would say would be a little difficult on how to classify it as.  It was fun for about the first 20 minutes, but then it seemed that we couldn't score anymore.  I was really hoping for a blowout.  I mean the first 20 minutes we were playing awesome!  It seemed so easy to score at first, but then there were some interceptions and we stopped scoring.  It was too bad to see Riley throw those two interceptions, and one other pass that probably should have been an interception (he threw the ball straight up in the air).  Maybe the reason he threw those was because he had to cut his hair.  Maybe Sampson and him have something in common?

One really good thing about the game was that my friends and I got front row tickets.  Not gonna lie, it was way sweet!  I got on TV a few times with my friends.  

Carpe diem!

After watching a Community episode the other day, my roommates and I have been trying to find ways to seize the day (carpe diem).

Friday was the BYU football game.  I couldn't believe how poorly Heaps was playing that game.  I think that he has been highly overrated this season.  Many people were praising him before the season started about how accurate he is at throwing the football, but besides just a few good passes I think he is really inconsistent.  I think that he has potential at being better, but right now it seems like he panics too much.  For awhile I was thinking that the reason the offense has been playing so poorly was because of Doman calling the plays, but recently I have been told that the problem isn't with Doman.  The problem has been with Heaps.  When Heaps hikes the ball he likes to go to one receiver, and when that receiver is guarded (which usually happens because Heaps stares down the receiver making it easier for the opposing team to guard the receiver intended) Heaps panics and throws for a short pass every time.  I don't think that Heaps has good vision of the field.  I think this was one of the major differences between Heaps and Nelson.  Besides the very obvious fact that Nelson is much better at running the ball than Heaps, I think that Nelson is more poised and confident on the field.  He takes his time and gets a better pass off.  I will give Heaps credit for being a better passer and probably with a stronger arm, but Nelson I feel is more confident and more of a leader on the field.  The players were all very supportive and riled up behind Nelson.  I think that is what made the game change on Friday.  Overall, the game was awesome!  The comeback was sweet!  One of the best parts was carpe diem and storming the field!  In the words of Professor Kearl, "Self...great day!"

Weekend update

So one really cool thing that happened this weekend was that we had our ward soccer game.  The intramural soccer games are seven on seven.  For the game, however, we only had five players at first until one other person came half way through the second half.  So basically we were playing two men down for a bit, and then the rest of the game we were playing one man down.  We ended up winning the game 1-0.  Adam, Tim, Gentry, and the rest of the other players all played awesome!  It was way sweet!  The win was especially sweet because last week we got creamed and lost 5-1.

One other really interesting thing happened this last weekend was that I had a mission reunion.  It was really cool seeing all the missionaries there.  My mission president gave an interesting talk quoting I believe Elder Holland.  He mentioned about how Peter, after the death of the Savior, went back fishing on his boat.  Peter was fishing all night without any luck.  When a man on shore told Peter to drop the net on the right side of the boat and they pulled up all of those fishes Peter knew that man was the savior.  Jesus then asked Peter three times if he loved him.  When Peter said yes.  Jesus responded, "Then feed my sheep."  My mission president explained how after Jesus had died Peter went back to his old ways and just started to live life like how he had before he began following Jesus.  After this experience with the Savior Peter understood that his work was not done.  He took what he had learned with his time with the Savior and went out and preached the gospel to everyone.  My mission president then applied this to us as returned missionaries.  He told us that we should not go back to our old ways and live life just like how we did before the mission.  Our missions have changed us and we need to learn from them and continue to grow and expound our testimonies.  We need to strive to be better everyday.  I found this very insightful and I knew that he was right.  Life gives us experiences so that we can learn from them, build off of them, and then improve ourselves.  I think this is why we will have trials and other hardships.  If we just get over these experiences without trying to learn something from them, I believe we have missed the point of having that experience or trial in the first place.

Well till next week...

Rules book

So the other day I was over at a friends apartment, and she had this book of rules for girls.  Not gonna lie . . . it was pretty interesting.  One of the rules said that girls should never call guys.  They should always have the guy call them.  It then went on to say that if a guy asks a girl out on a date she should wait five seconds before responding yes.  I think the whole idea that it was trying to convey was how girls need to play hard to get, and be mysterious.  When my roommates and I read this we all thought that this was so ridiculous.  Why do girls have to play these little games?  For some reason though, girls love to play the game.  They love drawing out the dating scene, and acting uninterested even when they are.  My roommate Joe suggested a great idea!  Maybe as guys we need to play the game more.  We should wait for girls to call us, and ask us out!  HAHA  Then when they ask us, we will just wait five seconds to respond!  Well we all know this won't really happen.  As it is the guys responsibility to be the man, and do these things.  This does bring up an interesting thought, however.  What if society changed to where women were the ones asking guys out?  How would society be different?  I guess all in all, guys are pretty lucky.  We do get to ask out whoever we want.  Sure we may get rejected sometimes, but that is life.  It is all part of dating.  It would be nice if girls made it a little more obvious when they are interested.  The funny thing is I bet sometimes girls think they do make it obvious, but lets face it...guys...are kinda slow.  I wonder what girls think they do that makes it so obvious to guys?  I guess it is a mystery that will not be solved for the XY's.

Well one inspirational quote from Joe: "If I were bigger...I would definitely hurt people."  (Don't let Joe be around any midgets...)

P.S. Joe is an awesome dude...this quote might be slightly out of context :)

Undecided

I feel like this blog really is subject to change because I'm starting it with no clue in what direction it will actually go.  Currently, I am observing some game called Quelf.  I have no idea what this game is actually about. Everyone seems to be pretty in to it.  The players just made different impressions of an elephant.  Apparently, the person who laughs while making the elephant impression loses.  A bystander just informed me that this may in fact not be correct.  Now they are discussing World of Warcraft.  Gentry said that it is just a game, but to others we know that it is not.  I'm guessing that Quelf must be a Spanish mystical board game.  It includes the word "Que" which we know is Spanish for "What".  Quelf then also posses the word "elf".  So technically if we put this together this would be What elf?  Maybe the makers of this game did not take MCOM 320, and naturally do not know how to use correct grammar.  Maybe it really should be Qualelf.  This would then be in English  "Which elf"?  So maybe the object of this game is to act like elves.  Considering that nobody has seen elves, the players must be trying to act like how they imagine elves would act.  As we all know elves are silly.  This could explain why one of the players is now barking like a dog.  The players are now discussing something called quizzel?  I would explain what this is, but as we know this isn't an appropriate word and the public is not yet ready for the explanation.  Well not that this hasn't been fun, but I think I'm going to end this blog.  For all my numerous followers out there remember to always think one step ahead like a carpenter....who builds stairs (Andy from the office).

Starting up..

So this is my first time ever blogging.  I honestly never thought I would ever make one of these things, but I'm in this Business writing class where we are required to write in a blog once a week.  The description asks us to write whatever we want and I quote, "Rant, philosophize, write poetry, write about how much you hate writing, write to your posterity, write to your imaginary friend, but write."  Since at the moment I am in a content mood, I will not rant.  All the philosophizing (just found out that is a word...no red line) I will leave to Gench (a.k.a. Girtree).  It's quite possible later on I will write about how much I hate writing.  I have yet to have posterity.  My imaginary friend doesn't know how to use the internet, and thus will never be able to see these (typical pebcak issue).  So I guess I could write about how I chose Subject II Change.  A few weeks ago me and a bunch of my friends did a road trip down to CA.  As we were driving down me and my friend Adam thought about starting our own band.  We decided to name it Subject to change.  The only thing we need is to learn how to play guitar...learning drums would also be nice...I guess we could through in some vocal coaching too...to sum it up in the words of a friend....talent.  Well who knows when that will happen.  I decided that when making this blog Subject II Change looked better than Subject to change (plus I could use the url with the roman numerals).   Well I'm going to get kicked off this computer in about 10 minutes so I will leave this blog with an inspiration quote that I read today (author was not listed):

"When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car."

Food for thought.