A Dream Fulfilled!

Hello, comrads! I'm very excited today because I was able to fulfill one of my dreams: Ridding in a Hot Air Balloon! Unlike most, I didn't have to wait on a list, or pay a fee, or go through any of that. I heard that all the spots were filled, and that there wasn't even a chance of me riding. While walking around taking pictures and being fascinated with every one's inflating balloons, on of the ballooners (pilots) took notice of my interest. I was just standing there a few feet away from his basket with my camera ready to film his take-off. People started to back away to avoid getting hit by the basket, but I stayed close so I could get a good shot. "You wanna go up with us?" The rest is history. I jumped into the basket, asked "where do I sign", then threw my keys to Robert Peterson. "Give these to Melanie for me." He couldn't believe it! He was there as part of a pilot group to help the ballooners. (I assume to get one step closer to being able to ride in a balloon.) He tossed the keys to Melanie, "Here. You're husband's going up." Melanie couldn't believe it. "DID HE ASK?" He answered "NO! THEY asked HIM!" I felt for him. Anyway, I uploaded many pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Have a great day guys!

Sound of Silence

Well, since we went to the zoo together, there have been two posts, is it? I decided I'd dropped by the page and not contributed for long enough. So, here I am.
Now, what to contribute...ummm....yeah. I'm in a class called the history of creativity. It is quite fascinating. Very few classes can capture your attention on the first day like that one. We talked about the brain and how people think. Fascinating stuff.
So school has started again and my nephew is now here at BYU. He turned 18 last week and I'm showing him the ropes of college life. He's like the little brother I never had. This will be a very fun semester.
Well, it's not the latest and greatest in intellectual thought, but there's a small update for me.

Also, can anyone recommend some good digital cameras?
adios

So many roads

When you wake up in the morning, what you have before you is basically an unlimited number of opportunities.

Opportunities... why am I obsessed with that idea? More on that later, maybe.

Anyway, the moment your brain reaches consciousness, you embark on a labyrinth of decisions that ultimately determine your state at the end of the day. The first choice you probably make is whether or not to open your eyes. Then whether to get out of bed or try to fall back to sleep for a few more minutes. Then what to wear, and so on and so forth.

Think about the idea that, due to the number of possible decisions you could make during the day, there are virtually unlimited possibilities available to you by the time you reach bedtime. What if one of those possibilities was a strengthened relationship with your family? How about a more secure financial situation? Maybe a combination of things? What if there was a map you could follow that said "At choice B, turn left, and then make a quick right at choice C," showing you how to end up at a desired point at the end of the day?

I've got a theory on how to do that, but I'll save it for another post. I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

Camels and Lion and Bears--Oh my!

So, I googled the various answers for our songs. I found an overwhelming amount of hits for Alice the Camel and even found this image under google images. Approximately 226,000 results came up in favor of Alice. Sally the Camel came in at 108,000 because of an episode of Barney where they sang that version of the song. Even with the purple dinosaur's help--Alice wins! How many humps does she have?

As for "Going on a ___ Hunt," the votes are in and I find results for both bear and lion. The number of resulsts you get varies on the variations of titles. (ex. I'm going on a lion hunt, Going on, Goin on, etc.) However, the bear song is different in many ways and is a little bit fruitier. Yes, fruity-er. More fruity and cheesy. They probably both came from the same source originally.

One last detail--I found that the lion version was published in the Girl Guides of Canada songbook back in the '90s, so that version must win.

Leap before you look

I just interviewed Jeremy Hanks, President, Chairman, and Co-founder of DOBA, an online inventory sourcing company. I discussed with him about being an entrepreneur and the hardships of it.
The advice he gave to entrepreneurs was this:
"Go out and do it and do it now. There are two schools of though. The first one is that you graduate, get some work experience, and then be an entrepreneur. The other is that you're young and you have less to lose. That's the school of thought I subscribe to. Risks go up as you add complexities to your life."
He lectures in various forums and one of his themes is "Leap before you look." Many people have ideas but they never get them off the ground.
I just thought you might all find that interesting, seeing as how some of us are entrepreneurs and trying to make a name for ourselves as well as some Top Ramen for our bellies.

To Feed a Herd

Well, since I am sort of around here and could theoretically have ideas about eateries I am posting a couple ideas asking for input on our Wednesday dinner.

Place, Type, Approx. Entree $
Mayan Mexican $10
Tucanos Brazilian $Ouch (better at lunch)
Red Robin Burgers (endless fries) $8
PF Changs Chinese $10
Others??? Greek, Chinese, Mexican
Buffet, ...

Well there are lots of places to eat up here for those down south Jane found a place she likes called Rumbi Island grill you wouldn't see down there....

Please comment and let me know your votes. We could even try Thai

A quarter of life

It's kind of funny how you can know something and then you can get something. You can know that 2 x 3 = 6, and you can get that 2 x 3 is two added to itself three times, and that is six. You can know something for a long time, and then you wake up one day and you get it.

People often say they have this kind of experience with testimony. You can think you know something about a principle of the Gospel, and then something might happen that makes you really get it. The phrase from the song on the seminary soundtrack -- "I learned with my heart / what I knew in my mind " sums it up well. Interesting that there are these two separate parts of our understanding, and it's hard for one side to convince the other without some kind of catalyst getting involved.

Yesterday I turned 25. I'm still young, for sure, but I had a get it experience nonetheless. Many people say they finally feel "grown up" when they turn 25. I'd have to say I agree somewhat, but the experience was bigger than that for me. For some reason I finally realized that I am actually going to grow up. While my brain could have told you better, my heart (for lack of something better to call it) was living in a delusion of eternal youth. I woke up yesterday morning and got it, that I am mortal.

Mortal people, I've discovered, have slightly different priorities than immortal ones. When time is recognized as a finite resource, one starts to wonder if he is making the best use of it. This is why, I believe, old people think time travels faster. They're running out of it. I remember that 5 years ago yesterday, I was in Barra da Lagoa, Florianopolis, Brazil holding the "Concurso da melhor torta (best pie contest)", a activation/fellowshipping activity. I got sang to and we all ate an unhealthy amount of various types of pie. I can't believe it was 5 years ago.

I can figure that I've probably used up about a quarter of my mortal life. What am I going to do with that time? Can I use it better than I've used the last 25 years? Fortunately, I get to skip the long stretches of diapers, incommunicatability, and public school now. I'm starting to become one of those people who is afraid of time just slipping through my fingers, like sand slips through that tiny hole in an hour-glass.

Here's the other part of realizing your life won't last forever: it comes with a realization that you're going to die. I've always known that I was going to die, it's a natural thing to do, and even for people with larger perspectives on existence that aren't limited to mortality accept the fact that death is part of the Plan, whatever plan it is they put their faith in. Now, however, I really get that I'm going to die.

That's ok, though, because I know that dying is not the end of things, right? But even if I know it, I really only half know it. That's a problem. Now that I get the fact that I'm going to die someday, it's really important now to get the principle that I'm not going to cease existence when my heart stops beating.

Is there something that you only halfway know? Is there some part of your testimony that hasn't been really examined because you haven't had a reason to really get the principle behind it? How do you make that happen? How do you learn with your heart what your mind already knows?

Heres one thing I think I got yesterday. There's a reason behind mortality. I imagine that when we're born, we're handed a saw, a hammer, and a bucket of nails and set in a forest. We are to use our saw, hammer and nails to build a building. Every day we are to make this building taller. On day one, we look around, and we see the trees around us, and that's all. "Neat!" we think, "trees to make a tower out of!" and we go after them with our saw, and once we have some lumber we start to build our building. Every day, as the building gets taller, our perspective changes a bit. After a while, the tower gets taller than the trees, and we can see beyond them. We might see mountains, lakes, streams, other towers, and as the tower grows we'll see more and more of the world. All of the sudden for me, life became a matter of perspective, and every day I get older, that perspective changes, and things that weren't as important become more so as other things seem less important than before.

There is something to be learned by living, knowing that you are going to die. Mortality challenges our hearts to internalize what we are taught about eternity. Now that I realize that I'm mortal, I'm going to try to see every day as valuable because not only am I going to run out of days at some point, but because every day offers a new perspective on the world, an opportunity to not just know something, but to really get it. I'm headed to the temple this afternoon as Joseph's fiance goes for the first time, and I'll be interested to take my new perspective on mortality with me. Hopefully it's a step, maybe a catalyst in bringing a testimony of immortality in to my heart, where it really needs to be.