67th Post

My mom rarely paints her nails -- she "doesn't like the suffocating feeling." It therefore follows that my mom rarely removes paint from her nails.

With my mom's help, I dressed up as Frankenstein for my orchestra concert last Tuesday (or rather, to satisfy the prescriptivists, I dressed as The Modern Prometheus). I had the bolts, the dark hair, the dead-looking flesh and blackened nails -- only the fingers; I neglected painting the toes since I'd be wearing shoes.

To complete my getup, I bought a nice suit from D.I. (parenthetically, how does one punctuate the end of a sentence in which the last word ends with the mark you intend to use? It feels a little silly to write it again. People might read it like they're descending a flight of seven stairs expecting six) . The suit fit right about my waist, and fit most of my legs nicely as well. See for yourself:


I enjoyed the concert -- we played some fun "scary" songs:

• Danse Macabre - listen to this one if you have time for only one song.
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice - but in real life... not cartooned.
• Baba Yaga something something - the conductor on this video is funny, though I wouldn't enjoy playing for him. He hasn't always a very pronounced ictus.
• Pumpkin Eater's Fugue - can't find a recording,
• and Noon Witch Overture - it's okay... not my favorite.
  

And I scared some kids.

Finally at home I unscrewed the bolt from my neck, showered out the darkness from my hair, cleaned the deadness from my face and asked my mom to help me remove the blackness from my fingers' nails. She pulled out the bottle of remover (that she probably bought when she was four years old and hadn't used in a decade) and only managed restoring six nails to life before running out. So I went to work on Wednesday as an emo kid. Without the goofy hair.

Contemplative Frank:


Drum-playing Frank with fellow drummers:

Hundreds of Thousands of Words

Here are some things I've been working on lately. I'd put them on my more nerdly blog, but I'm not explaining anything technical here... so... here:

This demonstrates a simple watchdog timer thinger. The circuit will activate unless in receives a signal within a certain amount of time.



We (at work) used that circuit to power this fan so that when our website went down, the fan would turn on:


I fixed the dome light in my car. No, this was not the cheapest way to fix it. Yes, it was fun to do. Yes, it's pretty bright. And it makes me smile when I get in my car at night.


(and no, the light isn't just dangling from the ceiling -- this photo was taken before I put it in the cover)

And this is one of my mom's flowers before we pulled them all out before winter:

Persist

Originally Emerson's thought, this was Heber J. Grant's motto: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased."

I nabbed it from the Gospel Principles book. Most often, I've encountered this quote in lessons at church designed to motivate us to be persistent in strengthening weaknesses. And it has been motivating to me. I see it when I practice the piano, or exercise or speak eSpanish -- we really do gain ability in the things in which we persist.

But this last week, I realized that the idea works in the negative sense, too. To rephrase: "If we persist in being a jerk, being a jerk becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of jerkitude has changed, but our power to be a jerk is increased." Same goes for lying, sleeping too much, plucking the heads off of flowers, not doing dishes, petting cats up their spine instead of down, watching TV, being critical of others, eating chocolate oranges, etc...

I'm not sure I've concluded anything yet from this thought, other than to take pleasure in the little victories of agency well used. In what do you persist?

Unrelatedly, I found this snippet from Ralph whilst searching for the quote up top:

"I hate quotation. Tell me what you know." - Emerson, Journals (May 1849)

To borrow from the Bible: "Amen!"

Geneous

What other name comes to mind when I mention the names Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il? Obviously, Jason. Jason, the former Korean Dictator of Mountain View's Italian Club circa 2001, who narrowly (it may actually have been a landslide) beat out our only authentic Korean (sorry, Dan). Jason, the eater of hot dogs. Jason, the both selfish and generous consumer of popcorn. Jason, the Netflix. Jason, the man who-just-made-it-through-this-week. Jason, my (former) roommate.

He's in Texas now, which is weird. I've lived with him for the past three solid years, starting from the time I bumped into him in the Clyde and he asked, "Do you want to come live in the Glenwood?" Jason's great, and I'll miss him. We had fun in high school (ask to see the movies sometime (the jingle was ... ba, da, da Rob or something like that)), and we've had fun in college. He really is a great guy. May you sweat well in Houston, Jason :)

By far, Jason's greatest quality is his salad, which is what prompted me to write this post. I made his salad today for my family. And they liked it. In fact as my brother, Dan, pointed out, today was the first time we've ever heard the sentence, "Can you pass me more salad?" spoken by my dad.

Which leads me to another thought about which I've been thinking recently: generally speaking, I like heterogeneous things more than homogeneous things. This was not true growing up, specifically with food. I used to prefer my food to be consistent throughout -- no surprises. But now, I think I enjoy a sandwich which has a little more tomato in one bite, and a little more meat in another. A couple weeks ago, I had the Big Apple from Gandolfos on Center Street in Provo (it's the best Gandolfos I've found). That sandwich was awesome! Every bite was a little bit different. Random variety really makes life more exciting, and enjoyable.

Similarly, a heterogeneous mixture of humans is generally superior to a predictable section of society. And a picture of asymmetry is more beautiful than symmetry would be. But, and I haven't thought this all the way through, it's a little more difficult to appreciate the heterogeneous. Just like my younger self, if you're unwilling or unable to appreciate the different things, the brilliant flavors, views and personalities will be lost on you. Or worse, you will detest the difference. (Oh, the reason Jason's salad led me to this thought is that it is very heterogeneous -- forgot to mention that)

That is NOT to say that everything which is different is good, as modern relativists claim. Nor does it mean that any crackpot notion of reality or opinion or persuasion is made good by its crackpottedness. It IS to say that the "good" umbrella is an umbrella, not a raincoat.

This is a picture I took of a flower my mom planted:


And in the words of the skeleton: I sleep now.

maPost

I'd like to dedicate this post to Megan. And since this is my blog, I can do whatever I'd like on it. And so I will dedicate this post to Megan.

This post is dedicated to Megan. It became dedicated upon my writing the previous sentence.

I moved home yesterday. Last night, I slept in my old, very comfortable bed with a cool breeze blowing through the wide open window.

As I came into the kitchen this morning for breakfast (bacon, eggs and grits ala marvelous Mom) I noted how different Mom's kitchen is from my former kitchen. There are cookies everywhere! And unlike in my apartment, when a cookie is eaten, the quantity does not diminish -- there are an infinite number of cookies! There's bowls filled with fruits and vegetables. Nearly all the things in the fridge are both consumable and not pickles nor carrots. So, that's great.

I had a mullet on Friday. But my camera cable's packed away somewhere, so the pictures will not be in this post.

Also, I finally joined Facebook.

That's all for now.

Except that, for this post to be properly dedicated to Megan, it must include a playlist:

All the Music on This Computer's Desktop Playlist:
- Major Tom

This is a real update.

This is a test

Edge of the World

I had a really good day last... I think it was Thursday.

After working for a little in the morning I went to Harmons for lunch. I drove to a nearby church, snatched the red checkered blanket from my trunk, chuckled to myself that it was, indeed, a red checkered blanket, layed it on the grass at the edge of a tree's shadow, took off my shoes and slowly ate my lunch. If memory serves, I also had a package of Pepperidge Farms cookies -- either the butter-sodden, shortbread Chessmen or the thin-n-crispy, chocolatey Brussels.

To save the entire package of cookies from extinction, I cut my excursion short. On a side note, I have a goal this summer to purchase a package of cookies -- whether Pepperidge Farms or otherwise -- and to eat only one cookie per day. I don't know if such a goal is possible; my gut says that it wants to eat the cookies, so I'm thinking it'll be difficult.

Anyway, a couple hours later I left work and headed home. But, on my way home, on a whim, for the first time, I stopped at the Edge of the World park and flew my kite. The park has always invited me to visit: it sits atop the bench overlooking University Avenue (as well as the rest of the valley) with no fence or foliage guarding the drop. From within the park looking West it really looks like Earth ends with the lawn.

I don't remember what else happened that day... but at least the remembered was excellent.

I made the following video from the web cam in the testing center. 10:30am is particularly exciting.


And this comes from the Brimhall building's web cam.

Harses, harses, harses

So, I never wrote about a few Tuesdays ago when I went horseback riding with my cousins. I took the day off of work and homework, and drove out to Spring City (near Manti) for a very relaxing and very fun day.

We ended up combing the horses a lot,

galloping a bit, going up a mountainish place and chasing a small herd of deer. Jacob's horse seemed to have asthma... he was wheezing the whole time. But Jacob was breathing okay.

After riding we played a few games then went for a "hike" in one of the local canyons. We only went a little ways up and played a lot in the snow. Here's one of our guides juggling:

Everyone after all the snowball fights:

As I was driving home that evening, I just kept smiling -- it was so fun. I love my cousins (and my aunts and uncles).

In other news, I graduated from BYU last week:

You're invited

Tomorrow (Thursday) from 1pm to about 4pm in the Garden Court of the Wilkinson Center:


That's my senior project. The car uses a camera to navigate a course of pylons. Come see!

Also, this is my FHE group's video:

http://vimeo.com/3860150