Bizarre Bradyisms

Hare Krishna

Really, I don’t feel like writing anything right now, so, instead, I’ll just add some pictures of a Hare Krishna event that a number of us went to yesterday afternoon.  Plus, you can check out the video I have as well.

[googlevideo]8037266691739174994[/googlevideo]

Springtime for Provo (and BYU)

When you read the above title, make sure you say or at least think it to the tune of the song from the movie/play The Producers entitled “Springtime for Hitler.” In case you haven’t heard it, I’ve included it here below. (Laugh, that’s the point).

For the past few days the weather here has been amazing: high 60s, low 70s, and just simply wonderful. I don’t think I can express in words how happy I am about the weather. As far I can tell, I’m not the only one either. I walk through campus and I see a lot of people sprawled out on the lawn soaking up the sunshine. Love must be in the air too because there has to be twice as many couples holding hands or eating lunch together as I remember seeing during the winter months. Its a good thing.

I found out that the trip which I won and mentioned previously is only for accommodations and does not include travel charges. Although I could fly to a number of places in the US (Washington DC to Hawaii), I still have to find a way to get there. I’ll have to figure that one out later.

So I spent almost all day yesterday (Saturday) cleaning the kitchen and our back patio. I also, believe it or not, released all of my kitchen and cooking materials into the common apartment cupboards. I finally trust everyone in my apartment who uses the kitchen to take of them. All in All, I must say that it looks impeccable.

I went shopping at Costco on Friday night and made an amazing discovery. They give away free food samples like all the markets used to from about 4:00 and onward, although the best ones disappear after 5:00 or so. Although I wouldn’t ever buy the products, most of them are quite good. However, keep in mind that you must still beware of the hidden nasty cracker that lies beneath the slice of cheese. It is tempting when you look from the top, but it is so not worth the horrible taste the lingers long after the cracker is gone. They fooled me once, maybe they will fool me a second time, but I promise you all now, it won’t happen three times.

Also, on Saturday night, I stumbled upon (or Josh informed me of) the hidden treasures found towards the back of stores TJ Max and Ross. They have framed art, flatware, plants, and other artistic items at crazy low prices. I again have to question my manliness because of my excitement for these things, but I guess it all balances it out when I consider all of the technology toys that I acquire as well. I bought nothing this time, but the hidden desire what implanted for the next time.

Nothing insightful this time to share, although that doesn’t mean there aren’t insightful things going on in my head. It just means I haven’t finished out the thought process entirely and no conclusion has been reached. Plus, I’m sure everyone is tired of my constant soapbox lectures.

Starbucks

Last night I had my first Starbucks drink ever.  It wasn’t coffee, but it was a what is called a “Dulche Cinnamon Soy Steamer” (at least I think that is what the name is).  I have to admit that it was good, not great, but good.  Then again, you know me, and if I am paying over three dollars for a glass of flavored milk, it has to be dang good to attain the status of greatness.  Now that I’ve done that, I’m going to have to find something else I haven’t ever done to put on my list of to-dos.  The only difficult part about that is that it must be less than $10.00 or it’ll have to wait until this summe when I will have more funds to play around with.

I stated doing my taxes this week and as entered all of the data from my W2s (three in all), I soon realized that I would have to actually pay the IRS this year because I guess I made too much for my age and status in life.  It didn’t make me very happy, but I can guarantee that the government isn’t going to get a penny of it until April 15.  Ah the joys of growing up.  These are the things they never tell you when you are a kid wishing you could be an adult.  For those of you who are not yet there, this is my warning to you all, its not as great as you think it is, however, I have been told that there are some great things about getting older, I just haven’t figured that many of them out yet.  And yes, the previous was a joke, I’m not really that upset.

I took my contacts out this week for the first time in a number of months (yes I know mother, I shouldn’t do that) and it has been wierd getting used to glasses for that past day or two, but as far as I can tell, I can still see great, and my eyes seem to be just fine and dandy.  Don’t ask me how I can do that because I simply don’t know, but I can tell you that I don’t know how much longer I can stand not having focused peripheral vision while using glasses. 

Not much else going on I guess, expect that I am kind of dreading tomorrow to see if any of my customer’s computers didn’t update correctly with the new daylight savings change.  Nothing drastic will have occured, but it could get messy.  We shall have to wait and see.

La Edad De Yo

For those who are not Spanishly (is that a word?) inclined, the title means, “The Age (as in era) of I.”  I have this Spanish class that I am taking from a teacher named Professor Quackenbush.  Before signing up for the class, I remember hearing some pretty interesting stories about that type of person he was.  Some really liked him.  Others couldn’t stand him.  But, I thought I would give it a try and I can now say with confidence that it is my favorite class.  It is not because I am doing well or because I love the content of the course (although I do enjoy the majority of it), but it is because Professor Quackenbush is real.  He is a real person.  Not in the sense of “I’m a real boy!,” but in the sense that he does not only teach the church’s view of how life is.  Let me see if I can explain a little more clearly.  Instead of hiding and dancing around the fact that in some areas of the world, prostitution is a part of many peoples lives, he states it bluntly and with sincerity.  Then he goes on to share how that has influenced the Latin Literature (especially poetry) that we are studying.  Other times he mentions other difficult subjects such as suicide and communism.  It is such a refresher to hear about becuase I feel like over the past 2 years, most of my instructors have just tried to hide the world behind the rose-colored glasses of the gospel.  So as to not be misunderstood, let it be known that I BYU is great, the church is true and teaches correct principles, but sometimes it is neccessary to learn about what problems real people have to deal with and the emotions and effects their decisions have on the world around them.  It’s cool.  The reason that I bring this up suddenly is because recently we have been covering the writers of the “Modernismo” and “Vanguardismo” periods such as Pablo Neruda, Borges, Gabriela Mistral, and others.  It was brought up that the people of this generation have been brought up and generally are concerned about themselves more than has ever occured before.  Professor Quackenbush explained that his generation was always concerning with Atomic Inialation and that still influences in small ways the decisons he makes in his life.  We, on the other hand, spend mass amounts of money on things like clothes, makeup, health care products, exercise equipment, diets, phycologists, etc and etc all because we care so much about ourselves and how we appear to others.  Yeah, this is not entirely true.  Many of us do perform acts of charity and we are concerned for others, however, alot of money and effort spent on one’s self.  What is my point.  I have no idea.  I’m just rambling and doing what is known as a brain dump.

Moving on, today was a rather successful day.  I went and picked up 2 new dress shirts last night after having ordered them online for quite cheap.  One is a peach-colored, no-iron shirt and the other is light-green.  I wore the peach today and got a number of compliments on how good it looked and that is was very “Spring” like.  That is always nice to have happen.  Second, I went to a buisness fair at lunch-time today and dropped my card in a few glass bowls for random drawings and at about 4:00 today I got a call saying I won a trip.  It was a short conversation and I don’t remember most of what he said.  I think is was something like a 4 day, 3 night trip to somewhere specific and a day-long workshop based on something else he mentioned.  I have to admit, it is kind of funny that I don’t know what it is, but he said he’ll forward me the specifics soon.  So when that happens, I’ll let you all know.  But the best part of today was that there was precipitation that fell for this morning and it wasn’t snow!  It rained for about 30 minutes today and then quickly cleared up to be a bright, beautiful day.  Plus, the night air right now is just as wonderful.  You can’t beat that.  Today was good.

A House Can Be A Home

Whenever I come home at night, 95% of the time, I am the only one home, and I often don’t see any of my roommates for days in a row.  Before I used to get kind of lonely and upset that I didn’t have lots of friends, but now, not so much.  On the weekends, I still do enjoy going out and doing something different, but honestly I can enjoy being at home by myself just as much.  I really love my house.  It is clean, friendly, and just pleasant.  Hopefully, when I get a house that I actually own, the same can be true then as well.

Towards the end of this week, I went up to Salt Lake to visit with my Grandmother and my Aunt.  It is always nice to go a get a hug from family.  We all went to dinner at Mimi’s and enjoyed the evening.  From what I can gather, either our waiter or our cook were really new because it them 3 times to get the order right for my Aunt.  On the plus side, she got her meal for free, and we also all shared a wonderful brownie desert.  I planned to drive back to Provo that night, but after we got home I started falling asleep on their couch and decided to stay the night.  That next morning I woke up to ~3 inches of snow had to leave early to beat the weather.  (I sware that groundhog promised an early spring, so let’s go already). 

 At work, I have a new employee that has joined my “team” and I am responsible for training him and getting him familiar with all of our customer’s site’s.  (When he was talking on the phone with someone, he called me his boss.  That was weird.)  It has been a learning experience and my boss has been doing a great job of teaching me and others how to properly instruct and lead those how you are responsible for.  We have been going over something called “Direct Instruction” and “Crucial Conversations.”  The first is a method of teaching through instruction, using good examples, bad examples, and role playing.  There is alot to it, so I won’t go over it now, but let it suffice to say that it is interesting to try and implement in practice.  The other, “Crucial Converstations,” deals with the fact that as humans, when we are faced with difficult situations, we naturally do one of two things: flee or fight (think of a caveman’s reaction to a predator).  However, our sociecty has progressed beyond that, and it has become necessary for us, when presented with such situations (having to fire someone, etc), do react in an appropriate manner.  Again, too much to mention here, but neat to learn about.

On a side note, by bosses have found out that I don’t date much and have taken it upon themselves to offer their suggestions on an on-going basis.  One of which is to go to the market (my new word for grocery store that I picked up from a friend) at around 7:00 on Friday nights to pick up girls becuase supposedly if they are there at that time of day, you know they don’t have any plans.  When I asked what type of pick up lines to use, this is one somebody suggested, “I am not normally this forward, but I just have to say that you have a great smile.”  Reactions?  Another suggestion offered to me is to pass by our clinic site’s where there are lots of old grandmothers working there.  Supposedly they have these things called “Grand Daughters.”  Who would have thought.

The semester is now officially half over (thank the heavens) and although I am not perfect in my classes, I am still doing well enough such that I got a fair amount of padding left before they can think of kicking me out of school. Also, let it me made known that asparagus is quite cheap this time of year and I must say that no matter what type of rumors exist about said vegetable, it is definately one of my favorites.  Nothing can compare to the taste of fresh steamed asparagus with butter melted on top sitting next to a plate of home-made chicken parmesan.  Yeah, its that good.

I went to a birthday party for a friend on Saturday and I knew they were quite fond of the Harry Potter books, so I thought I would have little fun.  Now, I enjoy the books myself, but I am definately not up to par with this individual.  Because the 7th book is not out yet, I decided I would preorder a copy as a gift, and then print out some certificate to give them until this summer.  The first certificate I gave them was the one on the right that I created, and then I gave them one with the real book title on it.  I was not able to see their recation because I left early, but I’d be interested to know how it went.  Plus, I think I did a good job on the font and title and everything.