as {bwahahahah} seen on my FB today

So-and-So hates to be across the globe from (fiancée), I'd rather have her close to me like she's standing on my toes. :-\

His sister comments:
Dude, you're only twenty minutes away from her. Suck it up a little! LOL



BWAHAHAHAHAHAH. Young, sappy engaged love. HAHAHAHAHAHAH.

BYU mag {oops}

Anna-Lisa gets the credit for this, since she was the one who noticed it.
The BYU mag that they force on send to the graduates had something rather shocking that I'm sure they didn't intend to post. There was this sorta lit mag that BYU Academy starting producing in 1897 called White and Blue that the library has been digitizing. I'm sure in the article they posted this excerpt from the old mag because one of the articles was about a new honor code in 1912.
They really should have looked at the other article on the right titled:
PROFESSOR RASMUSSEN ON EUGENICS
Subtitled:
SOME FUNDAMENTALS UNDERLYING EUGENICS

Holy cow. What on earth?!

Anyway, I know that you're all dying to read the whole ghastly thing. So I'll post the PDF download links here to the four pages that contain the article.
Enjoy his matter of fact discussion of how cells and their goop work and how this information is used as a way to bolster the science of Eu(blech)genics.

Red Rock Adventure

A couple of weekends ago Andy, David, Kathy (who had joined us for the afternoon) went to Red Rock Canyon just outside of Vegas. Here's their pitiful website.
The four of us clambered up somewhat steep rocks (at least for a novice like me), in a small canyon off the normal path. It was really quiet, minus the hippie guy entertaining his lady and daughter with some sort of wood flute. But after we passed them by, all we heard was wind, bees and birds.
I realized that I had this goofy grin on my face for a large part of the time because I was having so much fun.
All I had was my camera phone, but the pictures are mostly ok.
This is the entrance to the part of the canyon where we hiked:
There were lots of exciting small, exciting arches as well as some random holes in the rock:
I was hoping this picture would show better how steep the first bit of scrambling was, mostly because I want people to think we're cool. You'll just have to trust me.
We hit one sorta plateau area in the canyon and stopped to talk for a while. The black on the rock is called desert varnish, which I learned that day from Andy. You can see a bit of my goofy grin:
I think the next picture shows how cool the rock was that we were scrambling up:
I told Kathy to pose and smile and this is what we got:
David also obliged me:
There was this really cool part where we had to lean up against the rock with our back and use our feet as a counter pressure so that we could sidle our way down the slot canyon.
This is Kathy trying to figure out how to use my camera phone. Andy said it was a perfect fac3book profile picture. If only Stick had a FB profile...
Here's Andy sticking his head thru an arch in the rock:
And here we are, sigh..., having to leave:

All in all it was completely excellent and I want to do it again soon.

Water Explosion at the Swenson House

Tuesday as I drove onto our street at about 5pm, I saw that there were about 7 SF city vehicles of varying shapes and duties. The road was blocked off so I had to park on the other side of our block. Walking over to my house I saw our neighbor, Mary, watching the to-do. Come to find out, water had started to seep thru the tar that sealed the road to the cement of the gutter. Then there was this crazy explosion right in front of our house and water went everywhere. I hear it was a sight to see.
So our nice, new road was torn into and a 6 foot deep whole was dug to try and find the culprit pipe.
I thought you'd enjoy a low-quality video of the loud digging and rock-sucking action.

Here's the half-way point of the hole. This is the point that I arrived home. I do like how they cut such straight edges:
I think this picture shows the break in the tar and cement where the water had been seeping initially:
And here is the small piece of pipe that caused the whole ordeal:
The worker brought it over to show us. He thought it was pretty crazy.

No leaks inside and everything seems to back to normal. They patched up the hole in our road already on Wednesday so our nice street that they'd just fixed last summer is uneven right in front of our house :(

hot to trot?

So I'm doing a google images search for "boom chicka wah wah" and this is one of the top hits:



dubious? yeeeesh

captcha

Since I mentioned one sister in my last entry, I thought I'd give a shout-out in this one showing the captcha that I got asked for today in facebook:

Betsy: HEEE-EEEYYY!!!

A day late, but with a good excuse: Happy Rebirthday to Me!!

As has been previously mentioned on this here blog, I like to celebrate my rebirthday. This year marks my 23rd as a baptized member of the LDS Church.
In celebration, Andy, David and I went to church in Vegas because the day before we'd been scampering around Red Rock just outside of the city. The ward (whichever one it was, because we just crashed a 9am meeting) was extremely excellent, which only added to the great weekend.

So to continue my rebirthday churchy posting tradition:

Yesterday in Relief Society* they were discussing the Holy Ghost, as I imagine a lot of wards were. The teacher brought up Gifts of the Spirit (10-33) during the discussion and I was reminded of what Elder McConkie said about the Gifts of the Spirit. He said that the faithful are expected to seek the gifts of the Spirit with all their hearts**.
So this got me thinking about how sometimes we pigeon-hole ourselves, thinking that these are the talents that we've been given, and we shouldn't bury them or anything, because that's not good, but forget that we should not only develop these talents, but righteously desire and pray for that which we don't have.
That got me thinking about why we've been commanded to do so. A few of the many possible answers came into my head:

1. God answers prayers of the honest and contrite heart, and immediately begins preparing an answer that will best help us return to Him (2nd part via a great comment from Lily Huntington nearly-Mott during a Sacrament Meeting talk in the illustrious 73rd Ward [the talk given the same Sunday that Kathy had borrowed her Ensign to give her own talk]).
2. If we have prayed for something, or have been praying for something, our hearts and minds will be more willing to recognize and accept the help given (and be more grateful).
   
3. When we've prayed for something, essentially a miracle, and our hearts are in the right spot, this influence from the Spirit of God will strengthen our testimonies, and perhaps those around us.
   

So those are my thoughts on my rebirthday and the day after.


*In Portuguese it's nicknamed "Soc Soc" said SOH-kee SOH-kee where the ee is barely voiced. It's short for Sociedade de Socorro.
**Mormon Doctrine, under "Gifts of the Spirit"

3:36am

I am awake and can't sleep. So, why not put up a blog post mentioning how tonight I really miss Brazil and wish I were there talking with my friends and making stupid vocab mistakes* that make them laugh at me...

Sigh...

I miss Brazil.

*Look for "mate"

Portuñol

Scottie and I had a forever long conversation tonight where I spoke in Portuguese and he responded in Spanish (and sometimes vice versa).
I love it.
That's all.