Baseball takes forever, but seriously

It's 1:44am right now and I'm still watching the Rockies-Padres game that started at 8:05pm yesterday. Yes, this game has gone for 5 1/2 hours. It's in the bottom of the 20th inning right now. Oh wait, that inning just finished, now it's the top of the 21st.
Anyway, the game went into extra innings at 0-0. In the 14th each team scored 1 run, so it's knotted at 1 right now.
The announcers have been punchy for about 7 innings. This is great.
There are fans waving like from that stupid movie, Angels in the Outfield.
I love baseball.

**Update: 2:02am, going to the 22nd inning

**Update: 2:11am, a runner stole second and then ended up on third base on the poor throw from the catcher. He scored on a double by the next batter. Rockies ahead 2-1 and we're heading into the bottom of the 22nd. Are the Padres gonna score?

**Update: 2:22am, bottom, with a runner on 1st base, Padres batter strikes out looking.

The game lasted 6 hours and 16 minutes.

I know that no one really cares about this, but it helped me stay awake. And the game was really cool.

The most children I ever had, via sneezing

So, in a lot of places when you sneeze once people respond with the word "health" (but in their language, of course). There are places that follow the second sneeze not with another "health," but with "money" or "luck." If you sneeze a third time it can be followed with a "love" or "marriage," but on the fourth you'll get "death." However, there are those that instead of saying death, follow up the marriage after the third sneeze by counting children out in the subsequent sneezes. Hence the fourth sneeze is your first child, fifth sneeze=2 children, sixth sneeze=3 children, and so forth. The counting of children makes a bit more sense because what if you sneeze 6 times? Is that triple death?
So to recap:
1st sneeze=HEALTH
2nd sneeze=MONEY/LUCK
3rd sneeze=MARRIAGE/LOVE
4th sneeze=1st CHILD/DEATH
5th sneeze=2nd CHILD
6th sneeze=3rd CHILD

I tell you this because the most children I ever got to was 19. Yes, I sneezed 22 times in 5 minutes. After I finished one sneeze, my stupid nose prepared to load another one. I strained a muscle in my stomach.

As allergy season hovers over us and we begin to sneeze with wild abandon, I think we should start this trend among Americans. No more bless yous or Gesundheits--unless you're ready to follow up that German with a Geld, Ehe, das erste Kind, das zweite Kind, das dritte Kind, etc.

And for those of you who are eagerly wondering about the Portuguese: saúde, dinheiro, casamento, primeira criança, segunda criança, terceira criança, etc.

Quite the Weekend

So it was my rebirthday on Friday. That was great. Then Brock got his mission call (finally!!!), Chile Santiago West. I love Santiago, it's such an awesome place. I was only there for 4 days--which was so not enough. Brock's gonna love it! And...there's a temple in Santiago!!!
Then on Saturday I went to the baptism of one of my students. (!!!!!!) It was really cool. Another one of my students gave the a talk about baptism. She's only been a member for 2 years. Both are from Ecuador. I have another former student who actually serving in María's home mission. the world is so small.
Then after the baptism I left and drove like a mad woman all the way to South Jordan, thru psycho traffic, to get to my aunt's wedding. She got remarried and I'm really happy for her because of the situation she came from. After the wedding I talked for a long while to my cousin, Steven, about his mission in Hungary. He just barely had gotten back.
Then there was, of course, church today.

Needless to say, it's been a great weekend. The Church rocks!!

Happy Rebirthday To Me!!

I like celebrating rebirthdays (anniversaries of baptisms, the day we're reborn of course).
To celebrate my rebirthday I'm going to share with the blogging community one of my favorite Old Testament factoids.

In Exodus 3, Jehovah is talking to Moses while calling him as his prophet. Moses wanted reassurance as well as a way to let Israel know that he was God's prophet. Here are verses 13-14:

13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? ^awhat shall I say unto them?

14 And God said unto Moses, ^aI AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

I was always confused about the I AM, how that would be an obvious indicator to the people of Israel and why it was such a comfort to Moses--to say nothing of why it would put Pharaoh back on his heels. (11 And Moses said unto God, ^aWho am I, that I should go unto ^bPharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?)
I learned something interesting about Hebrew a few years back, there's this cool verb conjugation thingie called the causative. Essentially what this means is that when you conjugate the verb in the causative, the verb makes something happen, so when God says that he is I AM, it's in the causative. In other words, if we were to translate I AM with its full grammatical meaning it would say in our scriptures, Because I exist, all things exist.
That's pretty powerful and that's why it was such a comfort to Moses, a signifier to the Israelites that Moses was called of God, and would be something that would set Pharaoh, the most militaristically powerful man on the earth, back on his heels thinking, "What's this Moses got that I don't have?"

Pretty cool, eh? Oh, man, do I ever love grammar!

Bowling Dreamily

So right before I woke up (very late) this morning, I had a dream that I was bowling. I was in the zone, seriously bowling the best game of my life. I had the lane all to myself and I just went berserk. The dream was so vivid that I woke up and remembered exactly what I had bowled:
Strike Spare Strike Strike Strike Strike Strike Strike Spare Strike Eight-Zero.
Man, when have I ever bowled more beautifully than this morning at 7:36am?
If you're curious about my score, take a gander:


I totally rock at sleep bowling.

40 Years

Earlier this week I stopped into the Languages office at UVSC to say hi to the 2 secretaries that work there. I was wearing my Barack Obama shirt and conversation ensued.
Carol, who was born somewhere in the 1950s and grew up in Virginia, told me about what it was like to be in school when integration occurred. She talked about how she watched Dr. King's famous speech at the Mall live on television and how she was so completely moved by his charisma and the words he spoke. (The link here is that she said Senator Obama's oratory skill reminded her of MLK.)
Anyway, she talked about the influence the Dr. King had on her when she was young, his words as well as the social equality movement that surrounded him. Then she made a statement that I thought very amazing. Said she, "You know, when I was sixteen I realized that if you believed in the gospel, you couldn't be racist." Thinking about where she grew up, what she insinuated she was surrounded with and the fact that she was in the middle of school integration, I was struck by her strength as a 16 year old.
This reinforced to me the power of words, how words can inspire us to be better, can lead our hearts to change. Which leads me contemplatively into Conference weekend...

So on this 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., I salute those who have said words that have caused great change in the souls of men. And I salute those who have had the courage to follow these inspiring charges to better ourselves.

"I Have a Dream"



Forgiveness, President Hinckley, October '05.

President Hinckley's testimony of the Risen Lord


Robert F. Kennedy announcing MLK's murder to a crowd gathered in Indianapolis

"There were riots in more than 100 cities across America after King's death. But that night, there was calm in Indianapolis."

John F. Kennedy's speech in Berlin


Walter Cronkite's report of the MLK assassination in CBS Evening News

Shirt problems

As I was walking to my last class today, I walked by a girl wearing a green shirt. When I looked over at her I finally realized what her shirt actually said, but because the straps from her backpack had obscured a portion of the word, I was initially shocked. Here's the word:

CHARLOTTE

Oops.