∞

I've decided rapid changes in humidity are the cause of my stuffedness. It dropped down to about 30% humidity the day before i got sickish, then i got better, and it just went back 80ish and now i'm stuffed up again. Luckily, in 3 days i'm going somewhere with no humidity, so i can expect my sinuses to defenestrate themselves.

So, other than being sick (again), life moves on. I went bowling yesterday, so now my hand is all sore from how i spin it, i imagine with poor form. I went to Baton Rouge with my dad today and helped clean out some people's yard. It wasn't as rewarding as the katrina removal, because it didn't seem to need it nearly as much, but it was still nice.

I'm going to kill this blog on monday, or at least close it, cus i don't want portuguese people who i'm trying to teach the gospel read about how i hate catholics. I really don't hate catholics at all, but i'm sure somewhere in my blog there's something that someone would take offense to. Plus, it has nice symbolism of me putting my life on hold and stepping back from my normal stuff.

So, i figure now's as good a time as any to point out my other blog. Just stick 'elderammon' where 'ammonsblog' usually goes, and you'll be there in no time. It's your one stop source for mission updates. I don't really know what it'll be like, but i'm sure it will be interesting.

Well, i guess that's about all. The air conditioner is dead so it's absurdly hot and humid in our house. I'm looking forward to utah, where it is never absurdly hot, or humid. This might be the last post on this blog for two years. So soak it all in.

blech

I feel like crap. I hate being sick, and i'm not even really that sick, but i still hate it. I don't quite have my dad's ability to suck it up and not talk about it (obviously). I can mostly suck it up, but talking about it is the best part. It feels like the front half of my face is going to pop any second. It really came out of nowhere, i was fine all day tuesday, and then before soccer i started feeling a bit nauseous, and then after i got back i started feeling dead and went to sleep and woke up with a sore throat. Hopefully i'm getting all the sick out of the way in the next few days so that i'll be healthy all throughout the Mission.

I got to play soccer yesterday in my spiffy new indoor soccer shoes. They're nice, but i still played really poorly. I'm going to blame it on being sick, i was just kinda off. Plus, now i have a gnarly blister where my foot would usually have a nice callous but for the fact that i've only played soccer a few times over the past year.

Other news: Crime and punishment has gotten a lot better over the past few hundred pages. Now i'm blazing through it. I also have a bunch of other books to read before i go, i'm definitely not going to be able to finish them all, but that's ok.

Well, that's about all. I think i actually might go to sleep before 11, having already slept 7 hours and then had a 3 hours nap (or however long it took for my cell phone to charge). If i go to sleep at 11, I'll officially be going to sleep earlier than i will have to at the MTC (if you count the time change) so if i manage to wake up at 7:30 (hah) i'll be all set. So that's about all that's happening here. One week from now I'll be getting ready for my first night in the MTC. How trippy is that?

Oh p.s. - the reality of the fact that i'm about to leave is starting to sink in. On monday we talked about how i'm going to keep in touch, and it was the first time i really grasped that i'm only going to talk to my family four times in the next two years. (We get two phone calls, on Christmas and Mother's day, otherwise it's letters). I'm also realizing that i really don't know what the logistics will be for keeping my blog going, so i'm glad i've sub-contracted by sister and that she's up to the task. It might be a lot easier for her to just transcribe some of my letters.

boa noite

An Epic Loss for Words

Update update update update update update

Now that word has no meaning, hooray.

Anyway, life continues, my departure is getting to be absurdly close. A week from tomorrow is my last day. i feel like i should have so much to write about right now, what with the impending leaving my family for two years, but i don't have much to say. I've realized that i generally don't have much to say about life changing events, it's the little things i can ramble on about for forever. But yeah, with the epic things, i always end up at a loss for words.

In other news, i'm getting pretty close to being ready to go, logistically at least. I got my contacts, and my motor history report (they charged me $11 dollars to print off an un-certified online document, plus a $2 'service' fee. That's highway robbery), i got a new driver's license (with my current address and the obligatory terrible picture of me.), registered to vote...it's been a comparably busy week. I need a hair cut sometime this week, and i need to buy some cheap clothes that will last a while (jeans, sneakers, that sort of thing). Also, posting is going to fall off quite a bit after next sunday, but i'm starting up another blog to chronicle my mission life. Sometime this week i'll finish up this blog for a couple years, maybe with some final, reminiscent post to wrap things up, and post a link to my other blog, which is currently under construction.

hm, anything else? I have to give a talk in church next week, it'll be pretty short though, so that'll be cool. Every time i do something now i'm like, "this will be the last time i do this." I'm reading Crime and Punishment still, i'm going to have to start reading faster if i want to finish before i leave. I'm only slightly motivated to do that.

Well that's about all that's going down here. I'll post once or twice more and then i guess i'll be signing off. Madness.

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony

I can't stand elections. I really can't. I hate that campaigns will lie and squabble about the tiniest things. I hate it even more that our idiot citizens just accept these lies and vote accordingly. Calling anyone who criticizes Palin sexist is so stupid, and in itself is a result of obvious sexism on the part of the Republicans. They assume that women will vote for a candidate just because she's a woman, make a huge deal out of the fact that she's a women, and then lampoon anyone who doesn't give said woman a free pass without making her answer for any of her policies, because to not do so would be 'sexist'. It's just aggravating, the obvious hypocrisy in politics. If McCain wins this election, i'm going to give serious thought to staying in Portugal, or maybe migrating up to the England for a couple years. I could get in touch with my roots. I realize this looks like obvious partisanship, whiny Ammon doesn't want another republican, but it's really not that. I had so much respect for McCain the last time he campaigned, i thought he was everything that is right with politics, but it turns out he's just another man willing to sell his principles for votes, and do whatever it takes to become president. In doing so, he's offered himself up as a tool of the Republican party leaders and Karls of the world, and lost pretty much all my respect (i'm sure my respect mattered a lot to him.) I wonder if he ever is ashamed of his campaign. I would be.

P.S. - I think the lipstick on a pig comment was extremely clever, and yes, it was an obvious insult on Palin and McCain, but it wasn't sexist, unless any mention of lipstick is sexist, and it wasn't calling her a pig. In this metaphor, she's obviously the lipstick and, by extension, a pit bull.

P.P.S. - I'm also disappointed with how willing the Obama camp has been to go back on his decisions when it's in the best interesting of the campaign. Campaign finance and off shore drilling come to mind. Don't say I'm holding one campaign accountable and ignoring the others rhetoric, because every time Obama engages in standard politics (i.e. deceiving americans) I die a little inside. However, the McCain campaign continually cheapens this election by its increasingly negative tactics and empty attacks. It's a shame that democracy ensures that the person most able to lead will always lose to the person most able to campaign. I can understand why the founding fathers didn't trust the huddled masses enough to leave them full control over who leads the country.

In this time of Introspection, on the eve of my election:

So first, my blog has become super popular over the last week. Not really, but four separate people commented, which is about even with the comments by people i actually know. I dunno what that means, but it's probably something big.

Anyway, i did manage to pull myself out of the wallow of inaction (evidenced by 3 blog posts in 3 days) and accomplish something. So that felt good, i went swimming, i read most of Ender's Shadow (not quite as good as Ender's Game, because i don't like Bean as much, he's too cold and calculating, but still a fun read) and started reading Crime and Punishment again. I only got to the Crime when i was reading it in highschool. It's still a punishingly slow book, and i can't read more than a chapter unless i've had more than adequate sleep the night before. I've started waking up at 9 in an effort to shift towards the 6:30 alarm i'm looking forward to in 2 weeks (holy crap, 2 weeks). As soon as i manage to work that out (not staying up to blog at 1am will be key) i'll push it back to 8. There's no reason to push any farther than that since with the time zone change i'll be getting up at 7:30 central.

My biggest difficulty with swimming for exercise is my attention span. I have neither the patience nor the personality to swim freestyle slowly for miles (except when it's a race and i'm pacing myself). The best part about swim teams (or any athletic teams really) is you have friends and coaches to motivate you and keep otherwise boring exercise interesting. So i've been swimming 100m I.M.'s to keep things short and interesting. I've been switching the Butterfly out for other strokes some of the time because i'm still really out of shape and don't want to throw up in the nice people's bathroom again. But i figure over the next couple of weeks i'll be able to build it up to 200m IMs, butterfly included, just in time to swear off swimming for two years. I guess in the MTC i'll have to go back to weights. Maybe do a bike machine or something. I have a feeling running would take it out of my legs really fast, my knee still gives me trouble sometime, and my shin feels like it did back when i got shin splints.

Mild pain aside, life continues hurtling forward at a crawl. 2 weeks from now i'll be packed. I don't know how to deal with that. I am sort of accepting the idea of myself going into the MTC. It feels a lot like me going to college. I still have no idea how to feel about it, can't believe i'm really old enough to be doing this, but am expecting it sort of. I don't quite know how to describe it. I never do.

Music is so amazing. Seriously. (I'm listening to The Killers again, Read My Mind to be specific.) Just the way music can not only convey emotions, but actually produce them. What is it that makes songs like this so beautifully perfect? (I originally phrased that as comparison to crap music, but even Brittney Spears, 'nsync, and Creed, the groups that came to mind for crappy music, aren't really that bad, they're just shallow. I can't think of any bands that are really pointless, just a lot of bands i don't like) Music is powerful stuff, more so maybe than any other art form, at least in it's directness. Art can make you think, and sometimes visualize the abstract, theater has a lot of potential for conveying ideas and even draw you in to the emotion of the characters, but music can, within about 5 seconds, create completely real feelings and emotions. (I didn't mention dance. Dance has never done much for me, yeah it's beautiful and impressive, but it always seems that when it comes to conveying things, which i think is what all Art is at it's core, conveying the inexpressible, it's a very convoluted method with definite limitations, and it almost always depends a lot on music. Music can make you want to do stuff, dance, cry, go to war, etc. I have yet to get anything like that from dance, but maybe i've just been going to all the wrong places. In a lot of ways it seems like dance is a combination of music, art, and theater, but without some of the best parts of each. I didn't mention poetry either, but that's good stuff.) Someone should make really really good music for missionaries. My problem with religious music, mainstream Christian music especially is that the thought is good, but the Music and the Lyrics suck. Maybe they don't fit, i dunno. My impression is that most Christian songs are created by picking a absurdly simple thought (God is Good), jazzing it up with a couple of adjectives (God is SO good) and repeat until the song is long enough. Then grab an acoustic guitar, pick three chords, and go nuts! Too much Christian music tries to survive on the fact that it's Christian music alone. It ought to be music first, that just happens to be about Religious themes. I think the real power of music is also drastically under utilized. Religion is full of deep and difficult to express things. Why waste a song on something that can be explained in a sentence? I'm sure there's decent religious music out there, there are a whole bunch of hymns i like a lot, so there's no reason people haven't managed to make decent music about God that isn't in SATB chord structure.

I totally forgot to mention that i played piano for a Funeral last week. Happily, that went a lot better than some of my wedding exploits. (Can a funeral really ever go 'well'? Do you go home saying, that was a great funeral!) It also made me give a lot of thought to being cremated. The thought of being embalmed, sitting in a box slowly rotting, being paraded before all my relatives, and then dropped in the ground where i'll gradually decombone*, not romantically back into the earth, but covered in my own compost, into a zombie like wraith due to the box and all the poison pumped into me. No, fire has a very nice romanticism and purity to it. I think if i could pull it off, floating into the ocean on a pyre that's lit by flaming arrows would be pretty rockin, but i imagine they frown on that these days. Also the whole scattering of the ashes thing is way cool. I would still want a tombstone though, but someplace cool. Cemeteries are nice, but it's a little scary how many dead bodies are below you, and they are very necessarily public places. I want a little tombstone at the top of a mountain or something. It would be nice for it to be somewhere accessible though, so maybe at the lip of a valley. Another problem with having a tombstone above your corpse is that it's hard not to go and imagine what their body must look like at that very moment, whereas if you're cremated you can only be remembered as you were. On top of that, ground space is bound to get harder and harder to come by as time passes. I dunno if the Church has any policy on Cremation, I know we have standard procedures for funerals, but i've never heard anyone say cremation was frowned upon, I can't imagine why it would be, the end result is the same, time is the only differential (and the amount of poison the dirt around your body will soak up). One thing i don't like is the thought of Cremation itself. Because that is almost necessarily unceremonious, which is a shame really, given how ceremonious it can be. My imagination is them tossing your possibly naked corpse into a furnace. I'll have to scope out some cremators sometime in my life. Someplace with a pyre.

Wow, this post has drifted towards the macabre, but now you know, just incase there's a freak vespa accident while i'm in portugal.

So, that's the news from Biloxi Bay, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.



*I obviously meant to say decompose, but i think decombone is a hilarious word that conveys what's happening quite well

The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds

Things i'm going to miss more than Biloxi:

Swimming - One of my first and most prolonged loves, and something i've just recently rediscovered. Swimming is so incredibly relaxing and feels so good. Every time i swim after i haven't for a long time i can't imagine why i would ever have stopped. It's not hard to imagine two years without swimming, i've nearly done it before, but i will definitely miss the ability to just dive into the ocean for kicks, and there are only a few forms of exercise i enjoy more.

Music - So much. I was listening to The Killers today, and it's just so perfect. I can't believe that the Killers have been around for so long without me listening to them. I really only discovered them this last year, and that was mostly due to Guitar Hero. I almost bought their original CD, but decided it wasn't quite worth having it for only three weeks. But it really almost was. There's good Mission appropriate music out there, but nothing like the bands I've discovered over the past year or so. (Sufjan Stevens is also amazing)

Google - I'm not going to miss the internet. Having something to constantly waste my time on is not actually something i enjoy. The instant communication is handy, but it somehow cheapens conversation. And Facebook saps productivity like nothing else. I am, however, going to miss Google. I am so used to being able to instantly find whatever i want to know. Soon i'm going to have a question and have no immediate way to have it be answered, i suppose i could ask people, but that's never very reliable.

My Family - It would be insulting if i didn't mention them. This is going to be the first time that I'll be in a place that really doesn't have any family. In Utah i could always fall back on Cami when there were no friends to be had. Even after i had made friends, hanging out with her was generally more fun, but it seems important to make friends. For all the crap i give Isaac, i'm sure i'll miss him. It's also a shame that i'll be missing the 2010 family reunion, i bet this one will be absurdly awesome to reverse the trend. What if it's the last family reunion? Our family is getting too big for these massive weekend getaways to remain feasible.

I've already been missing my friends, but i'm going to miss them in Portugal too. Two years is a long time to go without seeing people. In the last two years though i've already gone at least one year without seeing any given friend, so i think i'll deal.

I don't think other things will be a problem, movies and tv are cool, but i can survive pretty well without them. Sleeping late isn't really something i enjoy, and staying up late doesn't work when there's no computers or tv. So yeah, i think that covers most things. I'm not too worried about going two years without girls, although it will be weird to go two years without close friends that are girls. I've historically become close friends with girls before i've made friends with guys (other than in elementary school). I'm sure that has something to do with having three older sisters but i'm not going to worry about it to much. Normal clothes will be a bit of a bummer to lose, but i'll get to look forward to getting an entire new wardrobe when i come back, so that's exciting.

Speaking of new wardrobe, I got a new face! At least it feels sort of like that. I picked up my two pairs of glasses today.

Retro!

From This way to infinity

And, more normal glasses. I call this one Engineer Ammon (at 1 a.m.)

From This way to infinity

So, it's taken me a little while to get used to them, but i've decided they'll pass. Hopefully my loyal readers will approve, since i care a lot more about what you think about them than what i think (i spend a lot less time looking at myself, contrary to popular belief.) so yeah, feedback away.

Oh, there's also this picture from our stint in the church house, i think it's awesome.

From This way to infinity

One last glasses picture. It was unavoidable:

From This way to infinity

Things I Don't Get, Part 2

Or, in other words, Criticizing Everything

So, i hadn't planned on making this a multi-volume thing, but I was thinking about hurricanes today, and i just don't get the appeal of the Coast. I really don't know why anyone would choose to live here who could live somewhere else. I get that my Dad works here and gets a lot of fulfillment from that, but for people working at Walmart, or really any occupation that doesn't require the presence of a hurricane swept landscape, why would you stay?

First of all, there's the hurricanes. Having to board up your windows and leave your house with all your most valuable possessions is ridiculous. And there's always the chance that everything you own will be destroyed. Katrina was a bit of a fluke, but there are the average, run of the mill hurricanes that tear up the coast without generating quite as much media. So from a catastrophic point of view, the coast is one of the worst places to live, along there with at the base of a volcano or beneath a large and precariously placed boulder.

Now, i would understand living here in spite of the hurricane if this was a spectacular paradise. But this isn't the bahamas, it isn't even florida. The beaches crappy and fake. The water is brown and stinky. The waves are non-existent. At this very moment there's a cockroach roughly the size of a walnut climbing up my wall. There are these sand gnats everywhere that are even worse than mosquitoes (though on the plus side, there aren't so many mosquitoes as there are in jackson). The summers are hot, humid, and unpleasant, the winters are cold, rainy, and grey. Spring and Fall are ok, but they come and go without any of the spectacular colors of New England and other places. As far as the natural beauty goes, the trees are quite lovely, but there's aren't many things that can really impress upon you the magnificence and the magnitude of Earth. You can't even see the stars.

Then there's life itself. There's no great urban scene, or music scene, or college scene, or many things that are entertaining at all. I've realized, in making friends and hanging out, that there's just not that much to do here. And everything to do is so corporate. Sure, out in the boonies and around some places, you can a few quirky local restaurants or shops, but in biloxi proper, it's all chains, casinos, and shopping centers.

So, redeeming qualities: Sunsets are beautiful and there are lots of thunderstorms. Those were two things i missed in Utah. Utah just doesn't know how to do sunsets, and your average Utahn doesn't even know what real rain looks like. (the drops are really big). For those with a ruddier complexion of the nape, there's lots of good fishing and hunting, and you're never more than 5 minutes from a walmart. You can wade through the dingy water with lights spearing flounder and night, that's a manly thing to do, yeah? It's never gets too cold, so you need not fear the winter just because you don't want to invest in a decent coat. Life is quiet, so if you're the kind of person that just wants to sit on your porch and sweat all day, it's easy to do that here without interruption. If you've got lots of family here, which it seems most people do, you're always close to a bunch of people you love but don't especially want to see every day. There are lots and lots of churches and the people are nice. It's a great place to write a stirring coming of age novella, or make a quaint postcard, or get good barbecue, i just have never felt those were good parameters for a place to live.

Now, i'm certainly jaded by my family's preference to live in an Urban place. I cannot grasp what possesses people to live in a place that's truly in the middle of nowhere, so it shouldn't be a surprise that i don't want to live somewhere that's sort of backwater. Obviously not everybody wants to live in the city and that's fine and good (although i do think suburbs are contributing to the decline of our civilization), but there are thousands of small cities and towns around the country so much nicer than here. I think people wind up here by mistake, either their born here, move here for a job or get stuck here by the military, and they forget what it's like anywhere else. They make friends and form connections and seep so far into life here that they can't imagine moving somewhere else.

I guess what i'm trying to say is i'm not going to miss biloxi much. Which is good. In 3 short weeks i'll be in provo, and in 3 short months i'll be in Portugal. Maybe i'll write a letter about all the crappy things about Portugal. I think it will be rather short.

So, in less critical news, i read Ender's Game and Speaker of the Dead over the past couple days. They were both good, Ender's Game was lots of fun to read, but Speaker of the Dead left me with a sort of empty feeling. It was filled with portuguese, which was unexpected and interesting. It's weird that in around 6 months i'll be quasi-proficient in another language. I also read the whole Artemis Fowl series. Those were all good, although the 2nd and 3rd were a bit dull. I think after i read some more of the Orson Card books, i'll try to find some more mature lit to read between now and my mission. Something i can't read in a day. I ought to read crime and punishment for reals. So we'll see if that happens. Infinity is getting awfully close.

Those of weak constitutions may want to turn away

I spent the last two days sleeping at the church house, which was a little surreal. As a shelter, it works pretty great for us, quiet, cool, not too crouded, comfortable, and filled with people i don't mind spending several hours around. It gave me lots of time to read and play risk and do all sorts of fun things. At one point, while playing risk, someone brought up politics and was slamming Obama, not on any relevent issues or attributes or policies (well, they called him a Marxist, but whatever) and it got me thinking. I really don't understand people. Not at all.

A quick aside: I don't talk about politics generally, because I don't feel a need to alienate myself from people who might hold idiotic political beliefs. It doesn't help that i call their beliefs idiotic, so it's generally best for me to avoid stuff like that, however, this is my blog (oh, and a quick shout out to my Uncle Ken, who might be joining the ranks of people vaguely interested in what's up with me), so prepare yourself for:
RANDOM POLITICAL RANT 2008!!!


Anyway, back to the point, i don't get people. I don't see how people don't recognize how terrible the Bush administration have been, and that it isn't just them. It's not like Bush is this crazy rogue republican that has somehow betrayed the party into going somewhere it didn't want to go. It seems as though the Republican party molded him into what they wanted him to be. I don't understand how people don't see through the lies and half truths that are our election process. Factcheck.org should be required reading for anyone wishing to vote.

There was this girl I knew whose family firmly believed that Obama was the antichrist, or at least a antichrist. First of all, how absurdly melodramatic is that? Secondly, as someone who thinks Obama has a good chance of changing our country from the embarrassing, hypocritical joke it has become in international and domestic affairs, the idea that he's conspiring with the armies of evil is a bit far fetched.

But i'm not talking about them really, i'm talking average, decent people who i generally respect but who still firmly believe that voting republican is not only the best thing to do, but the only morally correct thing to do. A party whose two basic principles are legislating morality and helping the rich to become richer at the expense of the poor. A party who has lied without blushing in order to start a unjustifiable war. A party who has somehow managed to claim my religion as theirs. I really just don't get it.

I should say now, that i don't think voting republican is somehow morally wrong, and i don't think all republican politicans are bad people, i'm sure most of them are great people. I just don't see how the idea that those born into poverty deserve it, and those given a free ride should be helped along, became synonymous with conservative moral values. It bugs me, especially, that Mormons vote so unanimously Republican.

This seems a good a place as any to tackle morality (heh, attacking morality, i must be a democrat). I share a lot of beliefs with the conservative demographic. I'm generally opposed to drinking, smoking, pre-marital sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, homosexuality, all manner of lasciviousness, and most types of fun. That said, i strongly support personal choice and accountability. I don't think that our government ought to be in the business of creating laws to enforce my, or anyone else's religious beliefs. I think morality and religion have to come from somewhere other than the government.

By the way: Whats the deal with capital punishment? A book i read had a long discussion of the obvious contradiction in supporting the death penalty and opposing abortion. I don't think we, as a country, should be killing people generally. And trying to make a distinctions to say when it's ok to kill people and when it's not is pretty slippery, as far as slopes go. Whatever happened to loving our enemy, turning the other cheek, and judging not. Preventing crime is important, but the death penalty has always seemed a little too much like revenge to me.

These are the types of things i would say if i didn't care about offending people, or if i had a few political vertebra. Most of this came out of reading a some political discussions on my family's website, and an overabundance of free time over the past couple days. Maybe later i'll make a more autobiographical post, but i think i've vented enough uninformed teenage angst for one post.

~Ovaltine <- (this isn't actually completely random, gold star to anyone who understands why)

P.S. - I found out today that the republican vice-president lady has an unmarried teenager who is pregnant. Now i'm not saying that that will have any major effect on her merits as vice-president. i do think her own 4 month child will. A lot of people are talking about how great she is because she knows what it's like to raise children, especially one with disabilities. But if she's planning on moving across the country to take on one of the most important offices in the world, all i see her knowing how to do is being prepared to leave her a child in the care of someone else for her own career. hm, that's pretty cold. I almost took it back, but then i found out she doesn't believe global warming is man made, and supports aerial hunting of wolves (so that there will be more mooses for hunting, duh). I don't think all this prying into candidates personal lives is necessary or healthy, but i think a lot of people do. I also think she was a terrible choice for McCain and seems to be almost construed to undercut his message in every way possible. If he needed a woman to pander to whiny Clinton die-hards, it seems like he could have chosen someone who was qualified for the job, and who had a little less baggage. Bonus points would have been awarded for picking a woman who wasn't the ideological opposite of Clinton, but why should that make any difference? Silly people.

The Next Exciting Installment of Safe Objects Injuring Ammon

So, today we look at playground equipment. A relic of past times, good playground equipment was great simply because of how absurdly dangerous it was. Rusty Metal Hinges, crumbling wood primed for splintering, and the See-Saws.

Oh See-saws. Perhaps only Merry-go-Rounds could rival the See-Saw in inherent danger. There was the chance of crushing your legs beneath the seat, you could slam your head into the bar, and there was no way to escape flying into the ground at multiple G's, making sitting an ordeal for the foreseeable future.

You don't see see-saws, or their northern counterpart the Teeter-Totter, much anymore. Like so many good things, Mr. Potato Head, Easy bake Ovens, Lawn Darts, repeated injuries and worried parents have been the end them. However, imagine my joy when we wound up a playground that still had classic See-saws. Not those pointless, spring loaded bouncy nonsense. Legitimate simple mechanics playground fun.

So last night we were playing on the See-Saws, and i was lighter than my friend (always an issue on See-Saws) so i was able to sit back without actually kicking off at all. So we were winding down, and i was essentially reclining, with my legs across the bars (there were two parallel bars) and my feet in between to keep me from falling.

When suddenly, one unfortunate bounce from the other side of the see-saw and a momentary loss of balance, and i found myself hanging from the see-saw, my calf wedged between the two bars and my weight crushing my shin. My friend on the other side tried to get me down, but panicking leaned back, holding me away just above the ground. I finally made it to the ground and checked myself out, and finding myself intact, was quite satisfied. That said, it feels like someone hit me in the shin with a 2x4, and then bashed the other side with a bar for good measure. So yeah, it's sort of hard to walk today.

In other news, today i learned how to change a car battery. Learned is maybe an exaggeration, it's pretty intuitive, so it's a bit like learning to change the batteries in anything, positive to positive and lefty-loosey. This did, however, have the added bonus of being filled with sulfuric acid, and the old battery had leaked acid all over the place where the battery goes. So after we had put it in to get the car back from the stake center i had to take the battery out, and clean out the case with liberal amounts of baking soda and water. It reminded me of Mr. Teske's science project back in the day, where we had to figure out how to deal with an acid spill in the reservoir. I also learned that when your wrench is the same length as the distance between the two terminals there are going to be problems if you're not careful.

So yeah, a pretty productive morning so far, i just found out that there's a mandatory evacuation order for us. We don't necessarily have to go all the way to jackson, we could just go to the other side of the interstate, but we'll see how it turns out. Anyway, i need breakfast. Ate Logo

2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollap

I think shopping for glasses is one of the most unpleasant experiences possible. I know that's a weighty statement, given the possibility of torture, slow painful deaths, etc, however, shopping for glasses combine my two least favorite activities:

Shopping when i don't already know exactly what i want, and Making decisions that are going affect me for a long time.

This is what sisters and girl friends are for (either girlfriends or friends who are girls, it doesn't matter. Some one really needs to come up for a solid term for female friends who aren't romantically involved. maybe just Girls would cover it. I digress.) The was a cool girl my age to give me feedback on glasses at one of the places we went, but their glasses were unreasonably expensive. The lady at sears was really bad at helping making choices. It didn't help that she kept handing me glasses that were meant for 6 year olds either. Devoid of any helpful feedback, i did manage to get two pairs of glasses, one that are pretty standard and basically the glasses i had before they got all bent and lost, and another that are hip and retro and doctor who-esc. We'll see how they fair.

We had a coupon that basically got us free lenses, but it was only supposed to apply to glasses that cost less than 50 dollars, but the lady gave us free lenses for the nice glasses, so we ended up saving around two hundred dollars, which is pretty radtastic. So yeah, if the sears doesn't get destroyed by the übercane, maybe i'll post some pictures of me wearing a collared shirt with some skinny jeans when i pick up my glasses. I could also post pictures of my new contacts, but those probably won't be as interesting.

I want to go as the tenth Doctor for halloween. I think i'll have to wait two years, since i dunno what the policy is on Trick-or-Treating as elders.

"Trick Or Treat?!! Have you ever wondered why you're here?"

Stay cool soda pop

I should really be sleeping, and therefore i think i'll update my blog. I don't know what it is about 2 in the morning that makes me feel like not going to sleep. Maybe it's the recurring, guy smiley nightmares.

So, the last couple of days have been fairly eventful. I went swimming tuedsday, and played soccer with the spanish speaking members and missionaries. That was way fun, it's been too long since i've played legitimate soccer, and it was nice to see that i can still hold my own. I scored two goals, blocked a bunch, and even managed not to injure myself. So that was an accomplishment and a half. I still can't dribble worth anything, but dribbling is for babies and international soccer phenom. Real men pass the ball.

Today i helped some ward members move several hundred pounds of food storage across biloxi, lifting mostly with my back. My philosophy is that if i lift enough with my back, it'll be so strong that it won't get injured. Most people just don't lift enough with their back. There's their problem.

So apparently hurricane Gustav might come our way, brining with it impending, katrina-esc DOOM. Incidentally, Katrina hit almost exactly 3 years ago. We should have had a party. Anyway, so there's talk of evacuation, all our stuff getting destroyed, scary things like that. On the plus side, i might end up going to jackson again. Starkville looks more likely, but we'll see. If i'm going to be spending 2 weeks someplace while waters recede, i'd like to be somewhere i've been in the last 10 years. Either way, this is probably one of the more threatening things anything named Gustav has done. I really hope it won't be on the scale of katrina, it'll ruin the funniness of Gustav forever.

Tomorrow i'm getting my eyes checked and backing up the hard drives (maybe) and going on exchanges with the elders, and going to institute, and then probably doing fun stuff afterwards. It's just a packed day. So i'm going to go to sleep, and hopefully the next time i update this thing, i will have shifted my sleep 5 hours back, or at least a few, so that waking up at 6:30 doesn't kill me.

Until then, i'll be defeating evil, one idiot bike thief at a time
(oh yeah, my little brother's bike got stolen. That's messed up. What's even more messed up is that it'll cost around 3x the price of the bike to fix the car window. Who breaks into a car to steal a 8 year olds bike and then leaves everything else in the car of value? Maybe some guy really needed to teach his son to ride a bike.)

You know, i've noticed something. In the midst of tv's witty repartee (ala psych, veronica mars, firefly, all the other shows i watch, etc) nobody ever laughs at their really quite clever jokes. I mean, not laughing at your own jokes is pretty key, but it seems like people around would catch the cleverness and laugh. But then i guess it wouldn't be witty repartee. It just seems weird. I still prefer it to laugh-tracks. I'm glad no one really uses those anymore.

~So 90's

28 Days

It's a sad state of affairs when my greatest accomplishment recently has been not throwing up.

other than that, i've been watching a lot of Veronica Mars lately. That is a good show. I never got into it when it was on, i think it was on at the same time as Smallville, but it's just so well done.

Except duncan, i can't stand Duncan.

That is all.

Because it looked just like a dream.

Last night i had a dream that i was on a soccer team with George Takei, among other people. I got a great assist to him, and he put it in the net, but when i went to celebrate, he asked me not to touch him. It was really awkward.

I also had a dream that logan came to town, in our jackson house, and gave me this stuff that looked like pocki, but it was super minty. He gave me something else that was a lot less awesome, but i can't remember what it was. It was really pretty lame... like a pine cone or something.

I wish i could always remember my dreams, then i could write a big book of them that would be awesome.

Guatemala plays really dirty, too bad they got beat.

Today i learned how the world cup qualification works, and i decided that i want to go to the 2014 World Cup in Brasil. I figure with 4 non-missionary years to think about it, it shouldn't be too hard to scrounge up the necessary funds and convince as many people as possible to join me (i'm looking at you Logan, imagine how much a six year old Søren would love a world cup.). At South Africa, early games are only 20 bucks for the nosebleeds, so that's pretty reasonable (a nice seat at the final is $900, I can just save a few Euro from my mission and the way the dollar is headed, they'll cover it). But i'm thinking that would be extremely awesome, plus i hear Brasil is a pretty nice place, and it'd be fun to break out my not yet new found bilingualism. So yeah, i think i should do that. I generally don't make plans more than a couple days in advance, so making plans for something that'll happen when i'm 25 is a bit ambitious. I don't have a lot of plans carrying over from when i was 13, but i've been planning on a mission for at least that long, so i think this is plausible.

In present news, today was ok, i went swimming which felt great until i threw up all over the bathroom. I don't think swimming has ever made me throw up before. It was the 200IM that did it. Still, I managed to swim a solid kilometer,and i'll be going back tomorrow, maybe going a little easier.

Anyway, i'm supposed to be sleeping, so sweet dreams everybody.

"One part ice cream, two parts awesome! "

Wow, it has been nearly two weeks since i wrote anything. Now there's only five weeks between me and the next two years of my life.

I went to jackson over the weekend, and it was pretty great. I actually managed to see everyone, if only for a few minutes. Friday night i drove up to jackson. It was a pretty nice drive, nothing crazy, not like the drive home, but i'm getting ahead of myself. I had this genius plan to call in a take-out order with a fake voice (under the name Dr. Payne) and give johnny all sorts of hard times, but then my phone died on the way up. That also meant i couldn't call ahead and figure out what was what, but luckily everyone in the known universe works at Sal and Mookie's now, so I headed there first. I talked to caitlin and johnny for a bit and found out that everybody was over at Jerusalem Cafe, so i went over there and got to hang out with a bunch of people for a while. After that we went over to the McCrazies house, for a weird party with a bunch of high schoolers. It ended up with all the people over 18 hanging out on the steps where it was cool and mature or something, so that was fun. After that we hung out at emmett's for a while while johnny and emmett decided what their tattoos were going to look like.

The next day I had planned to set up ultimate, and it looked promising, the McIntyre's were in, as were kyle, mcnally, spencer, michael, me, maybe ian, and whoever else happened to show up. Unfortunately, i was the only one who showed up, but i ran into Mrs. Van Uden at the park, and talked to her for a while, so that was way cool. After that i bought a tooth brush (i had left mine in biloxi and was feeling pretty gross) and some breakfast and found McNally and tried to figure out what to do. We ended up going to Sal and Mookie's for a while and then met up with Johnny, Caitlin, and Emmett and headed downtown to where Emmett was getting his tattoo. From the outside, the place looked like a good place to get shot, but inside it was pretty urban and awesome. Hopefully jackson's downtown can keep getting hip businesses where old rundown buildings are so that downtown isn't just a place to go to work and/or get mugged.

Somehow, i ended up responsible for giving emmett a ride home, and apparently when a tattoo artist says 45 minutes, what he really means is two and a half hours. So that was sort of frustrating. After that though we did...something. I think maybe we went to spencer's house and played video games. We also watched Michael Phelps be incredibly awesome, so that was pretty impressive. After that we played some more video games and went to sleep.

Sunday, i went to church in madison, that was way cool. I got to see a whole bunch of people i haven't seen in a long long time. After that i went to caitlin's and ate lunch and eventually johnny came over and watched psych. Then we went and had birthday festivities at Johnny's house, they got presents and we got cake and dinner courtesy of the Breauxs. (i've never pluralized breaux before, it looks wrong) Then we went back to caitlin's and hung out for a while and i learned how to open a butterfly knife awesomely, but then the awesome was too much for it and screws started coming loose, so i had to stop. I watched mythbusters and actually managed to get an indecent amount of sleep, having gotten around 5 hours the last two nights. Monday was my last day in town, so after sleeping in until noon, i got some breakfast and i then went to Murrah to visit teachers. I ran into melissa on her way out of murrah, so that was cool. I saw Ms' Williams, D, Lamb, and Van Uden. Ms. Brierly was out on maternity leave, so i didn't get to talk to her, but i think it was still a pretty good run. Michael and Spencer met up with me at murrah, and then we went to his house for a while and then met up with a bunch of people at Kiefer's. That was pretty delicious. Then we went to Emmett's and partied the night away. It being my last night, i had to say goodbye to people every time they left, it was sad. We took a bunch of pictures though, and had generally good times. I slept at emmett's that night, and headed out the next morning, today, saying Adeus to Spencer on my way out.

All in all it was a pretty great Jackson Trip. The drive home was probably one of the more exciting drives of my life. The first half was pretty smooth, i made great time (which is always tricky on 49). At some point i got stuck behind a truck carrying these giant bridge looking things. It was taking up both lanes completely, and the escort guys were going a terrible job. The truck was just small enough that it would probably be possible to get around it if you went on the shoulder just a little, and it was driving sort of to the right so this little suv kept trying to get around it but the little escort car kept cutting him off. Had the truck just driven in the middle of the road it wouldn't have been a problem. So i had been stuck behind this truck for about five minutes, but we were cruising along in the upper sixties, so i wasn't too upset, when suddenly the truck just plowed through a sign on the side of the road. It wasn't like a mile marker sign either, this was a substantial, six foot wide sign with two bars behind it, but it was completely destroyed. So at that point i lost a lot of respect for this guy who before was just doing his job, but now was doing his job really badly and if things had gone a little differently could have caused a pretty serious collision. Anyway, eventually the lanes widened a little and we got a better shoulder and i managed to squeeze by him (which seemed a little dangerous and is the sort of the escort guy is there to prevent from happening, but after he blew up a sign, i decided i was getting far away from him.)

Things smoothened out for a while, but then it got really rainy, and i experienced my first high-speed hydroplaning. That was exciting. I started drifting off the road as the road was turning a little and completely covered in water. But like a good driver a eased off the gas and steered very gently. Happily i didn't run off the road, and i got back to biloxi without any further incident, so that was cool.

So yeah, all in all, a good trip to jackson. I think this entry is long enough without any further comments.

~Something clever

This pretty much sums up my summer.

"We wait. We are bored."

August. I go into the MTC in September. I am just a little incredulous that this is actually my life, clearly, I am in the future.

Anyhow, the past week has been considerably entertaining, despite titular evidence to the contrary. On thursday i totally forgot about institute, but got a call on friday that there would be an okatoma trip on saturday, so that had promise. At about 6a.m. saturday i got a call saying that the trip was cancelled, but then my dad and I went kayaking on the Wolf River (which was longer and less exciting than promised, but still cool).

Friday I made the first real progress in teaching Isaac to ride his bike. Rather than keep trying to power through it on the road, which forced us to stop every time a car drove by or isaac cried from chronic falling into the ground, we went down to isaac's school, which has a big, soft, grassy hill with a slight decline. There i could just balance him and push. It was pretty effective, and hilarious to boot. We managed to get to the point where Isaac could get about 50 yards, so that was cool. Monday we went back and managed to get him riding on the concrete without falling too much. he still can't purposely turn, or stop without falling, but if there's a straight line without any obstacles or distractions he can go for days. I spent an hour or so adjusting his seat, fixing up his brakes (they're still essentially useless, but I blame Walmart for that), and taking off the completely pointless pegs (lucky). Now that he can actually reach the ground, i think we'll start making some headway with stopping, and hopefully he won't have to turn often. As proof of this accomplishment, documentation:

there was a lot of this

and a fair amount of this

but eventually he got the hang of it.


So yeah, that's cool. What else?

I go through waves of disbelief that i'm actually going to be on a mission soon, and then the occasional surge of overwhelming shock at how soon it is and how completely unprepared i feel, but generally i'm excited and ready leave. It's weird to think that people are revving up to go back to the U soon, and i'm not. I feel sort of left out, luckily i'm going to Portugal, which, in my book, trumps Salt Lake almost every time. Isaac goes back to school tomorrow, that's a bit of a surprise (the best sort of prize), i'm glad my summer isn't 2.5 months long, although nearly 5 months is a while.

So i think that's about all that's going on down here, at least all the comes to mind.

Random Thought of the Day: I wonder what ever happened to Peter Johnson. He's probably off somewhere on a mission. Weird.



Tchau

Strung from the moon, and the world your balloon. Peeping tom for the motherstation

So. Life: it's pretty standard. I almost went up to jackson and canoed the okatoma, but that fell through in record time. Katie has been in town for a week, she leaves in a few hours, but it was cool have her here, and Søren is too cute to handle (2c2h).

Yesterday i jumped a fence with my bike. I didn't go on a ramp and ride over a fence, that would be way too extreme. I climbed over a fence with bike in hand. I really don't like backtracking.

In related news, word got out that i don't wear my helmet while riding a bike. Wait to go, Katie. So now i have to wear a helmet. Weak. Safety concerns and justifications aside, it's substantially more enjoyable without a helmet, so i might need to find a new method of exercise. Also, living on a peninsula substantially limits (oh) the places you'll go (and the things you can think).

We have satellite now, with DVR, so we get 200 channels and recording capabilities, so now i can watch The Daily Show and Mythbusters and Ace of Cakes and all the other great cable shows that i've had to scrounge around for online. No Fox Soccer Channel, oh well. Dish network really sucks, by the way. If you're thinking about getting Dish Network i'd advise against it. Dish costs a little less, but i think common sense is worth the addition cost. Anyway, it took like a week and a half to get it installed, but now it's up and running and i have no immediate complaints, which is saying something.

I guess that's about all that been going down. I went and saw Batman again last night, it was just as great, though a little predictable. I need to read Charlie and the Chocolate factory. maybe i'll work on that today. Até logo.

That reminds me, i want to watch a Portuguese movie or something like that to get a feel for how the language actually sounds. It's hard not to turn all romance languages into latin.

fin

Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late.

I just got back from Dark Knight. It was pretty spectacular. Heath Ledger is without a doubt the best joker ever, past or future, and made the joker live up to his status as best villain of all time. I'm super good at giving away things without meaning to, so i'll just say this: Batman dies. That's all i'm going to say, so hopefully that won't ruin anything.

But yeah, it was really great. I hope Christopher Nolan continues making Batman movies, he does such a better job than the late 90's garbage or even (dare i say it) Tim Burton. It doesn't hurt that i have a giant man-crush on Christian Bale. I saw Rescue Dawn last night, which was intense and intensely good. I have a hard time imagining many more of the villains in Nolan's grungy, realistic style. Mr. Freeze couldn't cut it, the penguin is definitely a no-go. At least they're not as hopeless as the spiderman movies. They've killed off every good villain, and didn't even give the greatest villain, Venom, a full movie to be awesome in.

So, i have this theory that most coincidences aren't that big a deal. If you think about all the times that the perfect thing didn't happen at the perfect moment, the amount of non-coincidental happening are pretty overwhelming. That being said, as i was walking up the steps after getting home from batman, a bat flew right in front of me, only a couple feet away. That was pretty unexpected, and it just made the night even cooler.

So, in summation: See Batman, it will change your life, or at least a couple hours of your life.

oh, p.s.- This is definitely a PG-13 batman, it was very dark, and more than a little gruesome. Not the sort of thing i would want to subject an 8 year old to.

My mom is getting satelite, the apocolypse is come.

Today I got my passport. As such, i can, and must, now be referred to as intrepid. It is cool though, and it makes me feel awesome and global and all that stuff. I've never actually seen a passport before, except in movies, so they've got this aura in my mind similar to that of hovercraft and laser cats.

So yesterday i got back from my extreme utah adventure, and i must say it was pretty fun. The drive out was one of the most pleasant 30 hour drives i've experienced, not the most fun, but probably the smoothest and one of the more comfortable ones. So anyway, we got into salt lake saturday night and stayed at cami's. Somehow, i managed to convince my mom to let me stay in salt lake for a few days, so that was fun. I guess i've talked a bit about that already, but yeah, it was cool.

After my independent friend time ended, the family time started up in full force. Tuesday i picked up my dad and we grabbed some lunch at Hires (which is great by the way, and i plan to start eating there often when i get back to town) and then went to Mr. Mac for some suits. I am now the proud owner of two suits, as well as a whole bunch of shirts, pants, and even some new shoes and socks. We got a sweet insider deal on account of knowing Mrs. Mac's mom, so that was cool. Saving large quantities of money is always fun. After that we drove up to cache valley. The days sort of blend together, but here's the gist of what i did:

Ate dinner with some family and my cousin tyson, who just got back from a mission. Played games with the vail side of the family, including a pretty extensive game of werewolf. Went on a hike up to and past white pine with my dad. That was pretty awesome, and was another instace of the worst possible time to not have my camera. Anyway, cool stuff. Swam a little bit in Tony Grove. That covers everything before the reunion i think.

The reunion was pretty fun. The first day was not great, a lot of people were gone, and the bird refuge was weak. The rocket garden thing was pretty sweet though. I saw promontory point for the first time in my life, and probably one of the last times. The next day we went up to Heber for the Reunion camp. That was pretty cool. It was a girl's camp most of the time, so lots of things that make a lot of sense for girls camp really suck for normal camp. But whatevs, that night we played some more mafia, and the next day we went on a hike and did this climbing thing, that was pretty often, and just a little scary. After that we did those object lesson games they always do at youth conference and stuff.

Lets see, then we drove back, and the next day we we went to Tyson's homecoming thing, and then went to the lions lodge for a dinner deal thing. Then we went back to lisa's for another family dinner, after which we played yet more werewolf. Then we had a talent show thing, which was nice. I played a crappy rendition of Claire de lune, on account of not having practiced in a rather long time, but it was ok.

That night we drove back to cami's and headed off at around 10 the next morning. the drive back was ok, it was kind of hard, but we eventually made it back. So now i'm here. There'll be pictures once i manage to work out this uploading thing, or when i get my computer back in action. I dunno how well the uploading directly off SD card works.

Ciao.