Strange Dreams

I had a very strange dream last night. I dreamed that I was living in a dorm somewhere and my roommate was one of the MBA students that I know (a Japanese guy named Makoto). This makes no sense cause Makoto is married with kids, but he was my roommate in this dream all the same. I was coming back to my room after the day and I finally found the key. Once I was back in my room I was sitting on my side of the small dorm room and the first counselor of our bishopric (not in real life, just in the dream) came in. He was Dr. Curtis LeBaron, my leadership teacher. It was kinda strange.

Anyway, Dr. LeBaron starts talking about life and about the gospel. In particular, about the evil things we do and the temptations we have. As he is speaking more people start entering my dorm room. People I know from all parts of my life. Childhood friends, school friends, family members, some of my current ward members, just about everyone. My dorm room finally ended up holding about 100 people all sitting along the walls of my room listening to Dr. LeBaron preach.

Dr. LeBaron starts to talk about my life in particular and he continues to go through a "This is your life" kind of speech. He tells me all the good things I have been doing and all the bad. He explains what I need to do to raise myself up and do better. Its really wierd because as he is speaking he transforms into the Savior. The Savior continues speaking and explaining to me all the things I need to do to make it successfully through this life. Its been a long time since I have had a dream this vivid. I woke up with a feeling like I had just lived that dream, not dreamed it.

Anyway, it was a crazy experience and I thought Id write it down somewhere so I would be able to refer back to it later.

Traditions...

[Author's Note: So I wrote this on Christmas Eve last year, saved it to a draft, and totally forgot about it. Im posting it now to get it out of the 'drafts' section of my blog...enjoy!]

So its Christmas Eve today. I went to church here in California to the Spanish Ward. It was interesting, there were alot of kids. The program was nice, alot of good christmas songs. I like that.

So, Im here at Kim's family's place and they are preparing for a big dinner with family and friends over. It's going to be one of those dinners where you sit next to someone you either don't like or don't know and the effect is the same. Oh well, good old Christmas Traditions.

Speaking of traditions, in my family (growing up) we always opened our christmas presents in the morning after we woke up. Thats one of the traditions we adhered to. It made for many sleepless nights on Christmas eve as we lay there thinking of the morning and what was behind all that bright colorful wrapping that my Mom...I mean Santa so carefully prepared.

Here, and in the latin culture in general, things are a little different. They all open their presents at the stroke of midnight, when Christmas arrives. Im of mixed feelings about this. It is nice to sleep on on Christmas day and all, especially since I always end up staying up late on Christmas Eve anyway. However, I wonder about the children and how they can possible think that Santa came when they were sitting there in the house all day anyway and nothing magical happened. Their parents just snuck presents past them somehow. I dont know how it works, but maybe latin kids are just more gullible than american kids. Anyway, its a tradition they enjoy and that I participate in when I am here. The funny thing is I dont even care anymore, since I already opened all my presents from my family and girlfriend. So, anything thats left is just presents from people who usually have no idea what I like/want in things I would use. Oh well, three cheers for more socks this christmas.

I hope you all have traditions that you hold dear, just remember that not everyone in your own country does things the way you do and be tolerant to that fact. People are different the world over, but particularly in your own country where you may encounter them someday. Life goes on, and traditions are just things we have done in the past with our respective families, they don't necessarily make us who we are in the end.

Merry Christmas! Make it the best one!

The Hulk's got nothing on me...

There are times in my life when I seem to have a vision. Its like I can see not only the future but deep into the universe and the meaning of all things. At these times the thing that strikes me most is that I feel invicible. I feel like I can do ANYTHING that I can dream. I feel like I can get any job I want, make any problem I see right, or acheive the greatest things imaginable.

These moments are few and far between, I usually only have one or two every six months, but when they do happen they are always unexpected and always wonderful. Im not sure if I am describing the feeling properly. Its not like I actually see things, I can still see my surroundings, whatever they happen to be, but I can also see things on top of that. The things I feel I can achieve are superimposed on whatever I am looking at and its like watching a movie where all the frames have been double exposed. So you are watching two movies at once. Its a crazy sight.

The funny thing is during these times I have this feeling that its all a daydream, but I have this other feeling that I am actually seeing one of many possible futures and that these are all available paths to me if I only strive for it. Its amazing the things my brain dreams up at times.

Ive always had what my Mom calls an "over-active imagination" but these moments seem to push the limits of what even my imagination could do. I often feel like these "visions" are something more, but I have no proof so I can only assume they are the vain imaginings of my brain.

In any case, I do feel invicible when I have these, not invicible in a physical sense but in a mental one. I feel like life, with all of its challenges can't touch me. I have had alot of trials and challenges to get where I am today and I feel like I have succeeded greatly to have made it this far (with divine help of course) and so I guess I can see why I would feel like this when I have these thoughts.

Anyway, Im done rambling...

Short and sweet...

I have to write one paper tonight, do one outline, and do preliminary research for a group paper tonight. I decided to update my blog as a pre-writing activity, with the hope that by writing this I can put myself in the "zone" for writing these next two assignments.

It is currently 10:53 pm and I am sitting on the couch in my living room working from my laptop. I have my Trance music station from www.pandora.com playing a sweet Trance song right now ("I cant let you go" by Ian Van Dahl, if you were wondering). If you happen to log on to pandora.com and want to listen to the Radio stations I have programmed there just let me know what email address you used to register with Pandora and I will share my Trance City station with you. You won't be disappointed I promise.

I'm getting a stomach ache again. I think its my old ulcer acting up. This semester has been much more stressful than I had originally anticipated. The best laid plans and all that...

Its almost over though. Two weeks from today I will be in California unpacking my stuff for my three week vacation there. Thats an extremely exciting prospect. However, I am still wondering how Im going to finish everything between now and then considering I can't seem to get my most important tool up and running: my writer's edge. So, here I sit trying to get that beast of a machine turned on and roaring.

Lately my writer's block has had more to do with stress and time constraints than lack of ideas or ability. I can write just fine, I just cant bring myself to do it because I'm so fried from feeling stressed so much and from not feeling like I have time to do it.

Haha, I had to laugh there a moment as I thought about it. I mean, who am I writing this to? No one reads this anymore...in the end though, I dont think it matters much. As always my writing is mostly for me. If what I write helps me a bit, then I really don't care if I am the only one who reads it. I'm sure most writers feel the way I do.

Ok, I think Im pretty warmed up, its time to turn the machine to mowing the grass on my next two projects. Thanks for listening...

All things become new......

So, I havnt posted in a long time. Nothing much is going on in my life right now. Im done with WalGreens and now I am going to California to take care of some business (and take a vacation of sorts too).

I leave on Friday. Its kinda funny because I usually get excited to leave Provo, but this time its more of a melancholy feeling because I have found a home in my new ward and the people are awesome. So, I will actually miss them while Im gone.

It will be good to see Kim again though and all my other friends in California. So yeah, life is good rigth now.

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So, the last quote was from the movie "Stay Alive" I loved that movie, it was a horror movie about an online video game and it had some really funny actors in it. It wasn't a life changing movie by any means and the story had some holes in it plot-wise, but it was still very memoriable. Anyway, there's a new quote up from another funny movie. See if you can guess it!

Which South Park kid am I?

Was there ever any doubt?

Which South Park kid are you most like? Cartman You are just plain evil and heartless. Though you're sly, and you come up with brilliant schemes, you're pretty dumb and close minded. Other people hate you... screw them!

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Trained Jedi Ninja Couch Potato...

Ok, so the title of this post comes from a conversation that I was having with Kim last week. It went something like this:

Kim: Did you know that Charmed has 8 seasons?
Me: Yeah I knew that, this is supposed to be the last season.
Kim: That's alot of episodes, 178 wow! That's...[uses calculator] 124.6 hours of Charmed.
Me: Yeah that's alot of TV watching.
Kim: That's...[uses calculator again] 5.19 days of TV. We could do it in one sitting!
Me: There is no way that you could sit there long enough to watch all that.
Kim: Yes I could!
Me: No you cant, you can barely sit through 1 disc of Angel, let alone 8 seasons. I can do it because I am a Trained Jedi Ninja Couch Potato!
Kim: I am t...[at this point she just stares at me for a few seconds and then starts cracking up laughing]
Me: What?
Kim: I was about to say "I am too" to your comment, but that was just so random it was funny.

So, yeah that was our conversation as we contemplated watching Charmed.

Ok, now on to my next topic. Last night my Intramural soccer team had a tournament game. I played my best game of the season. I got a hat trick (for the uninitiated that means I scored 3 goals). But the rest of my team was not playing so great so we still lost 5-3. Its pretty sad when I am the only one to score any goals. I just thought I would share my lament about the whole situation because I'm still bitter that the rest of my team was playing like crap when I was playing great. Oh well, after the loss we were eliminated from the tournament so we are done for this season.

Ok, so another conversation for you people. This one was pretty funny too. I was on the phone with Ryan, one of my friends from High School who still lives in DC. Anyway, we were talking about World of Warcraft and he was trying to convert me to pay a priest. He was describing his encounter with some guys in Warsong Gulch as he ran back to his base with the flag. Ryan has a funny way of talking when he starts telling stories and Ive done my best to capture his speech pattern here in this story. (Ryan is a white guy by the way)

Ryan: Dude, you have to at least try out playing a priest.
Me: I don't know man, Ive been wanting to try out a fighter.
Ryan: Pssst, Nigga please! Fighters got nothing on my Priest. Check this out. I was in WSG and I had the flag and I'm running back to my base. Three dudes jump on me and I'm all like "AoE FEAR" and so they start running away. Then they come back for more a little while later and Im like, "Silence" on the mage, and "FEAR" on the fighter and rogue. I keep running then they get up on me one last time and I'm like "Silence" on the mage again, then "FEAR" on the fighter, but I missed the rogue so I was like "MIND FLAY" on that dude a couple of times and he was done; man, face-melting those fools never gets old. Then I just ran into my base. DING!
Me: Damn! That's pretty tight!

Yeah, so he went on to talk about how much he loves playing his Priest character in regular combat too (not against other players). He almost convinced me but we'll see what happens.

One last thing, I watched King Kong last night (the new Peter Jackson one) and I wanted to mention something about the movie here. If you have not seen it stop reading because I am going to include SPOILERS!

So there is this part where the people get back on the ship and are unloading everything trying to get the ship light enough to come unstuck. At the same time this one native guy is like pole vaulting his way over to the ship to steal the Ann chick to sacrifice to the KONG.

Anyway, all I could think of while watching this was, "Holy $#!+ its a freeking Native Aborigine Ninja!" Did anyone else think the same thing? Just wondering.

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Ok, I have put up a new quote, its slightly vulgar so don't read it if you don't like that kind of stuff. However it was easily one of the funniest moments in a movie I watched recently so I had to put it up. Kudos to anyone who gets the quote right. Oh, and the last quote was from a movie called "Ronin." That movie has some of the best car chase scenes ever filmed.

Jedi Knight Sales Ninja

The title of this post comes from the title of a job I found on eRecruiting. It made me laugh so hard I just had to check it out.

Turns out the job is a sales leader job for a company called FundingUniverse.com. Ive never heard of that company but with a Sales Leader job with a name like that, its gotta be awesome. Haha.

So, Im having a serious urge to play World of Warcraft. I let my subscription lapse so that I could focus on Finals, but Im having troubles because I want to sign back on. I know it sounds dumb, but I cant help it. I will stay strong though and NOT play. But one week from today I will be done with all my finals except 1 and then I will log back in and play. Yeah, thats gonna be freekin sweet.

Anyway, good luck to all you out there in Finals-Land. I know the feeling believe me...

Back by popular demand...

Thanks to a good friend of mine, I have been persuaded to update my blog. (Thanks Brad).

Its funny because I was sure no one cared about my freekin blog but then Brad started ragging on me about not updating it and it made me feel good that someone actually cares. Happy day!

So anyway, my life is pretty much the same as far as school goes: I hate it and it hates me, nuff said.

Soccer is starting to pick up more lately and that has been good. My intermural scocer team is still in the tournament and we have a game in the IPF on friday night at 8pm (please come watch me play, you will have fun I promise). If we win that game then we play again on Saturday morning at 9am, again in the IPF. Its kinda sucky that way but at least the games are not like 2 hours apart (Ive had that happen before).

So, nothing really funny has happened in my life lately. Nope, there has been a decided lack of Funny-ness in my life. Probably because just surviving business school (or B-School to the initiated) has been occupying all my time and it is not a laughing matter. I might be laughing after my last final though. Either that, or crying; I cant decide which.

This summer it looks like I will be here in Provo for a good portion of it. So that should be good. I might even get a chance to go to Anime Expo as things stand right now. Sweet!

Well, thats it for now.

I woke up to Flashbacks...

I woke up this morning and I felt like I was back in my mission. As soon as I opened my eyes I felt tired (just like every day of my mission after the first 6 months). I rushed to take a shower because I have so much to do today that I wanted to get an early start (just like most days of my mission). The shower was not cold per se, but it was not warm at all either. The water was just on that side of cold that if you had a choice you would choose NOT to take a shower (just like the mornings in my mission). That was exactly how the water was every single day in Panama. Now, you might be saying to yourself, "It was over 90 degrees in the morning when you shower so you should be happy." Well, that thought is all wrong. When you sleep in Panama your body cools down along with the weather (to a cool 85 degrees and 100% humidity as opposed to 98 degrees and over 100% humidity) and when you wake up it takes a while for your body to get warmed up and so showering first thing with mildly cold water feels just uncomfortable enough to be upsetting. Now, dont get me wrong by reading this. Even though the weather and your body cool down during the night you still sweat at every single moment all the time. I am sure I sweated even in the shower, but I just couldnt see it for all the water. It goes without saying that you sweated all day every day too.

It was for these reasons that about 8 months into my mission I switched to showering at night instead. I mean, I would still wake up after sweating during the night, but at least I did not have to look forward to feeling cold first thing in the morning. Call me nasty, but you were not there and if you were you would have done the same (like 90% of the american missionaries did).

I've been writing (and remembering) about my mission alot lately. Yesterday marked 4 years adn 2 months to the day that I have been home. Why should I think so much about my mission now all of a sudden? I have no idea. Has anyone who is reading this been home for that long or more? Did you go through something similar? I wonder.

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The quote up is from a movie called "The Wedding Crashers" I dont have time to change it right now so I will do that later. The quote is great, I think, because it embodies the way I feel about so many things in life: School, Work, Sports, Relationships, etc. I feel that too many people whine and excuse themelves for making honest mistakes when they should just ask forgiveness and move on. So this quote kinda emobides all that. Ill keep the quote up a little longer to let you mull over what I've said.

Pac-Man Nastalgia

Yesterday I entered a tournament, I was tested in various combat situtions where I was required to shoot my weapons at fellow combatants and fight to the death. I emerged victorious and was assigned a team to lead into the second part of the tournament. There were various games that my team was required to win to stand victorious, capture the flag, bombing run, assault were the games that my team and I competed in against other teams. We destroyed, literally, every single person on every other team that got in our way. After all the blood and violence, we finally emerged the victors. Then I got up from my computer and went and made a sandwich.

The game I just described is called, UnReal Tournament 2004 (or UT2K4 to the initiated). The game, contrary to its title, is VERY real. When you kill in the game, you can see the blood fly. The environments look very real as well, with physics effects and lighting effects mirroring the real world. The in game controls required me to hit over 20 different buttons to do distinct things. My ability to play this type of game came from very humble beginings.

There was a time, and Im probably dating myself by saying this, when video game controllers only had one button and a joystick. The games were seriously complex though. I mean, in one semi-popular game, you had to run across busy streets with your frog, the main character, while dodging cars. Once you got across the street, you had to cross a lake by jumping on fast moving lily pads without falling in the water (because, of course, water kills frogs as easily as cars). That was the entire premise of the game. It was an age of wonder, let me tell those of you who do not remember. The graphics were simplistic at best or what kids today would consider barbaric at worst.

Like all things temporal, it changed. A few years later, a new video game system was released and it had FOUR buttons plus a directional pad. Our minds were nearly blown! The graphics too changed dramatically. This new system carried an 8-bit graphics chip. To tell you the truth, we did not even know what that meant but we DID know that the graphics were just AMAZING! The main characters were actually human shaped and had different colored clothes and you could tell that Mario had a mustache. Never mind that the main character was a plumber, of all things, that grows to three times his size when he eats a mushroom (what?) and fights against a giant evil turtle named Bowser to save the Princess of the Toadstools. Hmm, what is a toadstool anyway?

This was just the tip of the iceberg though. After 8-bit graphics came 16-bit graphics. Along with that we got controllers with EIGHT buttons plus the directional pad. Sega entered the market to compete with Nintendo and we were split. I remember having heated discussions in the middle school lunch room debating over which was better: Super Nintendo or the Genesis? The battle lines were drawn and if you were a fence sitter you had no friends.

In retrospect, that was probably a dumb thing to be debating in light of the times (the Gulf War was brewing, and the world debated their response) but we dealt with what we knew, and we knew video games.

The great companies on the other side of the pond, Nintendo, Sega, and Sony by then, decided to skip 32-bit graphics altogether and move on to 64-bit. Thus entered the Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation, and the Sega Dreamcast. All three offered revolutionary (at the time) graphics and gameplay. The directional pad was joined by a joystick (or 2) and TEN buttons. The games made anything we had previously played seem like what the cavemen would play.

This pattern, doubling the graphics output of the console systmes every couple of years, has continued with the 128-bit generation (the PlayStation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox). The games have gotten better and the graphics more realistic. The video games today make the older games seem dumb. I would argue, however, that the games of yore were better in many respects.

The games that came before super realistic graphics required the gameplay and story to be all encompassing to mitigate the fact that the graphics were cheesy. Thats why those games are classic and will always hold a soft spot in the hearts of many a gamer. Today's games lean on their superior graphics like a crippled man leans on a crutch. Many of these new and "better" games have weak gameplay and weak storylines (not all, but lots). That just did not happen 15 years ago because the games that were weak in gamplay and storyline were games that were rejected before being produced or rejected by buyers.

Today graphics are so good and so few people read reviews of games before buying that terrible games (with good graphics) make huge amounts of sales. Its a terrible tragedy of the video game industry.

In the days of 8-bit things were different, simpler and I liked it that way. I love today's graphics, but I hate that I have to search around more to find the games with good graphics AND good gameplay. The industry has lost its way and I wish it would find a way to bring back the quality of days gone by.

I lived in a dream...

I just got an email from my mission's website. One of my friends just updated his profile and I got to see a big goofy picture of him. He was my district leader for a time.

After checking out his profile I just started surfing around on the site, looking at profiles from some of my other friends from the mission and Panamanians that I knew. I saw pictures that made me laugh and by the end I felt like crying. I miss Panama, I miss that time in my life so much. Things were so much simpler.

I can never truly describe what I feel like right now. I know that most of the ex-missionaries who read this will understand, especially if you served in a far away place that is hard to return to (because of money/distance). Panama was the HOTTEST place I have ever visted, it had bugs, and dirt, and trash...but I loved it all because of the people I served. I look at all those pictures and I just feel...I dont know, I guess the best word to describe it would be "Homesick" even though I wasnt born there I miss it like it was my home.

I think I've said enough, anyone who reads this and has ever missed anyone or anyplace before will understand how I am feeling right now. I think I just need to cheer up or something.

Heres a picture of Panama city (the biggest city in the country). Look at that sky!

New Quote

I put up a new quote for the peoples. The last quote was "Is that all you jackasses can dig?!" from the Movie "Holes." A particularly good funny kids-type movie. I really like Shea LeBouf.

Anyway, check out the new quote and see what you got. Its a from a funny movie.

Behold, I am the Crying Freeman...

Or at least I have cried for days. Raise your hand if you have cried for three days straight before? No takers? I thought not. You see, for the last three days my left eye has been tearing (that tear as in cry not tear as in ripping paper) up constantly. I walk around with a tear rolling down my cheek non stop. My eye doesnt hurt at all, but after rubbing my eye to get rid of the tears all day my eye starts to feel "rubbed" and irritated. So I just stop botherting with the eye and wait until the tear is halfway down my cheek to mess with it.

From this experience I can infer that I must have some type of eye infection. The type that does not hurt and only infects one eye and makes you cry non stop for days. Tonight at my D&D group is going to think that I am sad the entire time.

Seriously though, I have no idea why my eye is doing this and frankly I just wish it would stop.

I have not updated this blog in too long and I feel bad about it. Unfortunately, thats the situation of my life right now. I have so much to do that I can barely get it all done. I mean right this moment I am stiing in class typeing this on my laptop computer. Luckily it is my Business Ethics class and we don't have tests in here just papers and projects. Im kinda tired of projects though. I mean I used to live in the projects back in D.C. and I got tired of that, now I have to constantly work on projects and I am most definately tired of that.

Please do not think that I am tired of school. I really do like school, but I just get burnt out easily I think.

Anyway, I better get back to listening here in class. I wish you all well and I hope to see some comments from you on here.

P.S. I will put up a new quote soon.