Sleep in Peace

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”
—Victor Hugo(1802 1885); poet, novelist, playwright

Give it up for the Gideons

Today as I walked from the parking lot to my office there was friendly man after friendly man handing out small, green New Testaments. The Gideons were out in full force at ASU. I felt bad having to say no. I tried to smile and said, "Thank you, but I already have one," hoping they wouldn't think I was lying to get out of taking their book. I have my own collection of different sets of LDS scriptures of course, and I actually have 2 copies of the small, green, Gideon New Testaments from meeting with them in the past.

I think it is really cool that these men, who could be doing something more personally comfortable with their time (ie sleeping!) are up and out on campus giving out Bibles to college students. I've always loved the fact that pretty much every hotel room in America has a Bible in it thanks to these guys. It makes me glad that they are doing so much to help more people learn about Jesus Christ.

I do have to say that the times I saw them on BYU campus I was a little confused and wondered if they knew that 95%+ (at least) of the people they were handing these books out to already had a set of scriptures, and further, that probably 70% of the students may haveactually had them on their person in preparation for their religion class of the day. Still I applaud their effort.

I know that throughout the world there are severe disputes between various Christian groups. This makes me sad, because we actually have so much in common. Being an LDS missionary in Japan gave me such a different perspective on this. Christians there make up roughly a mere 10% of the population. When we ran into other Christians we were often welcomed as friends because of the bond we had of simply being believers in Christ. There was a Filipino family we met knocking doors that almost literally pulled us into their home and insisted on feeding us when they discovered we were Christians. There was a mother of a LDS church member who we visited and taught lessons to. She never, as far as I know, joined the Church, but she believed in Christ which meant so much to me.

I still hold it dear to meet other Christians, and so I want to thank the Gideons, although I wasn't able to on the street, for spreading the message of Jesus Christ.

How I Lost an Hour of Sleep Last Night and Other Thoughts

The Smoke Alarm

About 4 am I woke up and my honest thoughts were about how perfect the temperature of the room was, how perfectly I was cuddled in to my bed and how glad I was to have this pleasant night of sleep. I cuddled back into the covers and fell back asleep only to awake to the shrill, overly-loud single beep of the smoke alarm. This must have been what woke me up initially. The device is designed to beep every thirty seconds when the battery dies until you do something about it. At 4 am, in a very comfortable bed, I felt like this was a major design flaw. I was certainly willing to live on the edge without smoke detecting protection for another 3 hours if there was a way.

I tried turning over and sleeping through it, but the noise was just too piercing. I finally stumbled out of bed in a sleep induced haze and got the chair from my desk only to realize that with 9 foot ceilings I wasn't tall enough to reach the detector. I looked around for items I could possibly stack on the chair to stand on, but nothing seemed to be workable. (Which is probably better because it would have been a great irony to have fallen to my death off an unstable stack while trying to fix a life saving device.) I finally realized that the kitchen stools were slightly taller, so I retrieved one and twisted the smoke detector top off and removed the battery.

This did not solve the problem. The ear splitting noise continued, this time at close range. Still half asleep I went to check the drawer where I keep batteries and nestled right there, in a ring of glory, was a 9-volt battery. Hallelujah! (I remember now I had it from the time the hall detector went out and I bought a 9-volt 2 pack). I replaced the battery in the dark with some difficulty and left the smoke detector dangling from the wires (that incidentally I had considered ripping out). Once back in bed however the perfect spot I had previously occupied had vanished. I tossed around and rearranged the blankets but couldn't sleep. I did fall asleep about an hour later, and I did not die in a fire--so I guess everything turned out alright in the end.



Opting Out

If you are tired of receiving phone book after phone book on your doorstep there is a way to stop it! I'm sure there are some people who use these books, but I know that as long as I have any chance of connecting to the internet I'm not going to so much as crack one open. I have two or three in my hallway closet right now that are due for recycling. If you are ready to end the steady stream of phone books on your doorstep, you can go to http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/ and click on "Opt Out".



Diet A&W Root Beer

Finally, I would just like to let you know that the very best diet soda available is Diet A&W Root Beer. YUM!! I've been trying alot of the diet sodas out there and this one actually tastes pretty darn good-- I'm not sure how they do it! And it is caffeine free in case you're not interested in staying up all night. I don't get paid for this-- but if anyone from A&W is reading you can feel free to send me as many complimentary cases of your diet root beer as you feel this little plug deserves (which I would assume would be many!)

Go Mighty Cougars

I got to go to San Diego last weekend for the BYU v SDSU football game! It was so fun to see a BYU game in person again (plus they won!). My friends Mandy and Jeremy set things up for us-- and thanks to one of Jeremy's clients we had box seats! Mandy's parents, who I just love, also came in from Colorado, so it was a great weekend! I got very little school work done, but had a great time.

In memory of some pics we took when we were Juniors at BYU,:
Mandy and I had another small photo shoot:

(I'm still not quite sure what we are supposed to be doing in these pictures!)

But it was a great weekend with great friends! :)

CSI meets Art History

There are alot of things Art Historians and other experts use to attribute paintings and other pieces of art. The style, signature, and location are just a few things that can give clues when you are trying to identify the artist of a painting.

Ten years ago Christie's sold the painting shown here and listed it as an early 19th century German work. The buyer, Peter Silverman, felt like there might be more to this painting than that scant information, and so he recently had it checked out. The lab found a fingerprint in the paint that is "highly compatible" with another known finger print of none other than Signor Leonardo da Vinci. Other, more traditional indicators in attribution also seem to match up.

If everything matches up and the work is officially attributed to Leonardo it will be worth millions. Not bad for an initial $19,000 investment. And very cool for the art world as well! (see article here)

Thanks to Kristen for pointing this out to me! :)

Friends

“Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us; Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game.”
— Will Durant(1885-1981); writer and historian

Meaningful Life

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
—Morrie Schwartz(1916 - 1995); educator