This is Not a Post About Politics

       I have a love/hate relationship with political parties. On the news (specifically CNN, which I watch far too frequently) I always hear about the importance of independent voters and swing voters and such. I consider myself to be an independent. The thing is, I haven't met too many other people from this supposedly all important bloc. I grew up in Texas, so I was surrounded by conservatives, but there are still quite a few democrats, even there. Utah is a little more lacking on the democrat side, at least in Provo anyway, but I haven't met more than a handful of people that are as willing to vote for either party as I am in either location. Maybe I have just lived in the wrong states. Frankly, I think it's kind of weird though. I feel like there should be a little more dissent than there seems to be currently. There is nothing wrong with conservatives voting Democrat or liberals voting Republican every once in a while, sometimes the other guy is better.

       For example, I supported Obama in the last election, I didn't get the chance to vote because I was in Ecuador and there was some confusion about how to to actually submit an absentee ballot. But the point is, I supported Obama and still don't regret that choice. No, he isn't the worlds greatest president but he's not the worst one either and I still firmly believe that he has done a better job than McCain ever would have. And you know what else? If Romney wins the nomination (and I'm pretty sure he will) then I will (probably) vote for him in the general election. But if Romney doesn't get the nomination then I will vote for Obama again because I still like him way better than Santorum, Gingrich or Paul hands down.

       Political parties are nice because it gives people a way of throwing support behind a candidate without having to pay attention to the news or the race at all. It's like a brand identity for politics. The parties need to maintain a certain level of trust so that they can maintain support and you end up with a sort of general McDonald's style list of candidates, nobody particularly new or innovative but nothing inedible either because the politicians are basically forced to hold certain party ideals in order to be successful in the party. That's what people are referring to when they talk about "playing the game" and "washington insiders". It's a system that has its pros and cons but the cons have really been rising to the surface. I don't claim to understand why the nation has become so polarized in recent years, I'm just not that smart.

       Don't mistake my previous rant for pessimism. I am a firm believer that things work out in the end. Often when I feel a little worried about the direction things are going (like when the Herman Cains of the world are topping the polls) I think about a scripture in the Book of Mormon that I really like in Mosiah 29:26-27 and I feel better. It basically says, as long as the majority of the people are trying to do what's right, things will work out.


       I've found that this idea holds true, countries that are less corrupt tend to do better economically and companies that commit fraud eventually tank, even though these results may not be immediate (see Bernie Madoff). I wont try to claim that we have the smartest country on the planet (see any video on youtube) but I do think our collective heart is in the right place. I think on the whole, we still root for the good guys and we still want what's best for everyone, some people just have a different idea about how to get there. Please note that I'm not trying to say that all ideas are good ideas as long as people are trying their best, because I'm not. But there is something to be said for people trying to do what's right even if they don't quite know how to go about doing so.

Adventure Time: Moab Edition

With the exception of the group shot all of these were taken on my
iPhone so they aren't the best but you get the idea.

This was a fun climb and it was conveniently
located right next to camp.

The view from inside

     I've been putting off posing anything the last few weeks because I keep thinking I'm going to get some sort of response from the Utah Food Bank. No such luck. I really don't know why they didn't respond, I was just curious and trying to get more information about how things work over there. I wasn't trying to change the world or tell them what's wrong with their operations but I figured if my ideas were correct I would be able to do something useful. I think they didn't respond because they either didn't take me seriously, didn't care, or didn't want to give me that much data. Or maybe they thought I was a hippy. I do hate hippies so I totally sympathize if that's the case. My problem with hippies is that they never get anything DONE. They have a lot of lovely ideas that on the surface seem nice and might help but in reality just make things worse or are impossible to implement realistically... Maybe I was acting like a hippy... that's a scary thought. Stupid hippies. 

Most of the crew at Delicate Arch in Arches
 National Park. Looks cold huh?

      This is a week late in coming but for the three day presidents day weekend I went down to Moab with some friends. Before we left I was having a conversation with Ammon about how it was likely going to snow and the trip might end up being very fun or very miserable. He said the two were not mutually exclusive which I thought was a valid point. He ended up being completely right.

       It was a great trip and it was cool to see the arches in the snow because snow and arches just don't seem like they belong together. But it was also cold. Dang cold. It snowed a lot on Sunday and I and several others in the crew got kind of wet because of it, that was one of the most miserable couple of hours I have ever spent camping that's for sure. 

      

       Monday was beautiful but I don't have any of the pictures right now. I'm sure they will show up on facebook soon enough though. I also managed to add another minor injury to the list as well. I'm still not sure how I did it but I bruised my foot. Apart from that I have also managed to hurt my tailbone doing dumb things on my snow board a few weeks ago, my feet always have a couple of blisters on them in various stages of healing from playing soccer (apparently I need new shoes) and I hurt my thumb playing dodge ball at an elders quorum activity Saturday. I can never decide if I get too into whatever sport/outdoor activity that I'm currently involved in or if I'm just a clumsy guy. It's probably a little of both but I personally think that it's the second thing. Oh well, such is life. The good news is all those injuries are pretty much healed at this point. Except the blisters. About the time they finish healing I add a new set because I play soccer every Thursday night at 10 in the Wells Fargo parking garage. But it's totally worth it. 

       I've noticed that all of my posts either have a political theme or random adventure theme. My next post is already in the works and it's a political one for sure. I'm just warning you now so that you don't have to read it if you don't want to. I love politics but even I start rolling my eyes when some of my friends start going off on some rant. Happy Leap Day everyone! Make it a good one and do something crazy! Because real life is for March.

Dumpster Diving, the Saga

       Ah, I missed this. Writing for fun is great, there is nobody to give me a grade and I don't have to worry about all my stupid grammar mistakes. I'm in this intense political writing course this semester and they are driving me nuts with all of these rules and things that I never understood in 4th grade and don't anticipate understanding now either. If you have ever wanted to feel self conscious about every word that you have ever committed to paper, I recommend political science 200 at BYU, it's the greatest.

       Recently I watched a documentary called "Dive! Living Off America's Waste" on Netflix, it's about this guy and his friends that basically get all of their groceries from the dumpsters behind grocery stores. I've seen lots of documentaries and it may be my favorite way to ingest facts and ideas but this was not by any measure the greatest one I have ever seen. Still, I guess it was effective because it really got me thinking. The main claim that they made was that  the government and businesses need to do more to get this perfectly good food that is going to be thrown away into the hands of people that need it. Hippy crap. Every word. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say that helping to feed the hungry isn't a worthy goal. The problem is that they were blaming grocery stores for not making more of an effort to get this food out to the food banks. I don't recall them ever stating it explicitly but they implied that these companies just didn't care about people and that it wasn't important to them. I don't believe this is the case, companies are run by people and at least some of those people must be capable of empathy.

       In 1996 Bill Clinton signed the Good Samaritan Act which greatly reduced potential liability for grocery stores that want to donate food that they are no longer able to sell. Even the hippies admitted that donations did increase after that but the truth is, not all food is obviously spoiled and a lot of things need to be looked at carefully by someone who knows what they are doing in order to insure that they don't accidentally give somebody food poisoning and do more harm than good. Asking the companies to take responsibility for sorting and delivering this food is unreasonable. After all, the end goal of these companies is to make a profit and as it stands the average grocery makes $0.03 on every dollar. Making sure the maximum amount of food reaches a food bank would mean more hours worked for employees and thus increased costs for the company.

       With the recent recession donations have been down at food banks across the nation so the idea of getting this food to the people that need it has been intriguing me. The responsibility should rest on the various charitable organizations that are in need of the food. They should go out to the grocery stores and find what they need themselves, but I'm not entirely convinced that this isn't already being done so before I rush to some hasty conclusions I decided it would be prudent to write an email to the Utah Food Bank and see what's up. I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this, if I get an positive answer back then I guess that will be the end of it but if it turns out that there is as big a problem as the documentary claimed then I have no idea what I would do about it. I certainly don't have the time or resources to sort through tons of food from local grocery stores and then take it to the food bank if they are not doing so already and I don't know how I would convince them to do it themselves because this idea isn't exactly new.

       So until I hear back from the Utah Food Bank, what are your thoughts guys? Maybe you would like to watch the documentary too or do some digging of your own because I think the whole thing is fascinating and I'd be very interested to figure out how all this fits together. I haven't ruled out the possibility that I'm just being dumb and this is a non-issue of course but it's fun to think about non the less so if you have any ideas let me know on facebook or in the comments and I will let you know what happens with my email in the next post.

BYU dating laws

So I've been doing some deep thinking recently about relationships at BYU and specifically, about how quick people seem to get married around here. I’ve even come up with a theory that I’d like to share with you about your odds of getting married. My theory is this; there is a statistical half-life of two months for the dating-to-marriage conversion. What I mean is, after two months of dating, any given couple has a 50% chance of getting married at some point. Not that they will get married at two months necessarily but that their odds of tying the knot at some point are 50%. So two months later, at the 4 month mark (or about one semester) there is a 75% chance of that couple getting married. Then after 6 months of dating the odds are 87.5% and anything after that is gravy. Now, I’m only talking about relationships at BYU, other schools and time before or after graduating BYU are not a factor in this theory of mine. I’d also like to confirm it with research so that my theory can become law; I’ve always wanted my own law. I think I’ll call it, “Walke’s law of relationships” that sounds pretty scientific and legit right? Anyway, your input would be helpful on this front. If you want to participate let me know, either below in the comments, in a private message on my facebook page, or even on my wall if that’s what floats your boat. Useful information would include:

1) number of relationships you have had at BYU

2) how long each lasted

3) how it ended (marriage, breakup, other[?])

4) year in school (or year in school you got married)

5) average wind speed velocity of an un-laden swallow (African)

Bacon Candle

       This is actually from a while back but, i wanted to share it with you anyway. This semester I have been in a dinner group with a few friends from the ward and once upon a time it was my turn to cook. I decided that breakfast for dinner would be a good idea (and frankly, when isn't it a good idea?) so I made french toast with bacon. Quite naturally, it was delicious, but I made a lot of bacon (once again, always a good idea) and I had a cup that was almost completely full of bacon grease left over. I wasn't quite sure how to get rid of it because I know that you aren't supposed to dump it down the sink but I wasn't too sure about what would be considered a proper disposal method. So, drawing on my days as a boy scout for wisdom, I decided to dispose of the stuff through incendiary means and make a bacon candle. I rolled up a napkin, stuck it in the middle of the cup and, well, I think the pictures speak for themselves.

as you can see, it was a success. bacon grease is 
exactly as flammable as you would expect it to be!

And then it was brought to my attention that another wick could be added to the mess for an even bigger flame. Naturally, I thought this was a brilliant idea.

2x the wicks, 2x the fire.

Then, realizing that there was still room for more, I doubled the wick count again, bringing the total to 4 burning napkins in my bacon cup.

As far as ideas go, this was one of my better ones. Anyway, after about half an hour, the heat was great enough to actually shatter the cup (it was glass), which was awesome but unfortunately, it did bring an end to the bacon candle.

I've considered possible expansions for the bacon candle project, such as gathering a couple gallons of bacon and putting some kind of porous wood like pine in it for the wick. I think that would be cool but I have no idea where I would get that much bacon grease. I don't anticipate it happening any time soon, or probably ever, but I'll keep you posted if that changes. 

Santa Inc.

I wrote this post in response to something Ellis posted on facebook about how I know the truth about Santa the other day. Where he got that idea, I don't know. But I decided to play along, it was just going to be a reply to what he wrote on his wall but it started getting long so I decided to just make it a formal blog post instead. You may be interested to know that what I wrote was based on various Santa Claus myths, I simply told to story as it would have been had Santa been a heartless CEO/Nazi. The articles I used in my research are cited below in case you are interested.        Alright Ellis, you want me to elucidate the Santa Claus problem and although I hate to talk about this in a public forum were kids might see it, I will acquiesce because I think the people should know the truth behind the lies. If there are children in the room, it would probably be best to send them out.        The sad truth is this, Santa is real (1). Not the answer you were expecting right? You see, he is indeed real but he is also one of the greatest white collar criminals to ever live. I'll list a few of his larger misdeeds here but know that there are many more. Santa started off with pure enough intentions, around 600 years ago he started a non profit group to help underprivileged children who's parents couldn't afford toys find a little joy. He set out to brighten the world with trinkets and carved little wooden horses one child at a time. Back in those days, it was a family business, mostly involving the children that lived in and around the area where said fat man lived, it was far from a global affair yet.        Slowly, Santa began expanding his organization and it became difficult for him to make all of the toys himself, even though he worked to build the toys all year. A little known fact is that at this time, Santa came up with the idea of offering up to others the chance to volunteer in his shop so that he could increase production.  Now I know it seems harmless enough that he offered up the chance to render service to the poor to the community at large but he set a serious precedent, he focused the majority of his recruiting efforts on children. In his mind, if the toys were for the kids, then the kids should be helping to make them.  As a trade off for helping produce the toys, Santa promised to deliver toys to all the children, not just the underprivileged ones as he had in the past (7). His increased production allowed him to begin expanding his enterprise to other countries and in gratitude, many began making conciderable donations to his charity. As it turns out, these donations far exceeded operational costs and Santa started making a nice profit for himself.        It is at this time that he developed his characteristic large girth and also marks the point that the organization as a whole stopped being a charity and instead effectively became a business. At first this system worked well but Mr. Claus soon learned that children are easily distracted and he quickly faced the problem of a dwindling volunteer staff. It is at this point that Santa's criminal record can truly be said to begin. Santa opened an orphanage and forced the children he took in to build toys, at the time this was a generally accepted practice in much of europe. However, during the 19th century many european countries began passing laws that prohibited child labor (2), so Santa did what any reasonable CEO would do, he moved his business to the north pole where such laws did not exist.        Of course, because of the nature of his business, it has always been in Santa's best interest to maintain the good will of the world citizens so in secret he went to great lengths and committed countless egregious atrocities in order  to create people that were genetically different enough from us that they can no longer be called homo sapiens, but are instead, as Mr. Claus calls them, "elves". This was done so that he could bypass any potential lawsuits that might be levied by the governments of the world or the ICC (3) for mistreating workers. These "elves" were bred to be short with high metabolisms so that they would be too small to mount an effective rebellion against their master and also be highly energetic so that they could be forced to work for longer hours, the pointy ears was actually something of an accident, it was an unintended genetic mutation but because of the way focus groups seemed to take to them, he kept the change, even though he always considered them to be misshapen and unsightly.        What followed next was a vicious re-branding campaign that got underway in the 1860s (8), as Santa began to push his protrail of an idilic village in a snowy, remote part of the north pole and the elves as happy workaholics that made toys for free and were happy to do so. As world population began to explode, Santa began searching for a way to keep his company in the black while still delivering gifts to the children of the world. This desire to continue to deliver gifts shouldn't be interpreted as some remaining shred of humanity in Mr. Claus but was in actuality a desire to maintain the wealthy lifestyle to which he had become accustom, and his love of the fame granted him as an international celebrity. My research also discovered that Santa has citizenship and residence in several countries including; Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and even Canada (4). He also maintains a home in Alaska but it is believed that he has been unable to obtain citizenship here, probably due to his status as a Canadian citizen (5). Apart from this he also has permission from every country in the world to fly through their air space, something no other person or country or person on earth has managed to do. The move that changed Santa Inc. into what we know it today was Santa's decision to promote certain toy companies in exchange for large sums of money. As part of this move Santa abandoned the green coat that he had worn since the late 1700s (6) and adopted a red and white one in one given him by Coca-cola at the turn of the 20th century in one of the most audacious examples of product marketing to date.        As you can see, Santa is not the jolly fat man that we have all been lead to believe. Instead, he is a both tyrant and a remarkably capable business man. Now you know the truth, spread the word and join the cause, lets take Christmas back from this fat man and give it to the people. 1) http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/ 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Acts 3) http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC 4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa#Origins see section titled "Home" 5) http://www.dave-h.com/images/Funny/Canada__s_Army_Motivator_by_UnholyChronus.jpg 6) http://www.happywink.org/christmas-day/evolution-of-modern-day-santa.html 7) I can't find the article at the moment, but trust me, all the myths agree that at first he only helped the less fortunate. Giving gifts to all the good little boys and girls came later. 8) http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/santa_camp.htm

The thing about TA's is, you shouldn't date them

       Didn't I tell you I would post something new in less than a month this time? And look at that, I'm making good on that statement. I guess I've just been on a writing kick recently, it seems to be my new favorite way to avoid doing homework or something. Right now I am sitting on a secret couch that I found on the first floor of the library. For some reason, they have a couch hidden back here behind the book shelves. To be more specific, its a love seat, and my theory is that its here for the express purpose of making out. It's the only reasonable explanation for why it would be here. Is it now a goal of mine to one day do just that in this very spot? Maybe. For now though, its a great place to hang out and write stuff while I try not to think too hard about that accounting test I have to take some time between right now and monday. Or the pl sc 170 final draft of my paper that I have due friday.
       In case you are wondering when I plan on explaining the title of this post, good news, its story time. I had a hard time deciding on what to title this post but I'm pretty happy with it, I think it does a good job of capturing the central theme of the story. I just want to start by saying, I am pretty proud of this story and I hope I did a good job of capturing the awkwardness that I felt throughout this experience but just know, it was classic. Ok, here it is, in all its awkward glory. So there is this one TA in one of my classes that I think is pretty attractive, and the other day I had the chance to spend a good 45ish minutes talking to her. That same day, Ammon texts me saying that we should do a double date to go see the leaves and such. I thought to myself, "huh, I should ask cute TA girl, I did enjoy talking to her after all." Now some of you are probably already thinking, "wow, thats a bad idea, she's your TA, if you screw up she might fail you". To that I say, yes. You are so right. It is a really terrible idea to ask out your TA. I didn't even know if she was single or not, she wasn't wearing a ring so I was fairly sure she wasn't married but that was all I had to go on. Now I'm sure this come as no surprise to anyone but, I went ahead and asked her anyway.
         By chance I had an opportunity later that evening to make good on my bad idea . It even started out problematic because we were walking up some stairs and of course I tripped, and not just the, "whoa, I kind of lost my footing" kind of trip. We are talking about a full out, "both feet are no longer under me, almost cracked my head open and died" kind of trip. Luckily I managed to catch myself so I was doing some sort of inclined push up type thing instead of actually hitting my head, but it wasn't exactly a shining moment for me. So we managed to get all the way up the stairs and at this point, even I was starting to second guess the wisdom of asking TA girl on a date. I mean, I did just make a pretty big fool of myself 20 seconds ago, it's unlikely that she forgot already. However, in a move that would have made my econ teacher hang his head in shame, I ignored the sunk costs and decided that I had come to far to just give up and limp home. No sir, I had come to ask this girl on a date and by golly, I was going to do it!
       As it turned out, the actual asking went a lot better than I expected. I mean sure, I didn't sound as smooth as I would have liked but that was a given, whenever I get nervous I tend to stumble over my words and rest assured, I did a good amount of word stumbling both times I talked to her that day. But I did manage to get out the when, where, and what and I even used the word "date" because apparently girls hate it when you don't say that. So then she said the only thing that a girl can say after such a stunning delivery from a charming young man such as myself. She said, "I'm so sorry but TA's aren't allowed to date students, otherwise I would go with you. Its against *acronym I've never heard of* regulations because I have control of your grades". Now that's not an exact quote but its pretty close. So then I said something about how it was fine and see you in class, blah blah blah. So there it is, I hope you enjoyed it, I know I did. Personally, I thought the whole thing was just hilarious. It was the perfect storm of failed efforts to ask a girl out and I couldn't help but appreciate it.