Happy Valentine's Day!

Chad and I have had a fun Valentine's Day so far. Last night we went to a church Valentine's dinner and dance. It was a lot fun. Dinner was great and there was a live band and dancing. I love to swing dance, so I have really been wanting Chad to learn too. He keeps insisting that he can't do it, but last night he let me teach him and he did great! He caught on quickly and it was a lot of fun! Today we went to Olive Garden for lunch. It is one of our favorite restaurants. Chad also got me the coolest valentine's day present. It is the book, The Joseph Smith Papers. If you haven't heard of it is a a compilation of all of the journal entries, letters, etc. (completely unfiltered - even his errors and the things he started crossing out are in there) that Joseph Smith has written from 1832-1839. They are going to make around 30 volumes total,which will include everything he has ever written. I am really excited to read it. It will be neat to learn so much about Joseph Smith and what he was really like.

Obama's favorite book? Really?

I am currently reading Moby Dick. After Michelle and I finished the Harry Potter series, Moby Dick was next on the list. The reason I wanted to read it is because it President Obama's favorite book. Don't worry, I'm not trying to do everything he does or be just like him; I just figured it would be a good book if it is our president's favorite. Well...what can i say...the book is sloooow...and loooong. It is very hard to get through. I don't think there could be a bigger contrast between two books that there is between Harry Potter and Moby Dick. The book goes on and on about stuff that i feel like it didn't even need to be mentioned. Very thorough style. Very thick, hard to get through. I recently finished a chapter called 'The Sermon.' It was about a preacher's sermon. The preacher talked a lot about Jonah and his story from the Old Testament. Even though the book is slow, and honstly I am not into it at all so far, I did actually feel moved by the parts of the preacher's sermon. So far i could summarize the book in a couple sentences: Ishmael meets and makes an unlikely friend in Queequeg the canibal (literally). They meander through a port city over the weekend and do things like go to a sermon. Its rough so far, i read it to help me fall asleep. This is not how i envisioned the book. I thought it would be the next best thing other than actually sailing in person. There are a few insightful things here and there, and a lot of philosophical inward-reflection narrative stuff that is interesting...but how Obama even got through the book is beyond me. It must have special significance to him in some way. I'm not sure if i will finish it. I'm ready for some action out on the ocean with the whale and stuff. Has anybody out there actually read the unabridged book from cover to cover? Was it worth it? One thing i will say though is that it is kind of like going back in time when you read a book over 150 years old and see how different they talked and the vocabulary they used (many words I have not only no idea what they mean but have never even heard of before). Its also like you are there in New England during that time and are learning what life was like. Apparently it was not uncommon for a man to share a bed with another man at a hotel if there was not any rooms or beds left. Weird little things like that are interesting.

Stow-away Cat

Michelle and I were just eating dinner with the front door open because we accidentally set our oven on fire and lots of smoke and all the smoke-detectors went off (at least we know they work now). And suddenly I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to my side and there was a cat that had just walked into our house. Ironically I sometimes make cat noises and tell Michelle that there is a cat in our house, but this time when I said "Hey! There's a cat!" she could tell i was being serious. It was a nice friendly cat. A little too friendly as it seemed intent on just going into our bedroom and doing whatever it wanted. Below is a video of it. And now about that fire in the oven. Michelle and I were playing phase ten (I ended up winning, which puts me on a three game winning streak), and suddenly i noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and there was a pretty large fire in the oven. We were making two meat loaves (so that I could eat leftovers for lunch for a couple days. Yes, I love meat loaf enough to ask Michelle to make enough to last me a few days worth of leftovers). The grease started spilling out onto the oven bottom but we didn't think anything of it until somehow it started a fire. I said, "Oh! Fire!" We both kind of didn't know what to do. The first thing I did was turn off the oven and opened the oven to do something. But then Michelle said to close the oven because that oxygen makes the fire worse. I closed the oven and was saying, "What do we do? What do we do?" When I finally remembered you need flour on a grease/oil fire. I actually didn't know where the flour was so I told Michelle to get it (evidently i don't cook very much these days). Luckily by the time this all happened and Michelle got the flour out, the fire pretty much sizzled itself out. At that point we just had to figure out how to turn off all the smoke detectors. Also luckily the meat loaf was ok. As a matter of fact I am so full of meat loaf right now I feel a little sick. But i will be ready for more meat loaf tomorrow.

You might have heard that quote about Albert Enistein and James Talmage

I am sure many of you have heard that quote supposedly from Albert Einstein about James Talmage being the smartest man alive being a genius. There are a few variations in how the quote goes, but essentially the story goes something like this: Einstein was asked how it felt to be the smartest man in the world, and he answered, "Ask James Talmage." I have heard/read another version that was 'how it felt to be the world's greatest mathematician.' At any rate, I have always thought this was such a cool quote because I have read or at least almost entirely read two of Talmage's books: Articles of Faith and Jesus the Christ. Anyone who has read any part of those books will know that he was indeed a genius. I can't even begin to describe how smart i could tell he was just by reading his book. I know that is not something you usually say about someone just from having read a book that person wrote, but let me tell you, it is so true in Talmage's case. I am sure anyone reading this blog who has also read his work would agree. Anyways, I decided to find out when and where that quote was from last night, and to my dismay, it would appear that it may not have ever actually happened. I did a lot of researching on people's blogs that go to BYU that have tried to find out where the quote comes from and the general consensus is that it probably never happened. Apparently someone was told the whole story about that quote while getting a golf cart tour at BYU and emailed the school to find out where that could be substantiated, and he got an email from then-president Bateman saying it could not be substantiated. I also read about how unlikely it would be that the two even knew each other. I guess if you do the math and figure out the logistics of how old they were, where Talmage worked while Einstein was in the U.S. and what Talmage's profession was at the University he worked at in Utah etc. it is pretty unlikely that they could have known each other well enough for this story to have happened. And also of course i could't find the quote written in any book or paper. Oh well, i guess it was just one of those myths that starts as something little and gets perpetuated until, in this case, people are talking about it all over the place. Not that any of this matters in any way, it is just interesting. I don't think there is ay doubt thoght that James Talmage was indeed a genius, just read a chapter from any of his books if you don't beleive me.