Basically A Perfect Weekend

Michelle and I were talking about what a fun weekend we had and we both agreed that it was basically a perfect weekend. We got to spend lots of time with lots of our friends and the weather was perfect! The weather was so nice in fact that I think it kind of caught a lot of us off guard. (blog continued below pictures)

The temperature kind of skipped the 50's, 60's and 70's and jumped right up to the 80's and 90's. It feels like I have been waiting forever for it be warm enough outside to not need a big jacket. Well that is definitely not a problem anymore! On Friday there was a Elder's Quorum BBQ at Green Lakes and everyone's families were invited. Everybody helped chip in to help bring stuff and it turned out amazing. There was so much great food and an amazing turnout. Those of us who could still run after eating multiple burgers and hot dogs played ultimate frisbee. This BBQ is one of my favorite experiences here in Syracuse. On Saturday we went to a really beautiful State Park that some of our friends told us about. It is called Chittenango Falls. There is a nice waterfall, some easy hiking, and a fun little river to walk around in and cool off. We went with the Matthews and Jenny and Michelle did some very brave exploring walking upstream in the river barefoot. It was another amazing day outside and I can't think of any better way to have spent it. Finally on Sunday we had a great time hanging out with friends and again eating as much as we could handle of the amazing taco dinner that some of our friends organized. All in all the weather was perfect and we got to spend so much time outside and with our friends. Don't ask how but I somehow managed to write the final paper for one of my classes on Saturday as well.

Syracuse Chiefs

Michelle and I wanted to go to a Chiefs game this weekend (the Chiefs are the AAA baseball team for the Washington Nationals). We were leaning towards going to the game yesterday until I saw on the schedule that today's game was sponsored by the Catholic Diocese and you could get free tickets form any of a number of sponsors (there stores, restaruants, etc). So I went to one of the restaurants yesterday morning after my class to ask them for some tickets and the guy was like, "How many do you want?" And I asked if I could have six, and he instead handed me a stack of 63 (I counted). So I started telling pretty much everyone I knew that I had enough free tickets for any one to come. It was pretty cool. It's AAA so its pretty high quality baseball and usually some of the players have been in the Majors but are down in AAA for one reason or another. The Chiefs won today so it was even more fun. It was an exciting game with a couple home runs and quite a bit of action. Me and one of my friends each paid a dollar to see how fast we could throw a baseball. There is video of me throwing a baseball. It is a lot harder than I thought...as you will see by how fast my pitch was.

Easter

This past Saturday night my friend Jenny and I had an Easter party for all of our friends. We started it out with an Easter egg hunt outside - you're never too old for that. Then we all dyed eggs and voted on the best ones. Chad made a "Charlie Brown" egg which he was quite proud of. His egg made it into the semi-final round for best decorated egg. We also had an "egg-smashing" tournament (Jenny's family tradition) where we counted to three and hit eggs together and the person with the egg with the most cracks was out. We kept going until 1 person was left. Chad made it pretty far in this contest too. Here is a video of when he finally got out. We had fun hanging out with all of our friends and eating lots of chocolate. Chad decided to be the Easter Bunny for the two of us this year. He hid plastic, candy-filled eggs for me to find when I woke up Sunday morning. He did a good job. It was fun.




Here is a video of Chad competing in the egg smashing contest.

Normalizing Relations with Communist Cuba

Anyone who reads or follows the news at all will undoubtedly have heard that Obama wants to relax some of the U.S.'s policies with Cuba. I believe he right now just wants to relax the rules for Cuban American families and their visiting rights. I believe he plans on relaxing more than just that though in the months and years to come. I know many have speculated that by the end of his first term he will have restored all diplomatic relations with Cuba and allow normal trade. According to a poll released today by CNN, 7 out of 10 Americans are in favor of this normalization of relations with Cuba. There are a lot of people in the news and in Congress though that are very unhappy with the prospect of normalizing relations with Cuba. I know Senator Mel Martinez of Florida is a Cuban American and is very opposed to any of this. There are other congressmen and politicians that are also very against this. From what I can gather, and I have been trying very hard to understand this situation, many Cuban Americans (and a vocal minority of politicians, mostly Cuban Americans) are opposed to this because Cuba is a Communist regime and is clearly guilty of gross human rights violations. According to the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, the U.S. continues its embargo against Cuba because of "human rights" and "democratic values." Many Cubans have been jailed unjustly and are treated poorly, probably worse than I can even imagine. Cubans are not free to pursue their interests. You can go to jail for five years for trying to connect to the internet. The organization Reporters Without Borders ranked Cuba the second biggest prison for reporters, second only to none other than....you guessed it...China. I have only scratched the surface of the human rights violations in Cuba and have only barely begun describing its oppressive communist government. But the point of this blog is not to rant against Cuba, it is to ask for someone to please explain to me why we do not hold countries like China to the same standard. Why do we not have an embargo agasint China? Why didn't we boycott the Olympics when they refused to hold up their end of the bargain and stop committing human rights violations? Let me briefly remind anyone reading this blog about how horrible China's oppressive communist government is. First off, many organizations including the U.S. State Department have documented China's human rights violations. For decades China has had a 'one child policy' which has resulted in abortions and infanticide. There is an outrageously unbalanced proportion between males and females in China because the one child policy often times leads the Chinese women to abort the baby if it is not a boy. I cannot even begin to describe how much this disgusts me. China leads the world in executions per year. In 2005, a member of the Chinese Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year. Of course there is not religious freedom. Tax fraud and 67 other crimes are punishable by death in China. You could fill volumes writing about the treatment of rural and factory workers. I will leave it at that though. So why does the U.S. have this completely rigid economic and diplomatic policy with Cuba but nothing of the sort with China. Not only do we do business with China, they practically own us. I am barely exaggerating. China owns 24.07% of our debt which is 739.6 billion dollars. The U.S. would go bankrupt if China did not continue to buy our debt and give us loans. In addition to the national debt, we do import from China. I am guessing most things in my apartment are from China since I do most of my shopping at retail stores. Don't get me wrong, I like the cheap prices at the retail stores, I wouldn't want to change that, I am just trying to illustrate the inconsistency of trading and doing business with China but not Cuba. Both countries are oppressive and guilty of human rights violations. From what I can gather it appears that China is worse. If nothing else China certainly is performing the human rights violations on a much larger scale because of how big of a country they are. Our secretary of state routinely visits China, we do business with them, they own a quarter of our debt and could call on it at any time, we participated in the olympics there, etc etc etc....but we will not have even trade with Cuba or normalize relations? I am genuinely asking for someone to explain to me why. I have found this topic to be very interesting but I still have not found any satisfying answers. The only answers I have found is that 1. Cuba is so close to the US that it is embarrassing that they wont let us influence or change them. 2. Many Cuban Americans living in the U.S. have negative feelings (for obvious reasons) towards Cuba and do not want to normalize relations with Cuba because they hate Cuba so much. This small but vocal minority of Americans located mostly in Florida are represented in Congress by people who keep up the fight to not normalize relations with Cuba to satisfy their constituents, which is their job. 3. We cannot afford to not do business with China but we can hold out (on principle?) on Cuba? That's about the worst reason I can think of...This has been a very long blog and has been somewhat political. I don't like to write about politics in our blog but this topic is something I am genuinely looking for answers to so I thought I'd open it up to others.

Thankful Thursday

One of my really good friends started a weekly "Thankful Thursday" post on her blog and I thought it was a great idea. Thanks Claire!

This week I'm thankful for:

1. An amazing husband who not only regularly volunteers to help me make dinner and do the dishes, but even had a yummy dinner waiting for me when I got home from work today!

2. The warm weather is coming back and it was so sunny today!

3. The old man who was a patient in my office today who had made everyone's day and had everyone happy by the time he left (a nice change from lots of our regular patients)!

4. The good friends we have here to celebrate Easter with!

A man who ran under the banner of change and whose citizenship was questioned

I just found out about this today after doing some reading, it is really too funny or ironic or coincidental or scary or something. From the years 1990 to 2000, the president of Peru (where I served my mission) was named Alberto Fujimori. Like most Peruvian Presidents, he had many scandals and severe problems during his presidency. During his presidency, he performed a coup on his own country's congress to get rid of opposition, he went through a scathing bitter divorce and he consequently named his eldest daughter 'First Lady,' through changes in the constitution and some finagling with the courts he ran for and won a third term as president even though the constitution was only allowed two terms, and he was essentially exiled from the country during his third term when the legislature performed a vote of no confidence while he was abroad in Brunei (so he just never went home and insted moved to Tokyo where he had dual citizenship). He never tried to go back to Peru until 2005 when for some narcissistic reason he thought he might have a shot at the upcoming presidential election. So he flew in to South America thorugh Chile, I suppose in an effort to 'test the waters' of his political viability (he couldn't just go straight to Peru because there were all kinds of warrants out for his arrest for all kinds of mony embezzlement i think). To make a long story short, he was convicted today of human rights violations from acts committed during his presidecny and sentenced to 25 years. Oh yeah I should mention one more thing...his slogan in 1990 was 'Change,' and he won the presidency primarily out of disgust with the then current preisdent Alan Garcia. You could say it was something of a referendum on the Garcia presidencia (haha, I really typed that on accident-I mean presidency). Sound familiar? Ironically, there was controversy over whether Fujimori was born in Peru Japan. There were conflicting stories and reports from the embassies and stuff like that. While I was in Peru a lot of people beleived he was not actually born in Peru and therefore would not constiutionally be eligible to be president (just like in the U.S.). Alright here is where it actually gets funny: Alan Garcia was actually able to win back the presidency after all the Fujimori scandal and Fujimori eventually leaving the country (Garcia is currently the president). So if this pattern hold true for our country, which it would seem it could because of all the parallel characteristics, Geroge W. Bush will run for and win back the White House in 2016 after Barack Obama has been in for two and possibly part of a third term. OK I am just kidding and I don't think there is actually any way that could ever happen in a million years, but I thought it would be funny to wright about.

I actually had to sleep with the fan on last night...

Despite the fact that it snowed and rained all day today here in Syracuse, the weather is getting much warmer generally speaking. Most of the days are warm enough now to want to spend time outside and perhaps even wear shorts and sandals occasionally. To emphasize just how warm it is now, I actually had to sleep with the fan on me the whole night last night. Our apartment stays pretty warm though. Some of our friends here in Syracuse cannot believe that we never used the heater in our apartment. We absorbed a lot heat from the people below and to the sides of our apartment...kind of like when we lived in Utah. That reminds me of a funny story from when we lived in Utah. One night in the middle of the winter it was so hot in our apartment (again, from all the heat we absorbed from our neighbors. we had people above, below, and on both sides). I literally could not sleep. I think it was like 1 or two in the morning and I was going to go to Wal-Mart to buy a fan but Michelle said I just needed to tough it out for the night. It was miserable. Keep in mind that this is the middle of the winter, it was probably like 10 degrees outside in the middle of the night. So to cool off and be able to fall asleep I opened our window and laid down on the ground up against the wall and let the cold air blow on me. Somehow Michelle and I always end up in apartments that have quirky little things about them. Well, we have only lived in two so far since we have been married but so far they have all had funny characteristics.

R.A.D. - Rape Aggression Defense

I started a rape aggression defense (self-defense for women) class on Tuesday. It is once a week for three hours a night and there are 4 nights. Several of my friends had taken it and said good things about it, and it was free so I thought I would try it. I love it! The point of the class is to teach you some skills to help you get away from a dangerous situation - just get in a few good hits and run as soon as your attacker is down or caught off guard. It is a lot of fun and very educational. Tuesday was my first class. There are only 6 girls in the class and three teachers so we get a lot of help and practice. We learned 3 different "defense" stances, 4 kinds of strikes, 3 different kicks, and 2 blocks. We practiced blocking as the instructors tried to hit us (with pads). It was a little intimidating at first, but they started out slow and I did well. We practiced all our kicks and strikes on pads that they were holding. I went home with red, swollen, and cracked knuckles - worth it though. We also learned that it is very important to be vocal. We have to yell "No!" every time we hit, kick, block, etc. Yelling is important because it attracts attention, warns your attacker, and makes it easier for you to keep breathing in such an intense situation. At the end of the class one of our instructors is going to wear a padded suit and helmet and actually attack us in several different scenarios. We will use what we learned to try to fight him off and get away. This will be a really good practice and probably kind of scary. My friends said you adrenaline really kicks in when he rushes to attack you and you just start doing what you learned and fighting back. It's a great class so far and I would recommend it to anyone. 1 out of 3 women in this country are raped, so it never hurts to be prepared. Hopefully though I will never need to use any of this. The picture on the left is of the simulation on the last day of class - the full body black suit is what the attacker will be wearing (or something similar). I'll get to wear the helmet, knee pads, and gloves.

The Worth of a Full-Time Mother

Michelle was a reading a book and it said how much a full-time mother would earn in a year if that were a paid position. In other words, if you added up the hours per week that a mom works and then broke down everything she does into certain types of jobs, you could figure out what that work would be worth in today's market. The book she was reading only said what the salary would be, but I went online and found out a little bit more about how they figured the salary out. First off, the studies that have been performed show that a full-time mom works 92 hours a week. That is a little over 13 hours a day. I suppose that sounds correct. It could be more than that, but i guess a mom gets to sleep and do some of her own personal business while just taking the kids with her. That number could definitely be debated but that is what the studies show. So 92 hours a week is 40 hours at regular pay and 52 hours of over time at pay and a half (by today's work laws and standards). The studies also break down the work that a mom does into different categories. There is of course meal-preparer, school tutor, sports instructor, day care, counselor, laundry, nurse, drives the kids places, wakes up and comforts, and a whole list of other things. I can't remember what they called all the jobs that a mom does but they are all positions that deserve a lot of money. The grand total of what a mother's salary would be (if it were a paid position) is about $135,000. That is a lot of money. That is more than I will probably ever make. That figure is probably low too because I would imagine there are things you just can't put a dollar figure on like how much parents worry and stress and all that. Maybe there should be hazard pay too, i don't know. Let me do some quick math and see what the hourly rate would be...ok its like 22 dollars an hour for the first 40 hours a week and then 33 dollars an hour then next 52 hours per week (overtime). I guess that sounds about right. I thought this was really interesting; but obviously there is nobody you could pay any amount of money to that would be as good of a mother as you would be.

Craig's List is so cool!

Our apartment feels a bit emptier right now than it did 15 minutes ago. That is because we just sold our TV to someone by posting it for sale on Craig's List. Michelle and I are quite proud of the fact that we got $100 for the TV. I think we did well and the person who bought it did well because the TV, despite being a 5 year old tube tv (that means it is one of the huge ones and goes back far behind the screen) it was in perfect condition and I included a remote control, an antenna that i bought, and the digital converter box that i bought. As some of you may know, Michelle and I have set a lofty goal to be able to move from Syracuse to wherever it is we go without having to mail or ship anything. In other words, we need to sell or donate everything that we can't fit in my little car. We think we can achieve our goal by starting early. A few months ago I sold my computer desk through craig's list, we have thus far returned 2 of our 4 air filters to Wal-Mart (who is merciful enough to us poor college students to let us return them...they are expensive), and today we sold our TV. You may be wondering why we want to sell all our things. The answer is complicated. Basically, the stuff we have here is not really our nice things. We have a nice bed and some nice furniture that we left in Utah when we moved here. We did bring and send some things out here like the TV but most of our furniture and stuff that we have out here we have obtained out here. We got most of it for free or for pretty cheap from members of our ward. We decided that for the price it would cost to ship things somewhere, we would be better off just selling everything here and getting our stuff back from Utah and then buying/finding whatever we still need. But this brings me to my next point: we don't know where we are going to go. We want to be able to be mobile in case I get a job offer somewhere and we need to move out quick (and I don't think any employer is going to pay for us to move out anywhere). Also, we are considering just moving to one of our family's houses or moving back to Utah or something but that may not be permanent either. We are anxious to leave Syracuse and we might move somewhere where we would be closer to friends and family even if I don't have a job there. So if we did do that, I would obvisouly still be looking for a job and if i did find one we would need to move again. So you can see why we don't want to be paying to move all our stuff around all these times when we are so uncertain of where we might end up. And that's not even mentioning how huge of a hassle it is to box things up, ge them to a Fed Ex and pick them up wherever you sent them. I think that pretty much covers it. Oh yeah...if anyone out there is in the market for a nice sturdy table with 4 matching chairs, a nice sturdy entetainment center, a couch with a nice couch cover, a bed with frame and box springs, or any number of pieces of furniture, we have or will have that for sale...

That was hard to watch...

BYU just lost their first round match. It was hard to watch. BYU got destroyed out on the court. Right from the first few minutes of the game until the very end they were down by double digits for most of the entire game. Oh well. I still have the Syracuse Orange to root for. They will for sure get past a couple rounds at least. They are a three seed so they should have an easier time until the sweet 16.

March Madness begins tomorrow

March Madness starts tomorrow. This is one of the coolest sporting events/playoffs in the country. So many teams, so much to keep track of, filling out your bracket, and seeing how well you did compared to your friends. Its a lot of fun. I have UNC winning it all. I read this evening that Obama had UNC winning it too. I filled out mine before i read that though. I am going to get Michelle to fill one out too and we will post ours up here so everyone can see and compare. BYU plays at 12:30 and it will be televised on CBS. If they are not showing it on CBS because of other games that are more relevant to the region we live in, the BYU game can be wathced in its entirety on CBS.com. I picked BYU to win their first round...they are not getting to the sweet 16 though.

The West Wing

I decided I don't want to watch the addictive TV shows until they are done and all the seasons are out on DVD. One such show that I heard was really amazing and is done is The West Wing. Luckily Michelle and I have some friends that own the entire series and have been letting us borrow all of the seasons a couple at a time. Michelle and I watched the first few seasons together in their entirety but since I am on spring break right now I have had a lot more free time than her and have watched a lot without her. I have gotten pretty addicted to the show, it is really enterntaining. It is about the drama and tough choices that the president and his staff that work in the West Wing of the White House go through ona daily basis. It took me a while to get really into the show because it is more of an intellectual show than an action-packed show like 24 or a mystery like Lost. Its totally different than those shows. I have never worked in the White House so I really can't say for sure, but I feel like the show is realistic and based off of things that have and could happen. I know they have past White House assistants and even one of President Clinton's Press Secretaries working as consultants to help make the show realistic. A lot of stuff on the show goes over my head because I am not an expert on US foregin policy and there is a surprisingly large amount of US history stuff I don't know what they're talking about. Having sid that though I feel like I can understand a lot of what's going on because I have a bachelor's degree in Political Science and am on my way to a Master's Degree in Public Administration. One cool thing about the show is that they have mentioned the Maxwell School (the number one ranked MPA school in the country and where I happen to be attending) three times. Sometimes when somebody is visiting the White House to advise the President or something like that they introduce the person and they say he or she is a professor at or earned a degree from the Maxwell School. One of the characters on the show, Josh, is said to be based off of Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's Chief of Staff. Josh is a really nice guy though, and Emanuel I thought has a reputation of being more like a pitbull than a nice guy. So the whole time watching the show I haven't really known what they are basing that off of. In one episode everyone is talking about how before Josh worked at the White House he had sent some political rival a dead fish or something like that. I know that that is something that Emanuel did actually do in real life. That is the only thing I can think of that seems like a clear similarity. Maybe people just base the copmarison off of that and Josh wasn't actually based off of Emanuel.

Chad's Special Breakfast

Chad made me a yummy bacon, egg, and cheese mcmuffin before work one day. Now it is one of our favorite breakfasts - so much better than McDonalds.

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.

Haircut

I finally got a much needed haircut. I just felt like it was time. Here are some pictures of the process. I got my haircut at our friends Dan and Jenny's house. Jenny and Michelle cut it (Jenny actually taught Michelle how to cut hair while doing it). I think it turned out great! One of the best haircuts I have ever had I would say.

some more bizarre pictures

I once had a roommate (before I got married) who told me he had never known anyone who could have a completely different hair style every moth if he wanted to. I think that that is attributed to the fact that my hair grows very abnormally fast. I am ging to cut it soon very short, but it will be long again befre ou know iy. These are a couple pictures of my hair when it was blonde and when it was black. I think it looked good both ways. Michelle likes it more just regular. I will never change the color again, i am too old for that now. But it is fun to look at the pictures.