I work hard for the money.

I don't usually blog much about my work (other than the frustrations of red lights during my commute), but some cool stuff went down today that I thought I'd write about.

I really didn't know what I would be getting myself into when I applied for and accepted a position with the Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com for anyone who wants to know. All I knew was that the wage was better than I had expected, and I'd be working the hours I wanted (9-5, Monday to Friday) leaving my nights and weekends free. I later came to learn about all the benefits that came with the position (paid holidays, laidback atmosphere, great co-workers, donuts and bagels every Thursday morning, etc). I feel lucky to have ended up where I did because I probably would have accepted pretty much any job offer - though I did turn one down that didn't offer me enough incentive to take it.

So the past five weeks at work have been somewhat tedious. We'd been working on a very large project, and I had been doing exactly the same thing eight hours a day, five days a week, for five weeks. We finally finished yesterday and were able to hand off the project and meet the deadline. Today we had a meeting with our entire department, the management and employees for the three teams (including my own). In the meeting we reviewed the work done in October and how each of the three teams fared. Two of the three teams were able to complete all of the projects they committed to at the beginning of the month. I was happy to see that the Assembly team (my team) was one of those. Then they announced that we were the team of the month because of the work we had done, and we were awarded the golden chalice (a big shiny cup/trophy thing). It was cool and it felt good to be recognized for our efforts.

Then we spent the rest of the day working on decorating our office for the company Halloween party tomorrow. I'm pretty excited for the party - it's going to last most of the day - and we've got a pretty cool theme going with our decorations and costumes. Maybe I'll post some pictures in the near future.

I like working for a company that cares about its employees. Sadly, I can't say that I ever felt that way when I was employed by BYU. That's all.

"Every win on this [blog]'s hard won." - paraphrasing the Wrens

I know I haven't written about Gremlins yet, but I just wanted to share something.

After last week's devastation that shall not be named, I've been forced to do some self-evaluation and introspection. Really, I have. I've seen things in a clearer perspective and been able to better prioritize my time, though I'm still not where I know I should be in most regards. I am doing better this week, trying to minimize time wasted. Anyway, what I wanted to get at was that in the days following the tragedy, I returned to the artists and bands that form the bedrock of my musical tastes. Bands like the Dismemberment Plan, the Wrens, Hum, Radiohead, etc. Sunday night I felt like hitting the open road so I jumped in my car and took a nice long drive. I put on the Wrens' album Meadowlands, a really sad yet rocking work about the struggles of relationships and creating art and pain and joy, and it was cathartic and invigorating all at once. It was exactly what I needed.

Maybe something good can come out of that terrible heartbreak that I refuse to speak about openly. Maybe.

I Love Your Blog Award!

Preface: being blog-tagged reminds me of those email surveys people used to send to their friends back when the internet was still a relatively new mainstream phenomenon. I just can't help feeling like a teenager again whenever I do these things.

1. Where is your cell phone? on my desk, about a foot from where I sit.
2. Where is your significant other? hopefully not too far away.
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? a saint
5. Your father? the epitome of quiet dignity, smart and humble
6. Your favorite thing? life (mainly people) or Slurpees
7. Your dream last night? I don't remember it.
8. Your dream/goal? create the art I feel the need to create
9. The room you're in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? literature/music/film (though hobby doesn't seem strong enough)
11. Your fear? failing at life or being consumed by gigantic waves in the middle of the ocean
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? a published author with a family
13. Where were you last night? playing intramural soccer and kicking it at Sparks
14. What you're not? a ladies man
15. One of your wish-list items? a new MacBook
16. Where you grew up? Vernal, UT
17. The last thing you ate? corn dogs and an apple
18. What are you wearing? awesome old-school slacks I got at DI last week
19. Your TV? on loan to an apartment that didn't have one
20. Your pet? dogs...i love them all.
21. Your computer? a cheap Dell desktop full of rocking tunes
22. Your mood? calm
23. Missing someone? distant friends I don't see nearly enough
24. Your car? "I drive a Dodge Stratus!"
25. Something you're not wearing? a coat or similar cold-weather item
26. Favorite store? Best Buy or Borders
27. Your summer? lots of good time with friends
28. Love someone? yes, please
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? not long ago at all
31. Last time you cried? not sure...but I probably will soon when I reach the end of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. That book is soul-crushingly sad with just a pinch of hope and light at the end. It really is a brilliant book.

I hereby bestow this award upon: Justin, Gus, and Jeff.

Too Good to Not Write About

Every once in a while I come across something and know instantly that I must write about it. Somethings are just too good to not write about. Here are two of them:

1. On Thursday, October 17th, I was able to make the drive from my apartment just off 9th East in Provo to my place of employment near the Riverwoods shopping complex in north Provo without hitting a single red light or coming to a complete stop. Remember back to an earlier post in which I cried wolf about a conspiracy theory because I seem to hit every single red light along this drive. I nearly cried tears of joy for how perfect my transit was that morning. It was indeed a thing of beauty, probably not to be replicated anytime in the near future.

2. I was recently browsing some films on Netflix. I frequently add new films to my queue, reorder the queue to suit my particular moods and whims, and just read up about some of the countless films I've yet to see. In this instance I happened to be looking at George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, the 1968 apocalyptic zombie film. Netflix has a feature which allows its patrons, especially parents, to access information regarding a film's content, allowing them to make wise, informed decisions regarding the films their children see. I clicked on the link for Night of the Living Dead, wanting to see if I could show this film to a group of people, some of whom might be sensitive to certain things. The parental information discusses the violence (it is a zombie movie), the surprising lack of inappropriate language, the social behavior of the characters, and makes note of the film's positive portrayal of the African-American protagonist. Then, under the heading of "Commercialism," appears the following:

"At least these fleash-eating zombies don't sell out."

I laughed out loud when I read this little gem. It warms my soul that the person writing the parental information for this film had a sense of humor.

I find joy in the most surprising places sometimes.

Tag

So I got tagged by Jessie last week and have finally gotten around to it.  Here we go:

Eight TV Shows I Love To Watch:

1. The Office (yessshh)
2. Arrested Development (too clever for its own good)
3. 30 Rock (has overtaken the Office as the funniest comedy on television)
4. 24 (as ludicrous as the plot gets, Jack Bauer is still the man)
5. Lost (I enjoy it but don't bother to try and unravel the show's mysteries)
6. Friday Night Lights (criminally neglected show - derived from a good movie and great book of the same name)
7. BYU football (technically not a show, but who cares?)
8. Sportscenter

Eight Restaurants I Love:

1. Tucanos (para matar a saudade)
2. Carl's Jr. (the western bacon cheeseburger is all I need)
3. The Lotus Garden (good Chinese buffet on Center Street in Provo)
4. Golden Corral (favorite place to eat as a skinny and ravenous child)
5. Rodizio de pizza in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil (think Tucanos but with pizza)
6. Wienerschnitzel (chili cheese on everything)
7. The Olive Garden
8. Lon’s Cooking Shack (southern style barbeque goodness)

Eight things I am doing (did) today:

1. Work
2. Ate a delicious barbeque bacon cheeseburger for lunch
3. Blogging
4. Read some more of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
5. Order Seasons One and Two of 30 Rock
6. Watch highlights from the 2006 and 2007 BYU-TCU football games
7. Play NCAA 2009 on the Xbox 360
8. Watch the latest episode of Heroes online

Eight Things I Am Looking Forward To:

1. the BYU-TCU football game tomorrow evening
2. Halloween
3. my little sister’s wedding in December
4. Thanksgiving
5. producing some good creative writing
6. becoming a menace to society
7. unbecoming a menace to society
8. figuring out future plans

Eight Things I Love About The Summer:

1. warm nights
2. lack of some responsibilities
3. road trips
4. spontaneous adventures
5. swimming
6. more time to make/hang out with friends
7. frolicking in the outdoors
8. Slurpees (year-round with me) 

Eight Olympic Events I Wanted To See and Did:

1. swimming
2. men’s basketball
3. men’s soccer
4. men’s and women’s indoor volleyball
5. men’s and women’s beach volleyball
6. track and field sprinting events
7. some gymnastics
8. pole vault

Eight Things On My Wish List....

1. a significant other
2. a MacBook
3. a new external hard drive
4. to go far in the intramural soccer tournament
5. a BCS bowl game for BYU
6. to publish something and make some money
7. a clear understanding of what I need to do in the immediate future
8. for lists to be kept to 5 items and not 8

Temperaments like the temperature?

Results of a good weekend:

• won my intramural soccer game 1-0 on Friday night
• went camping Friday night after my soccer game and had fun, despite the cold and snow
• watched the BYU football team defeat New Mexico 21-3, despite their continued disappointing play at times and the cold weather
• went to a final shin-dig for Alison, a good friend about to enter the MTC next week, won a game of mafia as a detective, and enjoyed conversing with friends and new acquaintances

Yeah, a pretty good weekend, about as productive as any other. Yet while I could be still doing something, in the least watching a movie with people, I feel a need to blog, to write, to get something out in the open. I'm not sure what it is; there seems to be so much I could write about, so much I need to write about, and I'm pretty sure that the desire to write didn't come so I could write about the desire to write.

I've been, to put it bluntly, terrible at writing lately. I've wanted to think that I haven't had time because I have truthfully been more social, but since I'm being honest, I have to admit that time spent writing would be at least as productive as some of the socializing I've been doing. I need to write so that nagging voice in my head will stop. Don't get me started on my lack of serious writing as well. That's another blog post for the future.

So what prompted me to write tonight, besides the urgent feeling that I should write, was a sudden change in temperament, mood, perspective, or whatever that just happened to me in the waning hours of the day. After all the fun and awesome things that happened this weekend, I'm feeling kind of down and disappointed. Of course, I could just be really tired since I didn't get nearly enough sleep this last week.

I've written previously (I'm not going to track down the exact blog post) about how quickly melancholy can strike, but it's true. I'm usually a fairly level-headed person, but sometimes my temperament rises or falls like the temperature. Maybe the snow falling much too early has upset my psyche something fierce. (Please, no Christmas music yet! We shouldn't disrespect Halloween and Thanksgiving that way).

When I'm in a funk like this, I always wish life were a little more simple, that some of the more pressing concerns I have would magically resolve themselves. Of course, they never do - they can't! These issues have to be resolved through tremendous personal effort, and I've never doubted that cold fact. I just wish, for my immediate, selfish sake, that these magic resolutions really did exist. I'd know exactly what to do with my future, the person I should romantically pursue, and how to best leave a positive and lasting impression on the world. Why must it be so hard to figure these things out on our own? I'd even be happy with two out of three magic resolutions, or even just one. One would be more than enough for me right now.

Those resolutions do exist - somewhere - but they aren't magic; I have to find them and implement them into my own life. There will be no deus ex machina when it comes to these ultra-important issues in my life. I guess I really just wish that I could find some certainty when all my attempts to do so merely generate more questions and concerns.

Well, with no moral or happy ending to impart, I think I'll end this post. Writing it was good for me; reading it, however, will likely be less beneficial for any who should happen upon this post, and for that I apologize.

Post-script: vote in the poll for the subject of my next post!

Seeing red and feeling blue.

I have to post because I'm upset.

I really, really don't like the University of Utah's football team and fans. Even when I know Utah winning is in the best interests of BYU and the Mountain West Conference, I struggle and ultimately fail to cheer for Utah. Like tonight during the Utah - Oregon State game, I constantly found myself wanting Oregon State to win. Until the very end. Even when Utah was the beneficiary of a questionable penalty that gave them another chance to tie the game on a two-point conversation, I was hoping that Brian Johnson would make a mistake, throw an interception or something.

Utah winning didn't upset me, although the way they did kind of did upset me. What really upset me though was the way their fans reacted to the victory. They friggin' stormed the field after beating Oregon State on a last-second field goal. Sure, Oregon State beat USC, but give me a break. You'd think the fans were celebrating something more than the fact that Utah beat a team they were supposed to beat in the first place. Memo to fans: you're the 15th ranked team playing an unranked opponent. You don't storm the field when you barely beat them.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on them. Tonight will likely go down as their only chance to storm the field this season. We all know who will be storming the field in November.

Then, as if I couldn't get any more upset with things, Louis Sakoda was interviewed down on the field during the celebration. I don't remember what he had to say, but I remember hearing the Utah fans, celebrating on the field, chanting, "B-C-S," over and over. That pushed me over the edge. I had threw my fists into the air and then immediately began punching the couch nearest to me. "I want to play them tomorrow night," I exclaimed.

Let's break this down: I have watched a fair amount of Utah's football games this season. Have I been impressed? No, not really. They have talent, sure, but they have not looked at all like a BCS-buster caliber team. And then barely squeaking out this victory has their fans all chanting, "B-C-S" like they were the leading non-BCS school or something. Utah would pull a Hawaii if they were to get a BCS game, at least with how they've played so far this season, barely squeaking out wins against teams they ought to destroy. Brian Johnson must be the most overhyped quarterback in the entire conference; somebody notify me when he starts to warrant any of the praise he's received the last two seasons.

I really wish the BYU - Utah game weren't so far away. I'm ready for the Cougs to trounce the overrated Utes, if TCU doesn't do it first.