489 Update: Primary Research Time

So we are in the process of gathering primary research for our senior capstone campaign with Spore. Good Stuff. Anyways, we just posted an online survey. I think we've gotten a number of college students to take the survey but want the demographic of the survey to be a little more diverse so...

If you're graduated, or 25 or older (I know I've got a couple of you readers out there) than we would really appreciate you taking a couple minutes and filling out the survey. I will lof you long time! Here's the link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=286803198011

If you're NOT graduated, or 25 and older...I still lof you, but we've already gotten a huge number of respondence from your age bracket. :(

As far as other updates with 489...we're gonna be conducting some focus groups this week so I'm excited for that. My internship with Geppetto (I think they're in the process of relaunching their website so that link might not work) last spring was spent working as a Jr. Strategic Planner so it's been fun to apply what I learned there to what we're doing with this project.

i HEART indie kids

that dance super crazy ridiculous over at the edge of the crowd stage right as Of Montreal performs in the frigid outdoors of Mainstreet and 7th Avenue in Park City Thursday night in January of '07 as part of the free Sundance Film Festival festivities.

What's that you're humming?

So I'm sitting in class and someone behind me just started humming The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job" from there Americana album.
It made me smile. I think if you knew the first couple lines of lyrics that went with what he was humming it would have made you smile as well...especially considering the context of where he was humming the aforementioned song.

Mr. Dungbeetle (take two)

I saw Mr. Dungbeetle for the second time on Saturday. There were a number of people that I know there to see it as well which made me really happy for several reasons:
-It just made me happy to see their faces
-I was glad they had the opportunity to experience the film

I remembered really loving the film, and having quite a moving experience the first time I saw it...but I had forgotten just how amazing this film is. It has and will be for quite some time, if not all time, one of my favorite movies. Tom (and company), once again...thank you.

In the Foreground

We crown ourselves in our denials,
unfailing victims of the fire
we lit ourselves.

The flames to purge our sins it seems
unorthodox and quite obscene,
yet we continue on.

Why can’t we seem to see
our strength has become
our weakness.
Just open up your eyes.

The contrast between right and wrong
continues to fade ‘till it’s gone
and all is gray.

Consumed by all our righteous acts
we blind our own eyes to the fact
we’ve lost our place.

Why can’t we seem to see
our strength has become
our weakness.
Just open up your eyes.

If we could only see ourselves for what we are not.
So pious in our own discourse to remove all doubt.

The writing on the wall appears
not in our hearts and that’s my fear
that leads me to unearth my voice and sing.

How long our reign will last this way
I’m quite unsure and yet remain
unmoved myself.

Why can’t we seem to see
our strength has become
our weakness.
Just open up your eyes

If we could only see ourselves for what we are not.
So pious in our own discourse to remove all doubt.

The writing on the wall appears
not in our hearts and that’s my fear
that leads me to unearth my voice and sing.

We crown ourselves in our denials,
unfailing victims of the fire
we lit ourselves.

The flames to purge our sins it seems
unorthodox and quite obscene,
yet we continue on.

Why can’t we seem to see
our strength has become
our weakness.
Just open up your eyes.

Mr. Dungbeetle showing

Just FYI. For those of you who don't know anything about this movie you can refer to an earlier post of mine here or you might go to the post on imdb or better yet, just go to the movies webpage at www.mrdungbeetle.com

I just found out that it will be playing tomorrow night (Saturday) at 7:30 at the Scera Theater in Orem, Utah. If you don't have plans, I would invite you to go see it. I'll see you there.

Also, I just found a link on the College of Fine Arts and Communications page on BYU's site. You can go there by clicking here and scrolling down a little bit.

I want one

Excavation 101

Cleaning checks were today. We basically all forgot about them until late late late last night, and seeing as how 2 of the roomies have early school and work, Taylor and I told them we'd take care of it in the morning. Luckily our house wasn't in too bad of shape so we just did some quick cleaning/straightening up around the house...it didn't take too long and we passed so life is just dandy.

I did come to an interesting realization as I was cleaning the bathroom sink...cleaning for cleaning checks is like participating in a beginning excavation class. I mean, you can never really get somethings clean in student housing, all you can do is scrape/dust off your layer of film, grime, and dust...the ancient layers dirt from student civilizations that have gone before you are still there in all their glory.

Sometimes, all you can really do is take off your dust and make what's left of the past existence of former students in the space you now reside visible.
That's how I felt cleaning our sink this morning.

Suprisingly

i feel really good.

It's like riding a bike.

Well, last night I had Sean tell me how to ride his trainer/rollers. I really felt like doing something physically active and riding my bike in the fridgedness that was Provo last night was not an option. I had been meaning to learn how to ride on roller so I figured it was a good time to start.

When Sean rides, he usually sets up in front of the TV and puts on a dvd of the Tour de France or something like that. I decided I'd put in my roommates Incubus Alive at Red Rocks dvd. I figured the music would pump me up and I'd be less likely to lean over and crash from following some weird camera angle or something. I could just imagine riding on those rollers while watching a video of the Tour...as the bikers come whizzing around a corner a camera angle from the biker's POV is seen and I naturally and instinctively lean into the turn as well only to find that I'm not going around a turn...I'm carefully balanced on a stationary trainer with rollers roughly 15 inches wide and so natural laws insue...I topple off the trainer and run straight into the wall. Yeah, that really didn't sound like the kind of experience I was hoping for so I opted on Incubus.

For the first...hmmm...say 2 miles or so of riding I rode one handed (that is, one hand was on the handlebars while the other was on the back of the couch helping me keep my balance.) I'm sure it was slightly commical to watch me as I started. I would slowly lift my right hand from off the couch and feel it out for a moment or two before steadying myself again. I think my first real stretch of time not holding onto the couch lasted for about....well, atleast 10 seconds before my balance wavered ever so slightly and I reached out for the couch again.

After awhile I got the hang of it and rode just fine. In fact, by the end I even felt comfortable enough to take one hand off the handlebars to wipe some sweat off my face before it reached my eyes. I didn't however have the confidence to attempt to retrieve my bottle of water from the cage mounted on the bottom tube of my bike in order to get a drink while maintaining to ride. When it came time for me to get a quick drink I opted to stop just long enough to take a sip before jumping back on and getting back to business.

It begins.

So we were placed into our 489 groups today. :)
I'm so excited. F*#%, I'm elated. (That F-bomb was for you Richard, so that people in the industry will know that I'm serious.)
I will be working with some of the most amazing people I know. It's gonna be crazy fun, crazy work, and just crazy in general.
Stay tuned for more 489 madness.

not finished

Alone with my thoughts as I walk down the cold dark street.
Like a shadow, I follow my breath as I release.
And the white stillness of the snow reflects the light above
from the streetlamps that I know.

The stars smile down from their blanket of darkest blue.
But no outer warmth is conveyed from my point of view.
Like silent statues they stand as monuments to the grave
of the mistakes that I have made.

Tonight

was the first time in a long time that I was in the HBLL when they turned on the crazy music to get everybody out before closing.

"This section is complete"

So, I'm looking over my student academic record in preparation for school to start tomorrow...just checking to make sure I'm actually got all my bases covered and am taking all the classes I need to in order to graduate this April and I keep seeing this phrase over and over again:

"This section is complete"

It's kind of scary.

"Why can't cars drive themselves?"

So I can have another way to express how much I care about you.

it's been awhile

So...change of plans. Instead of heading down toRexburg with Tyler and Ike and then going the rest of the way to Provo on my own while they went up to Jackson Hole, I decided I'd spend a couple days working in Jackson with them to make some extra cash.

It's been awhile since I've earned wages via physical labor. Well, not really. I mean, for the past several summers I've done roofing and seismic work, and although the majority of last summer was spent in New York doing my internship (not what I would consider "physical" labor), I did spend the end of the summer high up on the roof with a hammer and nailgun in hand. Well, more like a bag of screws and a screwgun. (The last job of the summer was a Decra metal tile roof.)

What I guess I'm getting at is that even though the last time I was up on a roof was only a few months ago...dang I'm tired. We got into Jackson and went to bed at about 2:30 this morning and then were up at 6:30 getting ready for work, but that's not the only reason I'm tired. Work is just draining...and yet, there's something about physical labor that I just love. The ability to look down after a hard days work to see all that you've accomplishyed. The ache in your muscles and genuine feeling of tiredness. What a great thing.

That said, this kind of work still motivates me to get a good education. I mean, it's good and all...but it's not something I want to be doing when I'm older and my body is falling apart as I try to support a family. So there's another reason why I do it: to motivate me to get done with school and do well in my classes this last semester of college.

Waiting...

How much of our lives do we spend waiting? Waiting for just the right moment to tell that certain someone how you really feel, what you really think. Waiting for that boy/girl you've been crushing on since 6th grade to make the first move. Waiting for the opportune time to make the move yourself. Waiting for the right job to plop itself in your lap. Waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for an old friend to apologize. Waiting...waiting...

May I submit a simple idea to you all?

Stop waiting.

So, what brought on this thought you might ask? It just so happens that I'm waiting right now. Yes, you heard it. Tyler, Ike, and I were all suppose to leave this morning to Rexburg and then i was going to continue on to good ol' Provo while they carried on to Jackson, WY. That didn't happen though because the work truck that Ike and Tyler were taking down to Jackson wouldn't start this morning. So...here we are waiting for it to get fixed.

Fade to Black
Superscript: "Several hours later...")
Fade In

Looks like it's working. Now we're just waiting for Ike's dad to bring the truck into town and then we'll be on our way. I'm not going to be rolling into Provo till super late tonight/early tomorrow. Perhaps I'll sleep in Rexburg tonight and continue on tomorrow sometime. We shall see.