And shoes to match

I finally got a pair of road shoes and was able to put on my new Look pedals I bought on sale back when Copeland Sports went out of business.

Is it wrong that I'm so excited at how perfectly my new cycling shoes match my road bike? Oh what a beautiful thing.

Thank you Katherine

So I got a package from FedEx today...or should we say, this lady named Katherine several blocks away from our house got a package from FedEx for me today. (It's a long long long story. The short version is Performance Bike and FedEx both employee a bunch of idiots.) Luckily, Katherine (the lady that lived at the address the packaged was delivered to) was smarter than the FedEx driver that left it at her doorstep (which incidentally didn't even match the wrong address on the package) and the customer service woman from Performance that typed the address in wrong in the first place COMBINED. How do I know this? Because Katherine realized the address on the shipping label of the box didn't exist (I guess her address was close enough for FedEx) and had the intelligence to call the number next to the address.

Thank you Katherine. Thank you for using common sense. If ever you need a job, I'm sure you could be CEO or something for FedEx or Performance. They could use someone like you.

Again, thank you. Because of you, Sean and I got some new bike gear today.

I'm no David Beckham

I'm no David Beckham, but I did enjoy playing intramural soccer last night. We tied 1-1 which I guess is better than losing. So instead of losing to or winning against we simply tied 'Your Mom.' I found the other team's name slightly humorous, but mostly because that's what our wireless internet was called for awhile.

If you really want to know, we should have won. The other team's only score was from a penatly kick that really shouldn't have been called, but it's all good. I'll keep you updated on our teams season. I don't think any of us think we're going to win or anything. It's just fun.

The last time I played soccer was on my mission against a bunch of old guys from Jerusalem and Cairo and other such places yelling at each other in a language I couldn't recognize. Before that was 6th grade.

I already know what you're going to say

So, the fact that the Valentine's Day show at Velour with Monkeygrinder was great isn't the only reason why this year's Valentine's Day will be memorable.
The invitation to the show encouraged people to dress up. After all, it was the 'Heartbreaker's Ball,' so Megan, Taylor, Brandon, and I got 'dressed up.' For some of us this meant dress pants, white shirt and tie, and eyeliner.
For some reason all the girls liked it. My roommates however...well, let's just say that Taylor told me if I wore eyeliner at our show next month, he would kick me. :)

Valentine's Day with Monkeygrinder

For those of you who do not know who Monkeygrinder is, feel free to check them out at www.comejointhecircus.com
You can also find them on myspace at www.myspace.com/scarecrowcowboy
I think I can most accurately describe them thus: circus rock. Yes, circus rock. :)

An old roommate (Kylin) and I somehow ended up at a house party they happened to be playing at several years ago on Halloween. It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen. The whole place was decked out like we were at the circus. All of the band members were dressed up: the lead singer was singing into a vintage looking microphone, another one of the band members had a peg leg and was dressed as a pirate, and someone else was performing on stilts. It was a memorable Halloween.

They really put on a great show and their music is fantastic. They only play a few shows a year so if you have the chance to see them, I would take it.

This year's Valentine's day will be one to remember.

The Way I See It #186

(brought to you by Starbucks Coffee)

"The world is smaller than you think, and the people on it are more beautiful than you think."

-- Bertram van Munster
Emmy Award-winning executive producer/director

As I continue through life, I realize more and more the truth of this statement. Hurray for long talks with enjoyable company at Starbucks.

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.