24

Clocking in at the second longest-running espionage series in television history, 24 is my favorite TV show. In 2008, Empire magazine ranked 24 as the sixth greatest TV series of all time. I just finished season 7 and have officially watched every episode ever made.
The series is about protecting America from terrorist attacks. It has a lot of gunfights, political leverage, and ethical issues. I watch it because I like seeing someone who won’t ever give up or back down to someone threatening his country. It is riddled with plot twists and always keeps you guessing intellectually. I get so into the series. I’ve never been so emotionally attached to anything on TV before.
One of the main issues of this season is that Jack was brought under trial for torturing a terrorist in order to get information to save the people the bomb would have killed. I like this segment from the last part of the season. Jack is dying because he sacrificed himself and stopped a bio-weapon at the cost of exposing himself.

This past week I had the opportunity to see my dear friend Kirtley get baptized. It was a tough road with unique challenges, and she did it without the support of her parents and many of her friends. But in the end it was worth it.

Sometimes you realize that one of the best things about life is seeing people change for the better. It's worth more than money; and, to tell the truth, I don't think its something that you see happen very often.

Kirtley has been through a lot in her life. She used to believe in God and was active in a church until her parents got divorced while she was in high school. Then she lost her faith and started to go downhill.

Here is a part of a letter she wrote to me a few weeks ago:
"...Thank you for sharing your religion with me. It has made me interested and helped me find my life back again. I finally know my purpose and what I am supposed to do with my life. I know I can handle anything as long as I have my faith in my heavenly father. Thank you."
-Kirtley

"Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." -D&C 18:10

Brilliant Madness

This comes from one of my favorite movies, A Beautiful Mind. John Nash came up with the Nash Equilibrium, which I learned about last year in my 300 level Econ class. His works today are used in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations, and have provided insight into today’s market economics, computing, artificial intelligence, accounting and military theory. The funny thing is that he had schizophrenia, and most people thought him crazy.



Sometimes you look at what people do or say and it just doesn’t make sense to you. It just doesn’t. But you can’t always see things from their perspective. One of the things you learn in Economics is that people do everything for a reason. The hardest part in convincing someone or in just understanding them is figuring out why they act how they do, and what reasons they have for it. Sometimes those reasons are wrong or perhaps non-existent, but to those people they are as real as anything else.

So when someone doesn’t act like you think they should, or does something that just doesn’t make sense, you have to try and see what reasons they might have for doing it, and then you can change them.

4th of July!!!

I have always loved learning about the founding fathers and they are some of my biggest heroes ever. The more I learn about them the more I am convinced that they were led by God. Here's a clip that i like. If there's something wrong, and you have the ability to take action, you also have the responsibility to take action. That's what they did, and we see their legacy today.

Happy 4th of July!!!!

Angels & Demons

So I barely got around to watching the movie Angels & Demons. I wanted to watch it because it is one of my favorite books ever written. The book shows the power of physics, faith, symbols, intelligence, and has some incredibly interesting plot twists. You never know who is the really an angel and who is really a demon. It portrays the conflict between science and religion. Sometimes I think you just couldn’t write a book better than that.

Well, just like it is with everything else, the movie wasn’t half as good as the book. It couldn’t quite portray the emotion, passion, or sense of serene power that enthralls the reader. But, I thought the soundtrack was beautiful. Here’s a short clip from one of the songs. Hans Zimmer never ceases to amaze. He also created the music for Gladiator, Batman, some of Pirates, and many others.

APX Madness!

My region of APX is doing a March Madness competition for sales. It gives everyone a little more competitive edge and makes you try a little harder. I think its pretty fun. You go head to head with someone for 3 days and whoever gets the most sales (or points) wins.

They picked the 64 best veterans and the 64 best first year reps and then create brackets and give the winners of each round prizes. I am in the first year bracket and didn’t do that good during the qualifying week and so I got a 10^th seed. But, I did just beat the guy that I was going against who was a number 7 seed. Next week I play the number 2 seed. I did a lot better than him last week so I’m not worried.

All I got for winning the first round was a t-shirt, but the prizes get bigger from here on out.

Happy Birthday Julia!!!

Julia is the closest of all the siblings to me in age. Growing up we were really close. I can remember all the classes we had together were so much fun. From Sister Gormley conducting the primary choir to “Wardy Heinburger” in Mr Schuler’s AP Bio class at LP to ACC 200 at BYU, there were always super funny moments where we would laugh so hard we would cry. She is always so fun to be around and is always caring about the other people that she is with.

Julia has always been really beautiful. I don’t think I’ve had a friend that hasn’t had a crush on Julia at one time. All through high school the whole football team would ask me if they could take her out. Sorry if sometimes I’m a little bit too protective of my only younger sister.

Julia is always incredibly emotionally stable. She doesn’t have the insatiable need for attention that so many other girls do, and has always been the person that can be the peacemaker in arguments with friends. I don’t think she’s ever had a roommate that hasn’t loved her and felt like Julia was the friend she could count on to be there and do stuff with.

I always loved working with Julia up at the ranch. We had the funnest time doing stuff. One time Dan and I took out the boat and Julia came along. I did my first 360 ever on a wakeboard and Julia cheered so loud for me I felt way cool.

Even when bad things happen she’s able to deal with them well. I remember one week last year Julia had her car broken into, snowboard stolen, and sprained her knee in a soccer game all in the same week. She didn’t ever complain, just hobbled around on crutches acting like everything was alright.

I had so much fun with Julia this last year while we were in the same ward, not just because I got to scare all the guys that were in love with her. We played in a racquetball tournament together, went snowboarding, played in soccer games, motorcycle rides to parties, and pulled pranks on Chris’s apt. I’m gonna miss Julia next year at BYU! I love you, Julia!

INDY 500!

The Marriott center at BYU holds 22,000 people, LaVell Edwards stadium holds about 60 thousand, the big house at Michigan (biggest college football stadium) can boast a staggering 110,000 screaming fans, but at the Indy 500 today there was an estimated 400,000 people all there to see one race. It’s the biggest sporting event in the world. It was definitely an experience.

My roommate Whitney and I got back from church in the morning and put on wife beaters (we wanted to fit in with the crowd) and got on our bikes and drove downtown. I expected there to be more traffic for such an event as I was driving down, and then we hit it: cars for miles. We looked around and didn’t see any cops so instead of standing still in the traffic, we just hopped on the sidewalk and took off. Black people walking on the side would tell us where the cops were so we would know when to get off the sidewalk and merge back into the traffic. Kinda like the underground railroad, ha. Then Whitney just asked a cop if we could drive on the sidewalk and he said he didn’t care if we did or not. So anyways, we got a parking spot right across the street from the raceway. I love motorcycles. We got there about an hour and a half faster than our roommate Jeff Lee who drove a couple people in his car.

I tracted into a guy the day before who worked at the gates and said he would let us in for free, but we couldn’t find him, so we just snuck past a couple of the attendants. We went to the infield where it is pretty much a big party the whole race. We got some front row seats from a drunk guy who had been there since six in the morning when he learned we were from Utah and that this was our first race and so we popped out our camp chairs just in time. Everyone sang the national anthem three times and then with a with a couple of jet fighters flying over everyone started chanting ‘USA! USA!’ There was a feeling of power to look around and see hundreds of thousands of patriots yelling that you can’t quite describe. Then the green flag came up and the race was on. The track is 2.5 miles long and so there are 200 laps. We were sitting right at turn three and there were a couple of major crashers right in front of us. Check out this video on ESPN to see them. The one with the car riding the wall was crazy.

So it turns out to be about three hours long. The first 25 laps as well as the last 25 are really intense and everyone is watching the track and screaming, but in between we went around and talked to people, played bean bag toss, ate food, saw a ton of drunks, and saw a guy take the once in a year occasion to propose to his girlfriend in front of us, and she accepted. We got made fun of for drinking lemonade by a lot of people and it would make us laugh, they would say, “I like lemonade too but it’s the f**** Indy 500!” I feel like I saw more beer there than I did my entire mission in Russia. Also, I guess here you buy turkey legs, not hot dogs from concessions. They were way good though - hittle bit o dark meat.

Castroneves won the race. He was unbelievable on the last 10 laps just pulling farther and farther away from everyone. Danica Patrick was amazing. She got third – the best any women has ever done. She was way gutsy, passing people while screaming around corners at well over 200 miles per hour. She was a crowd favorite. It was an incredible race to watch.

Front Page - YEEEAH!

So today I was on the front page on the APX website for our region. Here's a picture of the front page and beneath it is a pic of the actual story once you click on it. For the week I am number 28 for the region overall, not just in the first year reps. In the story the other four people are my roommates: we are all kicking some trash out here. I don't know who the goober is in the picture, but it's definitely not me. ha.

Today our regional manager Dave Allred was in town and since our office doubled our numbers two weeks ago he took us all to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. He didn't tell us we had a limit on how much we could get so Adam Big Boy and I had a hay day with the menu: appetizers, drinks, big steaks, deserts, smoothies...pretty much a smorgasboard. I have no idea how much the bill was but I can barely move. Don't feel bad for Dave, you have no idea how much his paycheck is. I went to a second row Jazz game with him before school got out and learned he bought his house with cash.

I sold another system today bringing my weekly total up to five. We played a really fun game of football this morning. Pretty much loving life i guess.

Three Spot!

I did awesome on the doors today and threw down three sales! I have never gotten more than one a day before. It felt so good because last week I didn't do as great as i thought I would.
The tech collin showed up for my last job and said, "Dang, you've gotten half the sales for the office today. keep it up!" The techs have to wait until we sell before they can do their work and install, so they like it when we sell a lot.

Riddles in the Dark

So on Sunday I went to a girls house for dinner. The headlight on my motorcycle stopped working a few days ago and I haven’t found the problem with it yet, so I had to head back to my apartment before it got dark, or else I would be riding my bike on the freeway without a light…not a real smart combination. (But I was wearing a helmet) So I was about 25 minutes from home and I hopped on my bike and was racing the light…had to get home before dark. So I was cruising along the freeway at about 90 mph. All of a sudden my engine cut out. Crap. My first thought was that I might be out of gas, so I reached down and switched on the valve to my reserve gas tank. No luck. The engine still wouldn’t catch. I drifted over to the left side of the freeway and got off my bike.

Here we go again. I’d played around with the electrical system before while trying to fix the headlamp and maybe something had come loose/burned out; so with semi’s and cars whizzing past just a couple feet away I took off the seat and got to work. The sun was starting to set in the horizon as I used precious time to check the fuses. I got frustrated cause it is really hard to get them out without pliers. Even more annoying was the fact that they were all good. No problem there. I tried to start the bike again, it turned over but wouldn’t catch.

So I pried the side of the bike out an inch and took a look at some of the wiring I had played with before. After as thorough of an examination I could give in the fading light, nothing stood out to me. Stumped, I sat down with my back against the hard cement barrier. I guess a spark plug could have blown, or a wire could have been overloaded…no clue where. I didn’t want to leave my bike on the side of the freeway overnight, but I don’t know anyone with a truck out here.

I decided to say a prayer, quick but heartfelt. I got up and was about to kick the back tire when something caught my eye. I looked at the gas valve and then realized that instead of turning the valve to reserve, I had actually turned the fuel valve off. Ha. What an idiot. I switched the valve to ‘reserve’ and the bike fired right up. As I merged onto the freeway in the setting sun I said another prayer thanking Heavenly Father for helping me and asking him to help me get home safe. Ha. How ironic would it be if I got my prayer answered only to be smushed on the way home by some big semi that couldn’t see me. (mom’s gonna hate that part) But I got home safe just after the last bit of the sun went beneath the horizon.

Life's a game of inches

Ben showed me this clip and I really liked it. I’ve never seen the movie, but sometimes I think Al Pacino gives some of the greatest monologues I’ve ever heard. I downloaded the clip and edited out some of the swear words and re-uploaded it so I wouldn’t feel bad about putting it on my blog.

I think that’s true. Life’s a game of inches. When you add up all the inches, that’s what makes the difference between winning and losing.

My first week here I would knock on doors and I couldn’t get hardly anyone to listen. I would say the exact same thing I would hear Ben say, but I couldn’t get my foot in the door. Then I learned that it was the little things I wasn’t doing: eye contact at certain parts of the pitch, the tone of voice on some words, the speed I was talking at, a pause here, a question there. My luck started to change. Now I’ve gotten a sale pretty much every day for the past six knocking days.

Whatever you do, it’s the little stuff that ends up making the difference.

Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. (Alma 37:6)