Beard Growth

I have a beard. 

Having a beard has taught me things about myself.

Having a beard, has required me to be confident in myself.

I've learned to do what makes myself happy.

Even if others think it's weird.

I have a beard.

Ask the Right Question

Something I've thought many times about the gospel and life in general is the importance of questions. Recently, I've been *shock* re-evaluating my life and asking myself some questions. Whenever I start asking the Lord questions based on what I decide, I find that at least some of my questions aren't going to get answered. Often, it's not because he doesn't have anything to say about what I'm trying to figure out, but because I haven't asked the right questions.

It always amuses me to then think of the movie I Robot. The detective in the movie has a holographic program that helps guide him towards the questions that will solve what is going on.

The one thing that frequently is said by this program is "my responses are limited, you must ask the right questions." I feel like frequently, what the Lord gives us is limited, not by his ability to answer, but by his desire to help us grow and use our agency effectively. So whenever I get frustrated like Detective Spooner does, with the lack of answers, I remember that it'll be for my good. Then I usually find that if I do ask the right questions, the way opens up and I can see what I need to do next.

So, just to fill you in on the questions in my life:

HOW to get into grad school?

WHEN to try to get into grad school?

and one that I always try to make sure is answered with a yes:

Am I doing everything God wants me to do?

I find that my life is happy right now, and having been asking and seeking answers to those questions has been very helpful. I love my current job, and it's not where I think I'll be for a career, but I certainly am thankful for that blessing, as well as friends, roommates, and family to help me when I feel lost.

I'll be what I am...

Life status update: Life is slowly working it's way out. I'm feeling more productive. it's great.

Other news: Went down to the Utah summer games for frisbee, and eventually started rocking it. We actually beat one of the byu club teams with basically just our little group of friends.  By the end of 7 games in two days though, my legs where pretty shot, and sunburned, in fact I'm still peeling 12 days later. 

The following weekend was the end of orem city league ultimate.  There we were beating another team while being down a man with no subs. Then in a tragedy of tragedies, Hyrum came down and was injured, we dragged him off the field, kept winning for a bit longer, then finally they wised up and just kept a defender deep and we lost.  Later at the urgent care we found out what I had already suspected after further examining Hyrum's foot, it was broken.

The working at home is pretty nice, it'd be a little nicer to have the second shift a little earlier, but it's not bad. It pays the bills, and motivates me to keep pursuing other options, especially grad school.

Finally, this is such a great song, and just to say stargate is pretty great too

until then I'll be what I am.

Brightness

It occurred to me today during church, why certain descriptions are what they are. I mean, feet as burnished brass, fire, lightning, etc.  What other bright sources of light were there in ancient times, the sun? It only makes sense to describe something incredibly bright in those terms.  Joseph Smith's ability to describe what he saw isn't significantly better in describing how incredibly bright the glory of heavenly being is. It seems like it's basically unimaginable how bright it is.  Just a thought anyway.

Chilling with my Peeps

This whole being graduated thing is interesting. Although, I'd seriously like to have a better idea of what I'm going to be doing in my future, I'm going to have to say I'm enjoying the new stage in life, mostly.

I've had plenty of time to spend working on personal stuff, hanging out with friends, and doing mostly what I want to do.  But, having spent many of the nights this week hanging out with my friends who are either married, or engaged, I have to say, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this stage, and actually, it'd be nice if this stage ended sooner rather than later.  Side note, it was great to hang out with all my buddies that I don't get to see very often. I've been able to have some great friends over the years.

Just because I can, I have to say, that I got to play with my nephews today, they're pretty much the greatest little boys on the face of the planet.  I told Max it was nap time, and the 1 year old walked up the stairs, shut the door behind me after I followed him into his room, and then looked at me and asked to be picked up, after I put him in his crib and tucked him in, the little boy gave me the nod, like yeah, I'm good. SO cute, and so funny.  And his older brother is just as cute and funny.

One other big topic on the stage of life things that seems to be a consensus from my friends, it's dang hard to meet people. I try, but I think I'm at my wits end. So far doing what I do doesn't tend to yield many prospects. So, any suggestions would be at least useful.

:)

So, after having stake conference with Elder Ballard and Elder Worthen, I feel spiritually renewed, and this talk by the mission president of my mission that came in just after I left, it just seemed like a good thing to share for anyone anywhere.

http://devotional.byuh.edu/script/thy-confidence-shall-wax-strong-presence-god

I'll post more later

Running the Numbers

Just throwing out some numbers I was looking at a little while ago, something to do with how much US cell phone companies are obviously colluding and riping off customers.

Cost of Cell phone tower = ~ $300,000
Number of simultaneous users per tower = ~ 2000
High for expected user tower usage= 15%
Tower can then hold 16000 subscribers
Tower operating costs $30,000/year
average costs collected from subscribers a tower can hold= $9.6 million or $9,600,000 in revenue
or even if tower only has as many subscribers as max users $1.2 million in revenue
Case of Verizon
Revenue from wireless ~11.1 BILLION
among ~80 MILLION customers
total company operating costs 3.4 billion (out of 94 in revenue)
enough to buy 19,000 new towers a year after subtracting operating costs and overhead
area covered by a tower at minimum expected range  (2 mi ) is enough to cover 3% of the US a year whereas at the expected distances of rural areas, it is enough to cover the entire nation with signal in a year.

These numbers may be rough, and maybe there are some errors, but add in the fact that other countries pay 1/5 what we do for cell service, something sure smells fishy.