Archive for November, 2008
Posted by Ryan
November 1, 2008
I have 5 things to do today. 11 things, actually, if I count all the things I have to do, but I’m not going to do that. I’m just counting 5 of them. That seems much more reasonable.
Because I know you want to know: today I’m getting a haircut, buying some blue socks, doing laundry, writing this blog post, working on a website, and calling a bunch of people on the phone. That’s 6 things. I’m really good at counting.
If you’ve skipped ahead and read the tags at the bottom of this post you might notice a funny acronym. If you remember, this funny acronym was a part of my posts last November.
It’s true. It’s NaBloPoMo time: National Blog Posting Month. And I’m doing it again. I’m going to post every single day this month.
On my last post a few people suggested that I ought not to wait so long between posts. Perhaps by the end of this month I’ll be getting the opposite requests.
Anyway, I better get going on the 4 things I have to do today. Or however many it is.
Posted by Ryan
November 2, 2008
In light of my recent discovery of my great counting skills (see last post) I thought it would be a great time to elaborate on my experiences in Manhattan. It hasn’t really been two weeks though, and as I stated 2 posts ago I also haven’t been in New York the whole time, let alone Manhattan. I just thought “2 Weeks in Manhattan” sounded better than “Tomorrow I will have been in or around Manhattan for 2 weeks.”
2 Weeks in Manhattan should be the name of a movie. This movie would be a true story about a car chase around Manhattan. It wouldn’t, of course, be a very exciting movie because I’m pretty sure it takes at least 2 weeks to drive across the city. The traffic here could be likened unto 15 adults trying to slide down a slide on a children’s playground all at the same time: there’s no way it’s going to work, but they’re going to try anyway. Someone is bound to get pushed off and go tell the recess referee (is that what they’re called?).
No really, you could do a car chase. It’d just require doing it at night or perhaps roping off a section of the city and staging the whole thing. Since it’d be a movie, that’s what they’d do anyway.
I’m getting distracted. Traffic in Manhattan is pretty much irrelevant to my experiences here. I’ve driven once and it wasn’t in the city, and it was only for a mile or two.
The subway is nice. It’s funny how many people you can pack into one of those things and not have anyone say a single word to another person. Then, dress people up in halloween costumes* and pack them in even tighter and you get the most friendly people on earth. Dressing up removes people’s inhibitions. Or maybe it’s that no one is thinking about work. Or both. Everyone, myself included, ought to be more friendly and talk more.
* You wouldn’t actually dress them up yourself. Let them do their own dressing.
I’ve spent way too much money on food. It’s been really good food though. There are fast food restaurants, but when you’re hungry and in a hurry you don’t have to go to one of those unless you really want to. There are so many options. And they’re all so much better than fast food. I guess there are always alternatives to fast food, no matter where you are. The difference here is that there’s far more alternatives. I quite like it.
In summary, I’ve given a pretty bad summary of my experiences here so far. I think I’m okay with that. I am, after all, posting every day this month. More experiences are bound to come out.
Posted by Ryan
November 3, 2008
I’m currently listening to The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a fascinating book. I love it.
In the book he mentions some studies that suggest that the more social an animal, the bigger its brains are. I’m sure I’m greatly oversimplifying, but basically the size of our neocortex is directly related to how many people with which we can maintain a stable social relationship. This number is about 148.2. You may have heard of Rule of 150. Many social groups and even colonies have used 150 or numbers close to it for years because they recognize that when a group of people gets bigger than 150 you end up with groups within the group and it gets really difficult to maintain cohesion. If you’d like to verify these facts, read the book as I don’t intend to put references here.
Anyway, as I listened to that portion of the book I couldn’t help but wonder that with all our social networks (facebook, myspace, linkedin, twitter, friendfeed, etc.) if the human race will evolve huge heads a few thousand or million years in the future. Or maybe even next week! I have 380 or so friends on Facebook alone. If I tried to have a stable social relationship with all of them, I would fail, but what if my neocortex grew and I succeeded? I’d have a huge head and look funny. Forget about balance, especially if I had to wear a motorcycle helmet. It’d be hard to even find a motorcycle helmet that big. That would be tragic (about the big head, not about the motorcycle helmet).
I like our heads the size they are. If you do too and want your great great great great great great great great grand children to have good sized heads I suggest you cut back on your facebook friends.
P.S. I’m glad we’re on this end of the evolutionary scale. Nevermind the fact that I don’t believe in that whole evolution thing.
Posted by Ryan
November 4, 2008
For today’s post I could post about how I’m really sad that I didn’t get an absentee ballot in time to vote. Or I could talk about something completely different, like donuts.
Sunday evening I attended the latest CES Fireside (a LDS church education system meeting primarily for young single adults). It was a spectacular meeting. I attended at an LDS Institute of Religion building somewhere in Manhattan. I think that’s where it was anyway. I’m still learning where everything is. For all I know it was New Jersey (it wasn’t).
The meeting is broadcast to church and institute buildings all over the world via satellite. After the meeting was over, there were refreshments to be had, as dictated by tradition. The refreshments consisted of apple cider and glazed donuts from dunkin’ donuts.
For those who don’t know, I talk about donuts quite a bit. I don’t know if I’ve posted about them on here much, but I talk about them in person a good deal. Actually, that’s not really true. I doubt I talk about donuts more than 10% of the year. I do, however, talk about them enough that there are people who associate me with donuts. And I’m not even shaped like a donut (which would be awkward considering I’d have no legs, head, or arms).
I’m pretty sure the people who associate me with donuts think I eat donuts every single day. But I don’t. In fact, I can’t remember the last time (before yesterday and the day before) that I ate one. Wait, that’s not true. I had one last Saturday. Wow so apparently I eat them more often than I thought.
No really, I don’t eat them that often. Before the last few weeks I probably hadn’t eaten a donut in at least a month or two. Maybe more.
I’m not really sure where this is going. Oh yeah! The institute bought too many donuts so they gave me a box to take home. On Sunday and Monday combined I probably ate a good 12 donuts. I felt gross.
I still feel kinda gross, actually. I need to put something healthy into my body.
Bacon sounds good.
Posted by Ryan
November 5, 2008
There was a lot on my mind last night as I walked home from work. Or more accurately, there was a lot on my mind as I walked from work to the subway, rode the subway, and then walked from the subway to my friend’s apartment in Queens where I sleep on a couch that folds out into a bed. The point is, there was a lot on my mind last night.
The streets are crowded in the morning, afternoon, and evening. They are at night as well. Especially if you go to Time Square. Especially if you were at Times Square last night with the whole election thing going on. Normally, though, the streets are generally less crowded at night than during the day, just like every other place I’ve been.
I have noticed that whenever I drive on a crowded freeway I tend to drive faster. At night, when the freeways are far less crowded, I slow down. I’ve caught myself driving under the speed limit on more than one occasion at night. I walk slower at night than I do during the day.
It’s not my intention to delve into the fundamental attribution error yet again, but I can’t help realizing that the way I act on the streets and the way I drive is not so much about what kind of person or driver I am as it is my environment that in large part determines what kind of person and driver I am and and what other people think I am. It also effects how I feel about myself and about my driving. Time constraints also play a huge part (eg. during the day you’re more likely to be in a hurry). Something to think about.
My friend’s apartment is located in Queens. It’s not really his apartment as he’s renting from someone else, but I digress. The apartment is on the 3rd floor of a building with more than 3 floors. I do realize how incredibly not useful that is in helping you create an image of the building in your mind. I think it has 4 floors. The apartment is very small and the floor is dirty (at no fault of my friend).
Queens is what’s called a borough of New York City. The other boroughs are Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Staten Island. Queens is basically east of Manhattan, and as I understand it, one of the best places to get good, cheap food (cheap for here).
Last night on the way home we stopped at a 24-hour grocery store. 24-hour grocery stores are nothing special or out of the ordinary. In fact, there’s nothing at all special or out of the ordinary about this place at all. It wasn’t even that late when we stopped there. We did stop there, though, and I bought some chips, grape nuts, raspberries, and milk. I know, very exciting.
Upon arriving at the apartment the number of items on my mind decreased, but only because one of the items decided to take up all my thoughts. As it was election day that item was, naturally, chips.
Seriously. It’d been a while since I’d had a good bag of chips to munch on. There are few things I like more than opening a bag of chips and eating it all in one sitting. Especially if cheese is involved. Or salsa. Both is even better. I didn’t eat the whole bag, for the record.
Since I didn’t have cheese or salsa I bought a bag of lime-flavored tortilla chips to compensate for the lack of pizazz that the cheese and salsa usually bring to an otherwise boring bag of chips. Believe me when I say that the pizazz was not missing with the lime chips. If you’re on a small budget and want some pizazz in a bag, go for lime-flavored chips. If you’re in the UK I highly suggest the lime-flavoured variety (chips meaning chips, not chips as in “french fries.” the brits are just confused).
As the events of the evening unfolded before my bag of chips and I (along with my friend and his roommate), it became increasingly clear to me that I should have purchased two bags of chips. And maybe some ice cream.
Posted by Ryan
November 6, 2008
I’m going dancing tonight. I’m actually posting this from my phone while on my way since I won’t be home until 1 or 2 AM. So this will be very short.
Really short.
I could make it shorter by deleting this sentence. But I’m not going to do that.
Posted by Ryan
November 7, 2008
I started writing the title of this post with a specific thought in mind (apartment hunting), but that changed as soon as I had it typed. The imagery in my mind went from a big city and lots of buildings to an apartment complex being chased down by a hunter with a gun. You know, hunting. Hunting for apartments. Like deer hunting, only different.
I don’t own a gun and I’ve never been hunting. Unless, of course, you count the years of my early adolescence when my days consisted of going down to the local river and trying to trap birds with homemade cages and other contraptions (rocks on tree branches that were supposed to fall on unwitting fowl who stepped on some string). We also made some sweet bows and arrows that didn’t work very well (but they were still sweet). We even tried throwing rocks. I hit my friend in the head once (on accident). Our hunting/trapping attempts always failed, but we did manage to catch a lot of fish. I’m good at catching fish. We even made a fish trap, placed it in a deep fishing hole, and came back the next day to quite the catch of 3 or 4 fish. It was awesome. I think there were a few sucker fishes and a rainbow trout.
So I took the day off today to find a place to live. In the process, I discovered that the nearest Wells Fargo bank is in Illinois. I was told, though, that that will change in January when Wells Fargo’s acquisition of Wachovia is finalized. Or something like that. I fly back to Salt Lake City tomorrow (the 8th) so not being able to deposit checks isn’t a huge deal. By the time I get back to NY direct deposit will be setup and I won’t have to worry about depositing checks. Good timing.
Anyway, apartment hunting. I did a lot of looking on craigslist. While I don’t have time to go look at much, I am going to look at a place tonight. If it’s not trashy then it’ll work out well as it’s a month-to-month lease and quite cheap. That way, I could live there for a few months while I find a better / more convenient place to live.
I could go on, but I must end this here so I can go make a sweet bow and arrow for my apartment hunting expedition this evening. Wish me luck… or happiness. I like happiness.
Posted by Ryan
November 8, 2008
Flying Home by Lionel Hampton is one of those classic jazz songs that, when played at a dance, you just can’t help yourself—you have to get up and dance. It’s quite fantastic.
As you may have guessed, astute reader, I am back home in Eagle Mountain, Utah. I’m exhausted. The flight itself was about 4.5 hours. It felt like it was a lot longer, though I did talk to the guy next to me quite a bit. He was cool. I mostly listened to an audio book though. The book was called The Opal Deception, which is a part of the Artemis Fowl series. Fun books. I’m far too lazy/tired to make links out of those at the moment so if you’re at all interested you’ll have to actually do the searching yourself. I know that’s asking a lot of you, but really I didn’t ask anything of you so it’s actually not asking anything of you at all. Uh… ok I’m moving on.
I flew Delta, non-stop from JFK to SLC (non-stop is the only way to go!). The airplane was a bigger, newer airplane of some kind. It had a 7 in the number. 700? 770? 777? Something like that. There was a monitor in the back of each seat on which you could watch movies, live TV via satellite, play games against other passengers, and see a live map of where above planet earth the plane was currently along with other information. On the flight to New York I browsed the TV channels and played trivia for a while. This time, I just sat there, listening to my book, intermittently talking to the guy next to me.
It’s good to be back in Utah again. I’m not entirely certain how long I’ll be here before moving to New York for good, but I’m guessing it’ll be at least a few weeks. I’ll figure that out later. Right now, all I can think about is sleeping in my own bed tonight! I’m pretty much super stoked about it.
Edited to add: I think I edited this 6 times after posting it to get the date right. I’m writing this just before midnight on Nov. 8. First the time settings were wrong in wordpress so it was showing up with a Nov. 9th date. So I changed the settings, then then changed the post to the 7th, then edited some other post and changed its date, then tried changing this one again and failed, and then failed again, and now finally have it right. I really need sleep.
Posted by Ryan
November 9, 2008
There’s something thrilling about skyscrapers. For some it may be the view from the top. For others, they represent the apex of human civilization—power, money, human ingenuity, thousands upon thousands of tiny cubicles.
For me, it’s the diversity of life. Not only of the sentient occupants, but of the plant life as well. I love the challenge it takes to rise to the top. The weather is all sorts of different as well. A few months ago I hiked one with a friend, Kevin. It was a hot day in the valley, but cold and windy on top. The snow never fully melts up there. We scaled hundreds of feet of hard, slippery snow, in places at least 20 feet deep.
While some like the dazzle of the city variety of skyscrapers, I prefer the natural type. Mountains are my skyscrapers.
Posted by Ryan
November 10, 2008
Here’s an example of the diversity of life I mentioned yesterday:
And another, though I’m not too sure of the intelligence of this one. Yes, that’s SNOW on the right. The water was very, very cold.
Of course, I did pay him a dollar to do it. It’s all about the dollar challenge. Would he have done it for $10? Probably not. $1? Heck yes.
Posted by Ryan
November 11, 2008
1.5 years ago I came across an article in the Washington Post describing, in great detail, a musical experiment. The article is called Pearls Before Breakfast, the experiment was to see if one of the greatest musician’s could distract people from their rush to work in a D.C. Metro station.
The musician behind the experiment was Joshua Bell, an utterly amazing violinist. I read the article (it’s long) in amazement. I wondered what I would have done in the same situation: you’re in a hurry to get to work and hear some amazing music. Do you stop and listen or plow on?
I’ve often wondered “what would I do?” or “what would I have done?”, not only with simple things like this, but with bigger things. What would I have done during the American Revolution? What would I have done if I’d lived in Jerusalem 2000 years ago? What would I have done if I had been the one to discover how to make donuts?
I took this photo on Nov. 1st, underground in the New York City subway. It was late Saturday night, I wasn’t in a hurry, and it wasn’t very crowded. Still, I almost walked right on past. I caught myself and thought about the Washington Post experiment. I stopped and listened for a few minutes. She was good—not as good as Joshua Bell, but good. I’m glad I stopped to listen.
I had a lot of opportunities to stop and listen in New York. Sometimes I stopped, sometimes not. When I didn’t I was either in a hurry or the musician wasn’t that great. I wanted to stop whenever the musician was good, and tried to listen as long as possible even if I didn’t feel like I could stop.
While questions like “what would I have done?” are important, they’re much less important than the here and now. I believe that one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is “what will I do?” I’ll never know how I would have acted had I been in that D.C. Metro station that day, but I can decide what to do in similar situations. The key is remembering what we’ve decided when the moment arrives.
Posted by Ryan
November 12, 2008
While back East I saw this at someone’s house and had to take a picture.
Why would someone want such a big remote control?
I figured poor eyesight was probably the reason.
I was so wrong.
I realized just how wrong I was when I saw this:
Question answered, problem solved.
Posted by Ryan
November 13, 2008
Ah, high school! Those were the days! Oh wait, I didn’t go to high school. Whatever. They were still the days. Whatever “the days” really means.
And they really weren’t “the days,” anyway. Who says that about adolescent years? A lot of people, actually.
They were “the days,” if that’s meant to imply that the days were awkward and weird. Because that’s what they were. But only in retrospect.
I’ve seen a lot of photos of my two older sister’s high school days. Whenever I see one I think “wow, I’m glad I wasn’t that awkward.” But then I realize I was. Probably more so, since I was the home schooled kid. Perception plays a big part of awkwardness and telling someone you are ‘home schooled’ makes that perception, whatever this perception is, bigger. The words ‘home schooled’ generally evokes images of anti-social, geeky people learning how to bake bread.
Not that there’s anything wrong with learning how to bake bread. I would have loved doing that. Baking bread smells amazing.
It’s usually delicious, too. Especially with homemade raspberry jam (that you learned how to make while in home school!).
Anyway, eventually you look back on your life and realize everyone was awkward, everyone was geeky. 10 years from now we’ll look back and think we were all sorts of awkward. This means two things: we’re all hopelessly awkward, or we’re not at all. I vote not at all because that means we can all just move on and not worry about what we look like.
So, I’m the guy in the back left of the photo. I don’t remember my date’s name. I remember having a hard time with her name that day, too. It’s weird. I can’t remember her name, yet I see people I saw once 15 years ago I know who they are and what they do. Okay, maybe not to that extreme, but still. My name-remembering ability seems to be mere random coincidence. So if I call you George when your name is, in fact, Sally; I’m sorry. I apologize now.
P.S. I loved my home school experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything. Except, maybe, for large amounts of freshly-baked bread with homemade raspberry jam.
Posted by Ryan
November 14, 2008
In yesterday’s post I told everyone I don’t know how to bake bread. While I think it’s possibly true that I’ve never baked bread, it’s not like I couldn’t do it if I tried.
Similarly, I might be able to blow up the universe if I tried.
On second thought, that’s not very similar at all.
What I’m really trying to say is that I went to a friend’s house (Tim) this morning and we made really good french toast. Seriously. You should be jealous.
Sure, French Toast is easy and what we made was easy. The point is, though, that I cooked.
Actually, I’m pretty sure there is no point to this post.
Carry on.
Posted by Ryan
November 15, 2008
My schedule this whole week has essentially been this: wake up between 7-9, work until 3 AM (with a few breaks here and there), sleep; repeat. It wasn’t like that every day. Friday wasn’t.
Today (Saturday) was going to be a little different. I was planning on waking up early and working until the evening and then going out on the town, or something. Instead, I slept 6.5 hours longer than planned.
So I guess I’m all caught up on the lack of sleep I’ve been enjoying, but now my day is shot. Wheeeeeeee!
Posted by Ryan
November 16, 2008
In this post we’re all going to learn to use our imaginations, because imagining is fun. Ready?
This morning was beautiful. It was really clear and the mountains had a lot of snow on the peaks.
I didn’t take a picture. So, you’re just going to have to imagine what it was like.
The end.
Posted by Ryan
November 17, 2008
I was writing a post, but something came up so I’m posting this until I can post what I was writing.
* Reason for this was because I’m posting for NaBloPoMo and have to post every day!
Posted by Ryan
November 18, 2008
Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.
– Douglas Adams
The vastness of space has fascinated me for a long time. And by a long time I mean at least 3 weeks.
Okay 3 weeks is a gross underestimate. I’ve been fascinated by space for a really long time. I bought this telescope 8 years ago? 9 years? 10? I don’t really remember. I bet I could find out, but I’m not going to today.
So we know that the universe is vast. Hugely vast. Bigly big. Thinking about how big it is makes my cares feel so small and insignificant. But, they are significant. Even if we care about something we shouldn’t care about, the very act of caring about it makes it important.
Caring about something simply means means that action needs to be taken. If that action is to stop caring about it because it shouldn’t be significant, then it’s probably a pretty big deal. Little things add up. If our lives are full of the mundane and what we deem unimportant, that’s significant.
If you recall from my post on Saturday, I woke up really late. I worked until about 10:30 PM. I was bored. Tired of being indoors. Still not happy about having slept in. I wanted to get out of the house. I went for a drive.
I didn’t have any specific destination in mind. I just started driving. I ended up in American Fork, UT (about 15 miles away). I stopped at a McDonald’s and bought an M&M McFlurry. Yes, very unhealthy. I made it even less healthy by requesting Oreos be added. Yeah, I know. It was a total sugar overload and so not worth it.
After ordering, and just before driving up to the window to pay, I noticed something interesting on that little screen where they show you your order. It was photo of this guy:
Not really though. What I saw was this: “Extra Salad Dressing 0.25″
25 cents for Oreos? Ok, sure. That’s fine. I thought it was funny they charged it as Salad Dressing. I wonder if anyone in McDonald’s upper management ever looks at trends. “Why are so many people buying salad dressing with McFlurrys? Should we market this?”
When contemplating the vastness of the universe, and then 25 cents for extra salad dressing (I choose Ranch) on a McFlurry at a McDonald’s in American Fork, Utah (located on a tiny little rock floating in space), it feels markedly ridiculous to think for a moment that those 25 cents matter. And yet they do.
This realization is mind boggling. How is it that the sheer mass of the universe (and perhaps multiple universes) is not more important than the needs of one individual, or even 25 cents?
The vastness of the universe does not supersede my individual cares, nor yours. And, of course, vice versa. Or, are the ‘cares’ of the universe as a whole made up of the sum of its parts?
Is it possible for the collective needs of a society to supersede the rights of any individual?
Posted by Ryan
November 18, 2008
“Outlier” is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book I’m interested in people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.
– What is Outliers about?
I’ve been waiting for this book, Outliers, to come out for, well, as long as I’ve known about it. I don’t know how long that is, but it’s felt like a long time.
It finally came out today.
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
- On Audible
- On Amazon
I bought it in both audio and paperback. If you like audiobooks at all I highly recommend the audio versions. He reads them himself and does a fantastic job.
Posted by Ryan
November 19, 2008
It’s really easy to start things. New goals, projects, 12 course meals.
The last piece of pie after a 12 course meal is tough.
Not that I’ve ever tried.
I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to trying, though.
Anyone know of any good restaurants I should check out?
Posted by Ryan
November 20, 2008
About an hour ago I said the following in response to a question: “very rarely.”
Rare is already pretty rare, as the word itself implies. So to be very rare it’s gotta be, well, very rare.
While I don’t know for certain, I think ‘very rare’ is overused. In fact, the cases where it’d be appropriate are rare.
Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
– C. S. Lewis
I am far beyond guilty of this.
See? I just did it again. It’s a disease!
Does this really matter? I think so. It extends beyond words, reaching into our lives and sucking out everything good. Maybe.
Posted by Ryan
November 21, 2008
Things on my mind right now:
- Why have I only eaten once today?
- Why am I still home when I could be out having fun?
- I don’t really want to go dancing tonight.
- I am going to go dancing anyway.
- Going on a road trip to Seattle sounds fun.
- Or maybe New Mexico. I’ve never been there.
- Is there anything to do in New Mexico?
- Which of my 4 or 5 book ideas do I start first?
- People are weird.
- I like weirdness.
- I have an awful lot of stuff to pack.
- I’ve gotta get some boxes.
- I wonder if anyone’s online on facebook. It is a Friday night…
- Wow, at least 5 other people have no lives. 22 others are marked as inactive.
- For how many friends I have, I do remarkably little with any of them.
- Does that make me anti-social?
- Probably.
- Dang it!
- Actually, I disagree with myself. I’m not anti-social.
- I’m selectively-social.
- The selection process is pretty straightforward.
- Is ___ weird? If yes, hang out.
- That’s really not true.
- Like I’d give away my who-do-I-hang-out-with-tonight formula.
- Hint: it involves a rubik’s cube and lots of cheese.
- Have I ever made cheese?
- Making ice cream is awesome.
- I don’t usually eat because I’m hungry, even when I’m hungry.
- I eat because it satisfies some other need.
- For example, I’ve never been sky diving. So I eat instead.
- I do understand, though, that eating keeps you from all sorts of unpleasant things, such as starvation, so I do also eat for that reason, too.
- I think I use commas too much. Perhaps I should throw in some em dashes here and there for good measure.
- Semicolons are nifty;
- however, I don’t always know when to use them.
- The problem with a brain dump is that your brain has a tendency to keep thinking once it’s started.
- I think I’ll go eat.
- I’m not really hungry, but I should be. I’ve only eaten once today. And I didn’t even eat that much.
- If the universe had no meaning, would we ever have discovered such a thing?
- C.S. Lews is awesome.
- I don’t like unpacking.
The funny thing about all these thoughts is that they’re all somehow related. It’s not always easy to draw relationships between them all, but I think they’re there. If nothing else, they’re related by being in my head—they’re a part of me.
Posted by Ryan
November 22, 2008
Sleep in. Check.
Get on the computer. Check.
Make weird noises for no apparent reason. Check.
I’ve recently decided that I have a soundtrack going on in my head at all times. Sometimes, it comes out. Say, for example, that I’m walking down the street on a crowded sidewalk at night. The likelihood of a crowded sidewalk in Eagle Mountain, Utah is about as probable as a seeing a nuclear submarine surface in my living room; however, it’s just an example, okay? So I say I’m walking down a crowded sidewalk at night. If someone tripped and fell and I had to either jump over them or kick them in the face, I would probably kick them in face. No, not really. What I would do is yell out “do doo doo!” and jump. The “do doo doo!” is the soundtrack in my head. It would decide “whoa! something exciting is happening, this music must be made known to the world!” and I’d have no choice—the music would escape.
Write a blog post. Check.
Do laundry.
Eat.
Get oil changed in my truck.
Decide what I’m going to do with my truck when I move.
Get in a really scary situation involving large amounts of cheesecake so the soundtrack in my head can tell the world how scared I am (dun dun dun!).
Posted by Ryan
November 23, 2008
But not really long.
I like driving, especially at night. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth mentioning again right now because I just got back from a drive.
I drove for perhaps 30 minutes south along the west side of Utah Lake, which isn’t a particularly impressive lake. Well, it looks impressive. It’s huge. It’s not, however, a very fun lake to be in or around as the water quality isn’t what I’d call superb. The average depth is 9 feet with a maximum of 14 feet.
While it’s not a great recreational lake, it is nice to look at, and I’ve recently decided that it’s good for night drives.
It was incredibly quiet. Lots of stars were visible. Across the lake I could see Provo, Utah, among other cities (for some reason I can never pick out the border lines in real life like I can on a map).
I stopped and just sat there for a while, taking it all in. And then I came back, ready for bed.
I move to New York City this week. Thanks to Justin, I actually have a place to live now! I am excited to get back to the city for a number of reasons: the city is exciting, working with my coworkers in person, NY pizza, more food, and just doing something different. I will, of course, miss a few things here, one of which is being able to go driving at night whenever I please. So I hope to go a few more times this week.
Posted by Ryan
November 24, 2008
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
– Leonardo da Vinci
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
– Charles Mingus
The lesson of Henry Eyring’s life is that simple people, people just like you and me, can change the world. We do it a little bit every day. And we have the potential to change the world much more, if we can better understand and use our unique gifts.
– Mormon Scientist: The Life and Faith of Henry Eyring
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
– Albert Einstein
To hear is relatively simple. To heed and apply what is heard becomes life’s perpetual challenge.
– Charles Didier
I could make this post longer, but there’s no point in complicating things.
Posted by Ryan
November 25, 2008
Today, while working, I came across this little piece of text: “asdfasdf nelkjlkj meh aaa af”
As anyone in their right mind might do, I tried pronouncing that. Yes, out loud. I was on a conference call so I muttered it under my breath. I caught myself on the “meh aaa af” and, had I not been on the phone, would have laughed out loud. As it was, I still laughed out loud, but it was more of a silent laugh. Like this: “hahahahaha” without the “hahahahaha” so really it was “ ” but my face looked like it was saying “hahahahaha.”
Does that make any sense at all? I hope so.
Anyway, I’m not sure why I thought the gibberish needed to be read, but I suspect it’s not the first time I’ve tried doing this.
Maybe someday I’ll discover some secret code that will save humanity from all sorts of evil, like mutant pickles. Or, I’ll just get a good laugh out of it. I’m cool with both options.
Posted by Ryan
November 26, 2008
This evening I went to a friend’s house and, among other things (like eating pizza), played Tecmo Super Bowl. This classic Nintendo game from 1991 was a huge part of my childhood. We used to go over to another friend’s house and play for hours and hours. Good times.
The game brought back a lot of fun memories. The graphics and sound were just as amazing as we remembered. Also, I was probably about as bad as I used to be. Okay, I was probably better than I was today. I won 1 game out of… 6? 7? I sure hope I was better than that all those years ago…
Posted by Ryan
November 27, 2008
Isn’t today great? I sure think so.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
– Cicero, ‘Pro Plancio,’ 54 B.C.
I can’t think of a better excuse for a holiday than a day set apart for gratitude.
So, if gratitude is the parent of all other virtues, what about, say, the testing point of every virtue? Oh, whaddya know, I have a quote for that too.
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
– C.S. Lewis
To be virtuous we need to be grateful and courageous.
Sometimes, it takes courage to be grateful.
So now we’ve got the greatest of all virtues, which is also the parent of all the others, but to be grateful in tough situations gratitude becomes courage, so is courage the grandparent of all other virtues? Only in some situations? I think I’m confused.
Happy Thanksgiving! And for those outside the United States, I hope you have a great day. Thanks for reading.
Posted by Ryan
November 28, 2008
Today, I packed.
I hate packing.
I dislike unpacking even more.
I like non-stop flights.
I like books.
Cereal, too.
Goodbye, Utah. For now, anyway. I’ll be back for Christmas.
Posted by Ryan
November 29, 2008
I’m back in New York.
Went to IKEA today for the first time, ever.
IKEA is in Brooklyn.
I’m at the train station.
I can see the statue of liberty off in the distance.
It’s cool.
Posted by Ryan
November 30, 2008
You might think, upon reading the title of this post, that rain and water always go together. Well, I’m here to tell you that, as matter of fact, they usually do. I’ve never experienced acid rain*, or any other type of non-watery rain. All I know is that it rained today, and there was water involved.
* I suspect acid rain isn’t really acid in the way that I usually think of acid. What first comes to my mind when I think of acid? Stomach acid. Why? Because it happens to be inside of me. Not that I always think of myself and my stomach first. Really. The first thing on my mind when I wake up is usually myself; how tired I am, etc. Just the other day, though, I thought of my computer instead**.
The second thing that comes to mind when I think of acid is a car battery. Those are the only two things I thought of before reading the wikipedia article about acid rain. So now I’m thinking of other things, like brook trout and a girl named Brooke I knew in elementary school (no, she doesn’t have a wikipedia page***, but the page about brook trout had a link to a Brooke Trout, who apparently sings or something and the word ‘Brooke’ made me think of the Brooke I knew a long time ago). Why? Because that’s how wikipedia works. You read one thing, but then you click on a link and the next thing you know you’re learning about popular sovereignty.
In case you were curious, it took 41 clicks to get to popular sovereignty from acid rain.
So, I like rain. Unless it’s acid rain, but since I’ve never experienced any such thing, I think it’s safe to say “I like rain” without any further qualifying statements, except when deemed necessary by any extraneous circumstances which may or may not matter.
** Please don’t take anything I said in this post seriously.
*** I didn’t actually check.
