How Watered Down is Your DNA by Corporate America?

Warning! Long article ahead!

Today in social entrepreneurship we had a rousing lecture by our professor, Ron Lindorf, who is a highly successful entrepreneur. What follows is what he said to us, usually in his words.

Ron, at age 12, experienced his older brother's death, forcing him to confront the reality of mortality at a young age. This, he says, provided the ability to "not care what other people think. There's no bets on death." While in Jr. High, he started a successful window-washing business, employing two brothers from his school at $2 an hour while making $55 from each job. While pursuing his graduate degree in communications at BYU he bought Volkswagen cars for cheap, drove or trucked them down to California, and sold them there for more than a 700% markup. Needless to say his class attendance was not the best. In fact, in 6th grade his report card gave him full marks (a 1) for achievement but the lowest marks (a 3) for effort. He says, "I did exactly the amount of effort needed to get those 1s." Speaking of his entrepreneurial spirit, he said, "I'm not like those other guys. There are those entrepreneurs who are just smart. Captain of the track team, head boy in a group . . . they're the annoying ones. I'm a reluctant entrepreneur. Nobody would hire me and so I just thought, how can I generate some revenue?"

We don't make our own decisions often enough, Ron says. Growing up in the church, our decision making skill is sometimes crippled. We are a product of the thousands of small decisions we make during our lifetime, and there are plenty of bad decisions to make even in the framework of how our lives are planned out. "Is it better to marry the right person at the right time outside of the temple or to marry the wrong person at the wrong time inside of it?" Ethical decisions are some of the decisions that we don't see as often. Those that have made some bad decisions have learned early on how to make good decisions. We need to make more of our own decisions.

An important factor is an internal locus of control. This is what Ron developed in his high school years after his brother died. This is a critical component of a successful entrepreneur. Changing the world, not letting the world change you. Figuring out that "you don't have to let other people muck around with what you decide."

Ron gave the example of the L.A. Riots. During the riots, not a single 1st generation Korean immigrant with the entrepreneurial spirit had their business burned down. Why? Because the same spirit that pushed them to come to America and start their own business (usually a liquor store), to find a location, and to push for a better life for them and their children pushed them to climb on top of their roofs with AK-47s and illegal semi-automatics and pistols and shoot at the feet of anyone who looked like they were coming to cause trouble. They had that spirit that enables them to risk it all, and then to stand on the roof and defend it when their whole life's work, 10-15 years, is threatened. Not one of their businesses were touched.

"Some time long ago," Ron said, "we all had to decide. We were pitched two different ideas. One said, 'Look, it won't be hard. I mean, you can have security, you can go home at 5 and get a pay check every two weeks, there won't be any risk.' The other one said, 'Hey, it'll be hard. There'll be times when you fail, when you make mistakes, when you risk it all. There will be rough patches. You will have to work from nine to midnight every night after your wife goes to bed. But in the end it will be fair." Every measly human on this planet chose plan B. This is how Ron sees the world. So why can we go work at the post office and show up every morning and salute and go to work and then get off at five and do that for 40 years with nothing changing? We can get up and go to work among the devil's followers for 40 years and do nothing. But can we not come up with ideas about how to make it better? Can we stay an extra hour once in a while to get some things done? A person who does this, he says, will make it to leadership positions. Moving up within the system. Even that is following Christ. Sometimes it seems like forever that things don't happen and all the extra work does nothing. But somehow it will pay off.

Instant gratification. America doesn't know how to put it off. This part kind of led into a discussion about inflation and about how it's a silent tax on the people of the lowest income level and the middle class. So what do policy makers do? They can't tax the people who elect them or they're booted out. The upper level doesn't have enough wealth to keep up with a $10 trillion national debt. So what do we do? We let people overseas buy our bonds. Of course, as Ron says, "it's somewhat patriotic to hose the Chinese when they buy up our debt and then our dollar inflates." He also brought up the fact that as American car makers fire people over here and then outsource to other countries it actually creates a middle class in China and India. Bucketloads of people who would normally earn $1 a day are now earning $3-9 a day. Our world is going on sort of it's own wealth redistribution system.

All the people who originally came from England to this country were the ones who took the risk. They said goodbye to people who they'd never see again for some fantastic story they had heard, sold what they had and acquired a little capital, and risked everything. Every single person in the country has that in their DNA. Maybe it was from a couple generations ago.

So how watered down is your DNA by Corporate America? The fire of creating an income generating activity as a business has gone out of 90% of the people, statistically speaking. Of course, Ron recognizes that not everybody can be an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, this is how he sees the world to explain what he does to himself. The whole purpose of Corporate America, he says, is to preserve the status quo. "'I don't think we can do that.' ' Even if it increases your revenue by $4 million in a $10 million company?' 'Well....'
"It's because they like security! Go home at five and have security."

Entrepreneurs are weird. Talking to many people, Ron has found that entrepreneurs all have some sort of story. Or that all entrepreneurs have some sort of story. They all had to discover, or decide, rather, what he and Gibson (the other instructor of the class) discovered. They don't let what people think affect them. At all.

So are we going to work among the devil's followers our whole lives and lay down and die when the riots start? Or are we they type of person that crawls up on the roof with our AK-47 after risking everything to come to America and start a business? Internal locus of control! Don't let what other people think affect you! Trust more in the Atonement! We're supposed to make mistakes. Honest mistakes. Learn wisdom in thy youth. How? We have to learn through experience. Ron advises to work for somebody else for five years to make mistakes on somebody else's time and money. But don't just sit around!

Anyway, needless to say, an hour and a half of listening to this brilliant, accomplished, spiritual, driving, caring man was something.

Cats TREMBLE before me!

Oftentimes when I start thinking about writing in this blog I start thinking about blogs in general.  Then I say, "I wonder what so-and-so is up to," or, "Boy, did what's-his-or-her-name finally get that duck problem resolved?"  Eventually I'm so tired of reading blogs and not getting anything real done I abandon my task and go eat some food.  And then my sister calls.

So, eventually, I get to this point, where I haven't written anything for weeks.

First, a quick update:

• School is going well (I just finished the "testing out" equivalent of my computer science class, so I never have to go again or take the final)
• I've had a few dates in the past couple of days that were fun, including seeing Thoroughly Modern Millie and going ice skating
• We've had a few great talks in the last couple of weeks, from Pres. Monson to Elder Holland to Merrill J. Bateman
• We have cleaning checks today, so for the rest of today the clamorous sounds of scrubbing and the low rumble of the vacuum will fill our apartment.  Unless the synthesized music of Mario Kart Wii  does, as it does right now

Other then that, I can't think of much else to say.  It's rainy and 

cold, and the snow is that muddy black color that comes after weeks without a new snowfall.  I'm still barely getting over my sickness and cough that have plagued me since before Christmas.

So now, here's the picture that sparked the title (anybody who's ever had a cat in their house, or worse, arms while cleaning will understand):

The Here and Now

OK, so it's time for a real update.

Preference was great, both nights.  The first night we took Panda Express food up into the canyon and ate it around a campfire, and then roasted starbursts.  After that we went to the dance, which was either ice skating or an actual dance. We skated until about 15 minutes left, and then danced.  It was quite fun - I love ice skating and haven't been for a long time!  I need to learn to stop though...

On Saturday we made homemade pizzas and then went to a fun dance at the Wilkinson Student Center.  After that it was ice cream!  It was very fun as well.  We danced and had a grand old time.

Rori and I holding our hanger to roast starbursts on on Friday night (7 Nov 2008)

Amanda and I after our date on Saturday (8 Nov 2008)

So preference was quite fun.

I just bought Jesus the Christ, by James E. Talmage, at the bookstore.  So far it's a really, really great book.  I'm only done with the first two chapters though, but I'm plugging away on it.

That reminds me: for mission prep this last little bit we had to talk to 10 complete strangers about the gospel.  It was difficult.  Talking to strangers is uncomfortable sometimes, but it's good practice.

School is going well; chemistry is difficult but getting easier, biology is surprisingly easier than I thought it would be, missionary prep is great, English is my lowest grade but one of my favorite classes, and next semester should be fun.  Signing up for classes is stressing and confusing.  I want to take general ed classes, but I want some fun classes as well.  I want to take more advanced classes in my major but I'm not sure if they will transfer with me if I decide to switch schools.  A fine balance must be struck between fun and hard, general and specific; a academic quadruple point, if you will (closely related to chemistry's triple point).

The weather is very nice.  Today is the perfect temperature - bordering on jackets.  Sunny and bright, the clouds hover high overhead, wispy threads of cotton.

If I think of anything else, I'll throw it up here.

Latest Update

Right now I am a bit frustrated.

Today, the 11th, is my priority registration date for BYU.  I stayed up until midnight to register for classes, but every other BYU sophomore did as well, it seems.  The website is running extremely slow.  Five minutes after every click I get a response.  Not only that, but it's hard enough deciding on classes as it is.

I'll post in a bit about preference and classes and such, but right now I'm concentrating on registration and sleep.

Quick note, though - today I was excited to get my very first perfect score on a test in college!  Biology midterm exam!

What now?

Well, all's quite on the Western front!  Bio's relatively easy, chem's relatively hard, mission prep is relatively nice, life science seminar's relatively boring, and life's relatively great!

More later, for sure.  Just wanted everyone to know I'm still thinking about this blog!

Jerry and I have a great time

For English we have to write a post on a topic and then ask a question and then respond to somebody else's question. This is the question that I asked:

Here's a question! Do you have any theories you came up with on your own? Maybe a theory that nobody else believes?

This is Jerry's response (a combined effort between him and I):

I came up with a theory just reading this question, and you can't say that it's not true. "The universe revolves around Jerry Robertson." -Jerry Robertson-

Since the universe revolves around myself, and the fact that I defy the laws of the universe, you should all submit to my bidding.

Minesweeper in English!!!!!!!

College

Well, perhaps it's time for a review of the many intriguing, exciting, and sometimes boring events that happen at New Student Orientation (NSO).

I moved up to BYU on Wednesday, after spending the night at my uncle's house in Provo.  My family accompanied me to check in and helped me move my copious boxes up to the room.  After they left, my roommate and I were the only ones at our apartment, as our other four roommates would not completely show up until Friday the 29th, when our last roommate finally moved in.  Our roommates seem pretty cool and I hope we have a great time living under the same roof.

NSO has been fun so far.  We were put into Y groups and go everywhere as a group.  We get lots of free food and do many fun and boring activities (each activity is not fun and boring, but most activities are fun and few are boring).  We have listened to lots of information about campus, been led by a very fun and very cool Y group leader (who is also our peer mentor for Freshman Academy), eaten lots of food, and listed to lots of live entertainment.  We have seen a very humorous presentation on the Honor Code and Jericho Road came and preformed live for us.

There are lots of people here.  Lots of people.  I like the feel of the campus.  The Honor Code and the people here are very strong in the spirit and the gospel.  We begin everything with a prayer, and embrace the whole "disciple-scholar" thing.  It is very cool.

And very expensive.  I spent $540 on books.  For my first semester.  Crazy, eh?  Although today I did get my scholarship rebate direct deposit - I logged into my bank account and thought I logged into somebody else's.  The number surprised me!  I like scholarships...  Now I can pay for the new MacBook Pro I bought last week.  It has shipped but now I'm waiting for it to arrive and will be very excited when it does!

There are lots of people here who are willing to help.  We have an awesome peer mentor, an awesome RA (resident's assistant), an awesome college advisement center, and more people.

Today I watched the BYU Women's Soccer game, and tomorrow I will watch the football game.  I found myself doing something I've never done before - cheering on the Cougars.  It paid off - we won the soccer game 4 - 1.  It was a good game.  I guess that while I'm at BYU, at least, I must become a cougar fan.  Ah well - I must find the courage to plunge into the world of the blue.

AP Grades

OK - Atlanta! (The Full Story)

OK, so I figured that since this graphic design thing is taking longer than I thought it would (especially because I need to get the pictures of our trip from the other participents, and that takes a while), and because if I wait too long the news will turn stale, and because others on the net are spreading the news, and because the newspapers will be running the results soon, it's best if I just get it over with in text first, and release the graphical version later.  (  <--- That's a huge sentence, by the way) But where to begin, when there is so much to tell? First of all, Atlanta is hot and very humid.  We rode the plane from Las Vegas to Houston, and then to Atlanta.  We stepped off the plane and were hit by a massive roiling wall of moist, heated air. The first thing I noticed is how my normally slippery shoes caught and squeeked on any sort of hard floor, and throughout the trip I did.  Trip, that is.  We stayed at the Hyatt Regency, next to the Marriott Marquis, and ate often at the Corner Bakery Cafe across the street.  The hotels were grand, with a huge contemporary atrium and a pillar right in the middle that housed the elevators.  There were causeways that traveled from the elevator to the outside edge of the square where the rooms were.  Pretty cool.

We rode the public transportation system everywhere.  MARTA, as it's called, stands for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, and it included both a subway train and a bus system.  We had cool RF ID cards, temporarily issued to us for a 4 day unlimited pass.  Using MARTA, we traveled to some of Atlanta's various attractions:

• The World of Coke, which detailed Coke's history, bottle making process, and exemplary taste.  Coke was invented and has its headquarters in Atlanta, which is why it was funny to see a company putting up a blow-up Pepsi bottle in a park near the World of Coke.  We got a picture with the Coke polar bear, and tasted nearly 70 different coke products from around the world, including good ol' favorites Sprite and Fanta, but also some exotic ones, like Beverly from Italy (don't try it), Sprite Ice, exotic Fanta flavors, and much more.  Of course, they give you a complementary bottle of Coke at the end, bottled on-site.
• The Georgia Aquarium, which was cool, but I've seen many aquariums before - just fishy!  They had a cool octopus, though.
• The CNN Center, with a behind-the-scenes tour.  We got to listen to the director order shots while they were producing the Clinton-Obama "come-together-and-let's-rule-the-world-by-changing-it-one-change-at-a-time-until-even-the-ducks-know-how-far-we've-come" speech.  The director was making fun of some of the people on the screen, unaware that we were listening.  "Look at that bozo in the middle!  Can you believe his hairdo?"  We then got to see the actual news room, which was pretty cool.  All in all it was a really fun place to visit.
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s grave and memorial museum place, which was awesome to visit.  We got to see his Nobel Peace Prize, his Presidential Medal of Freedom, and more.
• The Zoo Atlanta, where we saw huge elephants, a huge gorilla, naked mole rats, and pandas (and more).
• The Atlanta History Center, where we got to tour a huge mansion called the Swan House!

Alas, we never got to see stone mountain, an attraction we were told was well worth seeing.  And now, a funny story.  While waiting for a bus to the zoo, a wrinkled lady came up to us and beseeched us imploringly with a tale of woe.  She had a terminal illness, and was alone and friendless on the streets of Atlanta.  She was carrying a McDonald's cup full of water and capped by a plastic lid so taped up with Scoth-tap that she probably didn't even need any original lid left to hold the shape.  We wondered later where she got the tape - it seems that much tape would be much more difficult to come by than a new lid from any McDonalds.  Whenver she was agitated she would sqeeze the cup and water would leak out all over her person.  She seemed quite intelligent, though - she was on time to the bus stop, and was a good debater.  Mrs. Crane proved that with a half-hour argument with the lady on proper ways to seek aid.  Mrs. Crane articulated the true fact that we were approached on every single street corner by those wanting money.  She also suggested that there were proper avenues to pursue aid, and begging was not one of them.  The lady retorted with anecdotes of how one cannot know what anybody else is going through until they've walked five miles in their shoes.
Eventually both women got very frustrated, and the lady shouted, "Maam!  I don't want anything from you!  I just want to wish God bless you and leave!"
"OK, well God bless you!"  Mrs. Crane said, and then obviously pointed away from us, and turned away from the lady.  The lady stood there, almost in disbelief, and then stormed away.  That's not the end though;  the next day we were eating at the cafe across the street from our hotel when WE SAW THE LADY!  She was dressed nicely in tennis shoes and nice business attire, laughing with a friend and eating a delicious meal.  We all growled.  The lady looked over at us and recognized us, her eyes growing huge for a split second before she quickly turned away, gathered up her meal, and hurried out of there.

Almost done, keep going!

Now for the reason we went to Atlanta in the first place!  We gave our presentation on http://www.hhsfbla.org in the preliminaries, which we have done every year.  Later that night, tension mounted as we waited around the bulletin board that would soon hold the paper letting us know if we made it to the final round.  We did.  We were ecstatic.  We had made it to the final round last year, but not the first year.  This meant we had to give our presentation again to another set of judges.  We then heard nothing further until the closing award ceremonies.  The top 15 websites in the nation make it into the finals.  The top 10 make it up on stage.  The announcer announceds the top ten in random order at the ceremonies to call them up on stage.  When they called our names an electric shock ran through us.  I had been trying for three years now to make it up on that stage!

We took 10th place in the nation!

The first year was Bryan Poulsen and I.  The next was Chris LeBaron, Sarah Christiansen, and I.  This recent and last attempt was James Price, Trevor Adams, and I.  Each year a different team.  Each year was better than the last, culminating with the awesome feeling of being up on stage in front of 7,500 people accepting a national award that took so, so many hours and such hard work.  It is quite the feeling!

We seemed to have connected with the preliminary judges so much better than with the final judges.  I think that there is most definitely a weeding-out process occuring to reach the top fifteen and top ten, but I think that at this level of competition, in such a subjective process, the top websites are roughly on the same level, depending upon the whims of the judges to let them fall into place.  I think that if we had the preliminary judges for the finals, we would definitely have placed better, but I am so happy with a 10th place!  I mean, every state had their own competition to see who would compete at nationals.  The best from each state competed at nationals.

Pictures coming later, as our external hard drive just died.

Graduation Pictures

The moment you've all been waiting for!

OK, maybe not.

Here's a slideshow of the images - for full-sized pictures and captions, visit my web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/mathgraph/Graduation2008

If you've got any pictures, I have started a group on flickr called hhs2008. Anybody can join, so join and upload your pictures! I'll upload mine and we can start it off. Please!

Recap on Graduation

This is just a text-only recap. Pictures will be dealt with in an upcoming post.

My family left at noon for St. George. We met my mother's parents at the Temple Visitor's Center. My father's parents were already here and traveled with us. We went through the statue display that is completely amazing! Wow. If you haven't been, I highly encourage a trip to the Temple Visitor's center to see the statues.

After that, we traveled over to ye olde Olive Garden and had some most excellent comestibles (I just learned that word). In fact, I'm going to go have a left over breadstick immediately.

OK, I'm back.

So then it was time for graduation. We arrived at the Burns arena at roughly 3:30ish. It was a dreary day, but the weather's disparity with the elation floating in each of the seniors couldn't be greater.

I helped get the percussion ready for the two songs we were playing (A Pirates of the Caribbean medley and the William Tell overture). Then, I went and picked up my gold ropes for good grades and the National Honors Society cape thing. It was then just about time to line up. Jordan, Richard, and I were not allowed to walk in with our class, nor accompany anybody. We were honored, I guess, to walk in at the very beginning with Principal Hoyt, the School Board President, and other dignitaries.

The program proceeded as follows:
A Camber Choir piece called "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need"
The Pledge, led by McKay Butler, Student Body President
A Devotional/Prayer, led by Claire Chamberlain, the Seminary Vice President
The Introduction of the Salutatorian by Tia Beatty, Senior Class Secretary
Richard Wixom's remarks
The Pirates medley by the orchestra
Senior Class Officer Tyson Winder's introduction of Jordan and I
Jordan's and my combined speeches
The slideshow
A Salyce Scarth special presentation
The presentation, acceptation, and presentation of diplomas of and to graduates
The Turn Your Tassels/2008 Cheer and Hat Throw done by all of us Senior Class Officers

Overall it was a good length ceremony. Richard and Jordan both did fabulous jobs. Richard talked about how to be a star to others. Jordan recapped on some experiences and gave some great advice. Afterwords the slew of picture-wanting parents and friends we might not see again drew us into a constantly smiling photograph mode.

My speech went fairly well, I guess. At first I got up and said:

Good afternoon Principal Hoyt, administrators, faculty, families, and guests. To the class of 2008: Congratulations!
Jordan and I have been joking for a long time now that somebody would get up, introduce me, and then I would get up and for my speech introduce Jordan, and then he would take over. So – ladies and gentlemen: Jordan Hall.

I then sat down. You could hear an audible gasp come from the audience. When I sat down, Kirsten Helms leaned over to me and whispered, "are you for real?" in an amazed whisper. It was actually quite entertaining. Jordan got up and said his speech and then went to sit down, paused, returned to the microphone and told the audience he wasn't going to let me get away with that. He gave a few of my more humorous statements and then turned the time over to me. I got up and gave the rest of my speech. We had planned the whole thing from the beginning. After all, I decided, "It's me and Jordan, one of my best buds. Let's have some fun up here!" Besides, it's graduation! It was quite fun to be a part of and shock everybody like that.

Here is my whole Valedictorian speech from where I left off above:

It’s an absolute honor to be up here with Jordan and Richard, two of the greatest guys I know. They are a lot better than me. I can’t think of anyone better deserving of their numerous awards, including this one. I thank them for their example and friendship. I also thank the faculty and staff. Moreover – – – – you know you’ve been in English class for too many years when that slips out without even thinking about it – I thank my parents and my religion. Together they have at the same time both anchored and lifted me.
To begin I would like to share some memories that we have had together. Let’s begin with the faculty. They are the greatest, aren’t they? Learning mathematics from teachers like Mr. Esplin and Mrs. Kidd-Thomas allows us to plot the number of people that got Mr. Moore’s chemistry jokes on a nice graph and laugh at how it goes zero – zero – one – two – two – and then, all of sudden - twenty. Especially memorable is the librarians’ eagerness to open the doors of the library early on everyday but checkout day, when they look through the little windows at the massive crowd around the door and smile and wave, but make no move for the door. We have a great faculty and staff. I know that I particularly enjoyed the janitor’s clever announcement on free cleaning lessons during the summer to those interested in littering in the school.
Remember the good times and what our class has accomplished. Remember when Jared Behunin broke the school discus record and went on to take first in state. Remember when the girls attacked the high school with sidewalk chalk at Spirit week and the boys had an almost instant rebuttal. Remember when we buried Tyson in the sand at Senior Sunrise and Jake got stuck on the H at H day. Remember the procrastinators, those that would get up at four AM the day a five-page paper was due and have it done in time for school. I guess most of us are procrastinators – almost all of us have waited until the very last day of high school to graduate. I would tell you to stop procrastinating from experience, but…I won’t even mention when I wrote this speech. I’m doing well, though – I mentioned procrastination in the middle of the speech, not at the end.
At commencement our thoughts naturally turn to the future. Incidentally, it is these memories of the past, anecdotal and humorous though they may be, which link us to the future. The future is built upon the past. It is these past experiences that provide the framework for our current and future actions. Each experience tempers character like metal in a forge. Or like the construction of a golf ball. I learned this from my neighbor. Golf balls used to be smooth until it was discovered that the chinks or marks made in the ball made from hitting it would allow the ball to fly farther. So it is with us. Each experience molds our character and when applied appropriately helps us to fly farther and achieve greater heights. Let our experiences, and those of people gone before us, refresh our mind and help guide decisions for the future.
Stay loose. Don’t get so caught up in the system that you think you can’t do something you really want to do. Go for it anyway. We’ve seen in high school that the times we remember the most are those when something…unorthodox occurs. Unorthodoxy happens when we do not succumb to the unifying pressure placed upon us by fear. I am not advocating breaking rules or anything like that. Rather, take courage in pursuing your own dreams. Each of us has our own utopia. Define it and work for it. Seriously. Why shouldn’t that be our ultimate goal? Miraculous things can and will happen when you bend your will to accomplish something.
And remember that with the privilege of contentment, accomplishment and success comes an equally important obligation to perpetuate privilege for others. Success without service is like drawing interest on somebody else’s bank account. As part of that charge, may we always remember our alma mater, Hurricane High School, and give back to the school and community that sustained us.
We have an amazing class. I moved here a few years ago from Bountiful and so I could really see people’s character stand in sharp relief because I didn’t know anybody. You are great. I have seen deep compassion and kindness, acceptance, tolerance, a little mischievousness – especially when it comes to spirit week – and unity. These last few weeks have really shown how as a senior class we are all – well, most of us – friends. Despite our differences, we are one. We respect each other, know each other well, and have a bond. Look around. Smile at each other. 12 long years. We did it. Together. Once again, congratulations class of 2008!

Posting During Graduation!

Here I am, posting while we're all at graduation! Figure that one out, eh?

I'm so nervous right now, because I'm sitting up here having to speak in a few minutes and I don't like speaking. Well, here goes.

Hopefully Grad Nite will be fun tonight!

Yes! Graduated!

Whew!

Graduation!

Not just graduation, but the End of Year Video Yearbook, the Senior DVD, and the Senior Slideshow are all finished now! Each took a great deal of work! Now they're done! Free at last!

Perhaps the Busiest Week

Warning: Long Post Ahead

This last week has been...insane. I've been to four class periods the whole week - two on Monday and two on Friday. I've slept in my own bed once in the last seven days. Here's the story.

We'll start with Monday. At lunch-time FBLA left for our State Competition. We had a long six hour bus-ride up there, and then stayed up there until late at night Wednesday. We had lots of fun (I guess) in Ogden, where there is nothing to do. Especially by our convention center. However, here are the awards I remember:

• Josh M. - 3rd in Accounting I
• Sarah C. and Kassara S. - 3rd in *Desktop Publishing
• James P. - 6th in Cyber Security, 8th in Computer Problem Solving, 9th in Networking Concepts
  
• Kirsten W. - Was elected as a State Officer - Secretary
• Sean F. - 1st Place in Business Communication, 5th Place in Cyber Security, 6th Place in Business Calculations
• Sean F. and James P. - 1st Place in E-business
  

Remember that these awards are State-wide, and are not broken down into school sizes like sports are (5A, 3A, etc). We compete against the entire gamut of students.

*Desktop Publishing requires the submittal of a production test; our team had to create a logo, calendar, flyer, and other Desktop Publishing creations to be prejudged, then take an objective test at the State Leadership Conference (SLC)

Which means that James and I are going to Nationals, and there is a good chance that both Josh M. and the team of Sarah and Kassarah could be coming as well. Kirsten is also attending as a new state officer.

On Thursday the day was devoted to Sterling Scholar Region. Long and boring intervals were interspaced with brief moments of heart-attackish type adreneline rushes. We practiced the awards ceremony, broke for interviews, had lunch (hamburgers), had dinner, then had the awards ceremony. We had one Sterling Scholar Region Winner (Jordan H. in Mathematics) and about five runners up (I got runner up in General Scholarship). The winner of the General Scholarship competition had a 33 ACT score and had been out of the country for several weeks helping poor children in Cambodia or somewhere.

Friday was the day I went to school for half of the day again. The other half was spent decorating for Prom. At about 3:15 I left the Prom decoration event and went to the high school to travel on a bus back up north for the State Jazz Festival. Strangely enough I got the same bus driver I had for the FBLA trip, so I spent more than 25 hours in that exact bus. Big time waster. We played That's Cool by Shelly Berg, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, by I'm not sure, and Mongo's Mood, by I'm not sure (a different I'm not sure). We received a II, another II, and a II+. Pretty good considering this is the first time we've even qualified for State Jazz in approximately ten years.

We got back from our trip on Saturday at around 5:00 p.m., just in time to go home, get ready for Prom, then attend the Priesthood Session, then go pick up our dates (Jerry R. took Sarah C., and I took Whitney S.). We ate at Olive Garden, then attended the dance. Jerry and I were both at State Jazz, which means that we were not around on Saturday to do any sort of "day date" thing, so we are planning a cool date for next Saturday, which I'm looking forward to.

Prom was generally awesome. All three of the others in my group, including my date (Whitney, Jerry, and Sarah) were fun to be around. The only complaint I have is that the picture line was too long; we only were actually on the dance floor for about an hour and fifteen minutes. So I was pretty annoyed, and when I'm annoyed I'm edgy, and so I probably wasn't the most fun to be around in the line ;). We had a bunch of fun though. Swinging is always a fun dance style, even if your flower falls off. (That reminds me...a quick note...I learned how to make corsages from Jerry's sister, and we both made one for our dates; it's so cheap and easy I don't know why we don't do them all the time ourselves) I was elected as Prom King, a great honor that is nice to have and boosts self-esteem, but it was an award I would rather not have received (at least in front of everybody at the dance). I am not built for publicity and stuff, and then people come up to me in the hallway all the time and say stuff like, "Congratulations on being Prom King!" and some try to be sneaky and come up and say hi and then under their breath breathe, "Prom King," like I'm supposed to say, "Oh, thanks" rather sneakily and give them a big fake wink. I never know what to say when people say stuff like that. I thank them, but I'd much rather everybody forgot about the whole deal. This kind of stuff makes me uncomfortable. Natalie H. was the queen, Cody P. was the prince, and Tanya H. was the princess.

The best part of the logistical side of the dance was the music; because we picked all of the music beforehand ourselves, and because we spent the little extra money to hire a good DJ, the music was awesome.

We sold out of Prom tickets beforehand and then sold some more at the door. We sold about 175 tickets, which means about 350 people at the dance. After the dance we stayed to help clean up, because I'm on the Prom committee, and then we went to Tia B.'s house to eat crepes. We did get a picture of the Prom committee, but not of the royalty.

Sunday we left again, this time to watch general conference at my grandparents house in St. George (we don't have T.V.). Hectic. More posts coming soon.

Happenings

I'll quickly breeze through some happenings.

We're counting up ballots for Prom 2008 royalty right now...every free minute at school is spent doing it, and they're not ScanTrons, either. We are going to have a run-off ballot, where the top eight or ten are put on a ScanTron to finalize the vote.

The Photography Club field trip is on Thursday, March 27th, to Michael Fatali's gallery up in Zion.

The State Jazz Band Festival is coming up on April 4th and 5th.

Prom is April 5th. I'm on the committee, so we have to plan it.

Website work is fun. I must say.

Lanahans Round 2

Once again it becomes necessary to turn again to governmental politics for tomorrow.

James Ceaser/Andrew Busch - Red Over Blue

The elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004 brought with them a major increase in Republican leadership. There are four major policy dimensions: the economy, welfare issues (health, education, etc.), national security, and what has variously been called "social" or "moral" concerns. The red-blue divide leads to dichotomous thinking. The gender and race gaps in voting are closing, and more and more it is the issues that take the lead in polarization. The political realignment theory discuss before is attacked by David Mayhew. Ceaser and Busch take a less "dramatic" version of the realignment theory and apply it to the election of 2004. Conservatism has gained enormous ground. To me this means that our country has become like a prevelent female attitude (females, please take no offense from this) - trying to get to age 20 or so as fast as possible, then spending the rest of her life trying to remain that age. Same with conservatism and our country.

Earl Black/Merle Black - The Rise of Southern Republicans

This is mostly about the Solid Democratic South and its shift. The shift in the south toward Republicanism has "restored competition to America's presidential politics [and] revitalized congressional politics." There was a Great White Switch when Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The South has become a most important high stakes component of the national two-party war.

John White - The Values Divide

The twenty-first century is an intensely personal political realm. The value divide between liberals and conservatives over lifestyle issues has become a chasm. There is a huge difference between those who attend church and those who don't. Duh. According to White, values matter today more than ever, but politics can't cope.

Mark Monmonier - Bushmanders and Bullwinkles

Gerrymandering and remapping are discussed in this segment. And I'm tired...and I'm done with this segment. Sorry for the lame post, but I'm...really...tired.

Track Meet!

This last weekend, Richard, Monica, James, and I spent nearly 17 hours running a track meet here at the high school. Let me describe its setup.

The camera was a stardard miniDVD video camera hooked up to the pole that sits right over the starting line. It was plugged into a standard power source. The output of the camera (RCA) went through an adapter and was converted to a Coaxial signal, which plugged into a female Coax plug on the pole. The coaxial cable runs underground up to the press box. Once there, the signal was converted back to RCA using standard RadioShack converters, then it was plugged into the Pyro Bright Flash gun (more on what that does in a minute). The output of the Pyro Flash Gun (RCA) was plugged into a conversion box that converted it to a firewire signal. Finally, the cable connected to the laptop running FlashTiming on Windows Vista.

The Pyro Bright Flash gun is very simple. It watches for a flash of light (usually produced by the gun at the start of a track race). Once it sees a flash, it starts a timer and overlays the incoming image with the timer and sends it back out. Therefore, on the computer we see a constantly incrementing timer (if a race is in progress). On the computer we then can record the very end of the race when all of the runners cross. The video is stored in a capture folder on the laptop.

We have two more computers. The first computer is the video reviewing computer. It also has FlashTiming. The person points FlashTiming's video data setting to a mapped network drive. Richard did this part. He would watch the video, then type in the initial time and click the "calibrate" button, which associates the time with the video. He can then step through the video frame by frame 'till a runner crosses the line. He then very simply clicks on their name in a side bar. The names come from the final computer, which is running Hy-Tek's Meet Manager software. It exports the list of athletes to a shared folder, which is then mapped on the reviewing computer. The times from the reviewing computer can be imported with the click of a single button. The results are then collated and formatted and scored, and can be printed on the appropriate color of paper.

There are several benefits to this system. First, it is entirely modular. Each task is seperate and can be performed on any of the computers; this allows more than one computer to be reviewing video at once, etc. For example, on Friday night when we were backlogged by video I helped Richard review all of the video by doing it on the capturing computer, which we weren't using anymore because the races had all finished. Monica mostly ran the MeetManager computer.

All in all it is a very good system, and the three of us make a great team. Each does his or her job. We combined to produce the fastest track meet Southern Utah has ever seen (several people commented on the rapadicity of our meet). The events go girls then boys. Therefore, for example, the girls ran the 100M Hurdles finals (two heats of six). We had the results of the race reviewed and scored and outside before the boy's equivilent race was started! (the 110M Hurdles). It was like that throughout the race. Friday night we were done with the races at 7:30PM, which is probably a new record. We were computing results for another hour, but we usually don't even stop running a race until like 10:00PM! This new system works wonders.

Oh. Also, Coach Kidd-Thomas was running around to all of the field events with her laptop, typing in field events. After she was done, a simple export and import to the main MeetManager computer was all that was needed to finalize the event.

Cedar won the track meet with the most points, with Hurricane coming in at a very close second for the boys. Our Sprint Medley team (I think) got disqualified because of an early handoff, but they won the race. If it had counted, we would have won the meet for the boys. Karl (neighbor and close friend) received the male Athlete of the Meet award.

Initially we had some problems with the setup of the race because the laptop was logged into the District's domain server, while our track computers were not. Therefore, they didn't want to see each other on our small network. Eventually I had to change the IP address of the laptop in order to get them to talk to each other.

That track meet is pretty much what comprised my weekend this week.

Low Stress! Wahoo!

Today in AP English we had our gargantuan day. We totally finished our vocabulary book, turned in our take home Jane Eyre test, wrote two essays on Jane Eyre in class, took a Barron's How to prepare for the AP English Test vocabulary test, turned in a three page paper I wrote yesterday on a play I read yesterday (Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller), and thoroughly enjoyed being released from class. So now a load has been released. I just have to work on the two websites, listen to Jazz, eat ice cream, and prepare for Preference tomorrow.

I mean, Prefernce.

Jane Eyre

I am taking a test on Jane Eyre right now and I found this quote that I thought I would share:

After marrying Mr. Rochester, Jane goes to spring the news on the servants, and says,

"The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent, phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment."

These are the kind of people you want to hang around with. ;)
I really enjoy the way this book is worded. The eloquence of the novel cannot be said to be readily available in the modern world. I feel that more writers should aspire to this type of writing.

Now back to work. I have to finish this take home test, read "The Death of a Salesman", then write a three page paper on it. Today. At least I don't have to get my Sterling Scholar binder ready for tomorrow! I'm looking forward to the completion of all of these assignments!

LibriVox

I just wanted to shout out to all of the mounds of readers of this blog a cool site that I've known about for a while but never really put to good use until now.

As you know, any book published before January 1st, 1923, is in the public domain and as such is fully available to all derivative works. LibriVox is a project that pulls public domain books off of a project like Project Gutenberg and makes them available to the public as audio books. Readers are volunteers recording at their home computer. The files are then uploaded and reviewed by other volunteers and then the whole project is released. I especially like the feature where you can download the book in iTunes. It opens it as a podcast and you can selectively get chapters or download the whole thing. Very handy and useful.

For those of you who aren't interested in the details, here's the gist:
Free Audiobooks!

Right now I'm listening to Jane Eyre for AP English. I can listen to it when it's dark or when I'm moving or even when I'm cooking, which is something that I have never been able to (safely) do when reading a book the standard way. Not to say I haven't done it, but it was before President Hinckley warned against gambling. I was gambling when I did it. And now I'm rambling. Good night!