Easter Sunday

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
Isaiah 64:4

About a few weeks ago I was cornered by a member of our bishopric and asked to give a talk today on Easter Sunday. The task seemed daunting; I love speaking in church but finding a way to honor our Savior on the day in which he was resurrected. I was sitting in church last Sunday in Newport Beach and decided that the perfect way to celebrate Easter is to renew our dedication to be a disciple of Christ. Therefore, I will be talking about the blessings that come from following our Lord. I have learned a lot through reading the scriptures this week. There are many blessings that we receive such that we cannot fully comprehend them all and it will be impossible for me to properly discuss them all in the 10 minutes that I have been assigned. Here is a short list; you are more than welcome to add more as the following list is not even near completion.
Life
Financial Stability
Physical Health
Spiritual and Temporal Knowledge
Trials (this is a tough one to acknowledge as a blessing but many times it is)
The Gift of the Holy Ghost (and with this come thousands more)
Repentance
Freedom
Motivation
Comfort
Priesthood Power
Forever Families
Greater faith, hope and charity
Exaltation
And many more personalized blessings
As you can see there are more blessings than what I would know what to do with for a 10 minute talk and this is not even a complete list. The blessings that we receive are not just spiritual but many are also temporal. Writing this talk has given me a renewed desire to follow Jesus Christ more fully. Hopefully, we all can remember this Easter Sunday the blessings that the Lord has given us and express our gratitude through our words and our actions.

Probably Against the Honor Code

I was walking to school the other day and I saw this truck entering BYU campus. If you look closely, it says Cuban Cigar, Inc. on the front door. I don't know what they were delivering but I can't imagine that it would fit with the Honor Code.

A post about me!

I decided that I would make a post about me and it has been a long time since I have posted anything. The biggest news that I have probably deals with my weight. I was about 215 lbs when I got married and over last summer I got to be closer to 270 (I am not really sure about this number because when I first stepped on a scale I was 263 but that was after a month of swimming). Last September I began swimming as part of a "Swim for MS" program. It felt great but I was very out of shape. I started running as well and I started losing lots of weight. At the start of this semester I began lifting weights and playing basketball for my workouts instead of swimming and running (running hurt my knees and the pool in the RB is only open early in the morning or in the evening so I had to give those up for now). I am now celebrating my 42 lbs. lost mark. I am very happy. Here two pictures of me to prove it::


In other news, I took an OPI with ACTFL yesterday. It was a lot of fun. I really like talking and this guy (Jay) was paid to listen to what I had to say. It took a half an hour and we talked about planes, trains, automobiles, baseball, and drugs which means it was a pretty normal conversation. I don't know what I will be rated but I will be happy with an Advanced High and thrilled with a Superior. The nice thing is that they paid me $10 to take the test because it was a part of some sort of study. I like getting paid money.
I think I might have changed my thesis idea. I was planning on writing about three novels that I thoroughly enjoyed and how they are used to combat faschttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifism in Spain and I still like the idea a lot but I just didn't know where to start or how to approach it. I am now writing about Angel Gonzalez (a Spanish poet), Rene Descartes, and George Berkeley. I wrote a paper on it in a class last semester and it was actually a fun paper to write because it gave me an excuse to read more Gonzalez poems that we didn't have time to get to in class. My goal is to write my prospectus in the next few days and defend soon that I can finish the thesis and graduate.
Lastly, I made fish last night. I had never cooked with haddock before but I enjoyed it (and so did Rianne which is more important). I have been experimenting with cooking lately and for the most part it has been a fun adventure with of course some bumps in the road (lentils are tougher to cook than I would have thought).
I will now conclude by posting a link to a video from youtube by my new favorite sports announcer: Enjoy!

Rage against the machine

Several months ago I read an article by John Stossel about transportation and he mentioned that he feels that stoplights are not necessary and that perhaps we can be safer without them. I found the idea interesting at the time but had never really thought about it. After a few months and reading some more reasons why we might not need them I have decided that they are unnecessary.
First, other than google, there is no machine that is really smarter than humans. The stoplight has no idea if I am sitting in front of a red light and no one else is there. Even if they have sensors, you will still need to come to a stop and wait for the lights to change. It is inconvenient and inefficient.
Second, green lights give a false sense of security. When you see a green light, you speed up and just think "go." I think people are less likely to speed through an intersection if it doesn't have a stoplight because we would be more afraid. That fear will make us safer because we will be looking cautiously as we cross an intersection and not just relying on others to obey traffic signals. When we pass through an intersection, are we more concentrated on what color a light is or if it is safe to pass? If there is no stoplight, we will pay more attention to traffic and road conditions.
Third, stoplights increase pollution. In a few places they have taken out stoplights and traffic has improved. Without all of the congestion pollution will be decreased.
It seems to me that we are smart enough to live without traffic lights. I can tell if it is safe for me to go with or without a stoplight. I say it is time for us to fight back against the machines and get rid of stoplights.

Panopiticism

I've been reading Foucault lately about Bentham's panopticon while at the same time taking a poetry class. Here is my combination of the two. Enjoy.

We’re watching you

We’re watching you

With cameras

On the streets

At the supermarket

In the airport

It is for your protection

We watch everything you do

to save you

From the murderers

From the terrorists

From the people that run red lights

They’re all dangerous

They must be stopped

We don’t have cameras in the bathroom

Yet

That is why so many crimes take place there

Maybe next year

Maybe tomorrow

We’ll put cameras there

It’s for your protection

We might see you naked

Or on the pot

But its constitutional.

No violation of the fourth amendment

Kind of like the body scanners

You choose to go to the bathroom

Kind of like how you choose to fly

And be seen naked by TSA agents

Or molested.

You could not go number one

And not be seen naked

You will be safe

when you go to the bathroom

because we will have cameras there

and we will be watching

next time you go number two

we’ll know.

And we’ll be watching

Only to protect you.

Beck/Dalton Game Score

I recently read an article in NBC that claimed that Tim Lincecum in his recent 2 hit shutout of the Braves was more dominant than Roy Halladay in his no hitter the other week. They based their information on what is called the Bill James Game Score. I don't like the stat and I will explain why after I give a brief explanation of what exactly it entails. First, you start out with 50 points. You add 1 point for each out, 2 points for each inning after 4, and 1 point for each strikeout. After that, you subtract 2 points for each hit, 4 points for each earned run, 2 points for each unearned run, and 1 point for each walk. Once all the math is completed you now have a measurement of how dominant a starting pitcher was.
I do not like this stat for a few reasons. First, I feel it overvalues the strikeout, especially when compared to a groundout. It is much more economical and something that is highly valued in a pitcher and I feel greatly adds to his dominance on any given night. My major complaint is that it doesn't increase the value for not allowing any hits. I feel that we should give credit if a pitcher pitches a complete-game no hitter and even more for a perfect game. To do so I have created (With the help of David Dalton) the Beck/Dalton Game Score. We have modified Bill James' work by changing a few numbers here and there to something that we view more accurately reflects pitching excellence. Without any further ado, here is what will soon become the best way to measure a pitcher's performance:
Start with 50 points
+2 for every inning after 6
+ 2 for groundouts
+2 for K
+1 for every avg. pitches per inning under 13
+20 Perfect Game
+10 No Hitter
-4 ER
-6 Every run after 3
-1 unearned runs
- 2 for every H
-1 for every BB
-1 for every pitch per inning over 13
Now for my explanation. We feel like this accurately reflects what makes a great pitching performance. First, we feel like that this recognizes a pitcher that is able to throw a great game in fewer pitches. If we look at Edwin Jackson's no hitter, he threw 149 pitches and walked 8 people. Our Game Score would take away points not only for walks but for the high pitch count. Even though Jackson threw a no hitter, he still scores lower than Lincecum and rightfully so because his pitch count was higher. We feel this is fair and greater emphasizes efficient pitching. Second, it emphasizes throwing a no hitter or perfect game. Third, it de-emphasizes strikeouts, which look cool but are not always the most efficient out. It is a great tool for a closer or when runners are on base but we feel that they ground out is also very important and our Game Score reflects that. One of the downfalls with our metric though is that we are unable to account for fly outs vs. pop outs and we would include them in our Game Score but they don't show up in our box scores. Once they do, we will add points to a pitcher's score as well for that.
Overall, we think that our Game Score is much more effective than that of Bill James because of these changes.

Why I hate Columbus day and other thoughts

Hating Columbus Day is not a big deal; most people do nowadays so I know that I am not alone but my reasons are most likely completely different than those of most people. A lot of people complain because Columbus was involved in the slave trade, he aided in the destruction of the American Indians, and perhaps, many other reasons. I complain because there is no mail today. I have been waiting for my collection of Seinfeld's complete series for nearly a month now and it is in Provo/Orem but because of Columbus, I won't see it until tomorrow. Yes. I am very upset. The Post Office takes so many days off; why can't we just let them deliver my package to me today? I think it would solve a lot of the world's problems if I had the complete series of Seinfeld today.

Is McDonald's really the most evil corporation that is trying to kill us all? I don't think so; they are just trying to make a buck like I am so I can't really blame them. I have been thinking a lot about McDonald's lately because I noticed that San Francisco is trying to ban Happy Meal toys and when I commented on it, a colleague said that it was incentivizing killing yourself (not an exact quote). I, obviously, completely disagree. While a toy will attract more young children to the restaurant, it offers another option to sitting and watching TV or playing video games. In reality, I think McDonald's is saving the children by offering Happy Meal toys. They might become more active because they are playing with their Strawberry Shortcake toy, lose weight, and not die. Thank you McDonald's. I am truly lovin' it.

I posted about this on Facebook earlier but I feel it is important enough to reiterate. It has been happening for a long time now but Republicans are always complaining because Obama is going to Martha's Vineyard or Michelle is going to Spain or he is just playing so much golf. When he doesn't go on vacation, we hear he is spending too much money, ugh, I hate ObamaCare and even more. It would appear that there is nothing the man could do right. I think that if he were to balance the budget, lower taxes, and shrink the government, they would still complain. I, personally, would rather have him play golf than spend a trillion dollars.

Mario Vargas Llosa is one of my favorite authors and he just recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature. David, mi amigo, mentioned an interesting theory today: he feels that they wanted to choose a non-European, right-of-center author for the winner to show that they are not Eurocentric or leftist, but by so doing, they only further cement this. I don't know if this is right but Vargas Llosa deserves the award. Now I only really have one complaint left and that is that they should give Carlos Fuentes the award. He is now, in my mind, the most deserving candidate.

I have no more thoughts. Until next time.