28 Hour Day

This is hitting close to home.

Last night, I was having a discussion with my girlfriend, Lisa, about the differences between Men and Women.  In case you are unaware, there ARE differences.  It was rather insightful, so I decided to post a couple of the highlights here.

First, Men are jerks and Women are crazy.  But there is a reason for it.  Men are very analytical people.  We rely on logic and reason and try our hardest to keep emotions and feelings out of our decisions.  So when we don’t take into account a women’s feelings, we end up coming across as jerks.  Conversely, women tend to think with their emotions and feelings.  And those don’t make any logical sense.  So we end up seeing women as crazy.

The real reason that this is becomes a problem is that men judge women as if they were men.  The same is true of women.  They expect men to make decisions like women.  When a women says, “He was such a jerk!  He didn’t even think about how I would feel about that!”, the guy isn’t trying to be a jerk.  He simply has no idea how to think about that.  He can try, and will occasionally have success, but by far and wide, he will not have any clue on how to do that.  And when a women goes and buys her 50th pair of shoes, the guy will get upset.  That’s because he doesn’t understand why she needs yet another when she already has 49 other perfectly good pairs.  Currently, I own 4 pairs of shoes.  A dress pair, an everyday pair, a work pair (which is the old everyday pair), and my riding boots.  Why would anyone need more than that?  Ok.  Maybe a couple more pairs, if they have a specific purpose.  But no more than about 8.  But a woman will buy a $100 pair of shoes to go with an outfit that they wear once a year.  How does that make sense?  But like I said, the reason for these misunderstandings is because men are judging women by mens standards and also, women are holding men to womens standards.

Second, she finally helped me to understand why women like when men give women flowers.  Here’s the conversation to the best of my recollection.

Me: Why do women like flowers?  I mean, I understand the WHAT of it all, it’s just the WHY that I don’t get.  I mean, I know that if I’m in the doghouse, or if you’re having a bad day, I can get you flowers and things will be better.  But WHY is that?

Her: First off, it really depends on what you did to get in the doghouse.  Flowers may not be enough.

Me: Fair enough.

Her: Second, it means that you went and did something really outside of your norm that it couldn’t be anything other than completely for me.

Me: So, it’s a test?

Her: Well it’s more than that.  That’s only a small part of it.  The real reason is that they’re also pretty and they smell good.

Me: You’re proving my point.  What purpose does that serve?  I mean, last week, when I was having a really bad day, you took me out to my favorite place to eat and bought me dinner.

Her: Yeah.  You ate it and it was gone.  At least flowers last.

Me: Not that long.  And besides, dinner at In-N-Out was taking something that I would have done anyway and did it for me, so I didn’t have to do it.  It wasn’t doing something for the sake of doing something.  It was taking something that I would have done anyway and doing it for me.  And doing it in the best possible way.

Her: But they are pretty and they smell good.  We like those types of things.

Me: But WHY?  It doesn’t serve a purpose.

Her: Let me try this another way.  What if I gave you an explosion?  I don’t mean blowing something up that needed blowing up.  Just taking you somewhere and igniting a bunch of explosives.  Just blowing stuff up for the sake of blowing stuff up.

Me (thinking): I don’t like where this is going.

Her: Would you like that?

Me: …

Her: Would you like to go out to the desert and light off explosives?

Me: …

Her: Why would you like to go out to the desert and blow stuff up?

Me: …

Her: It’s because it looks pretty and smells good.

Game, Set, and Match.  I thought I was doing pretty good right up until the end.  Then Bam! I was against the ropes.  I had nothing.

Finally, the funniest part to me was how we ended this conversation.

Me: Babe, I’m glad that you love me despite the fact that I’m a jerk.

Her: And I’m glad that you love me despite the fact that you think I’m crazy.

I saw this video a while ago and absolutely loved it. I didn’t end up posting it, but I don’t know why. It’s awesome. It is about 16 minutes long, so be sure you’ve got the time. But it’s totally worth it.

Right now, I’m sitting in my companies datacenter.  We had our primary server melt down last night and of course, it is my job to fix it.  Right now, I’m waiting for the Operating System to install, so I thought I’d give a quick update on all that is going on in my life lately.

• I have a girlfriend.  I know that is a shock to some, but it is true.  Turns out, this isn’t news.  We’ve been dating for almost 4 months now.  Her name is Lisa.  She’s an avid mountain biker, outdoorswoman, and she owns her own business (laying out fiber optic networks – can you see why we get along?)  I figured this should be first on the list because she’s been taking up most of my free time for the past few months.
• I took a road trip to Canada.  And by road trip, I really mean road trip.  Lisa’s family has a cabin up in the middle of nowhere, Canada.  They needed to close it up for the winter.  So she and I drove up to her parents house in Rexburg, ID.  That was on a Thursday night.  Friday morning, we (Lisa, her parents, and I) drove the 15 hours to the cabin.  We spent the night there, and in the morning, got it all closed up for winter.  Then, that afternoon, we all piled back into the car and drove back to Rexburg, arriving at 7 AM.  We slept, and then drove back to Provo that night.  So we were on the ROAD the entire time, hence the ROAD TRIP.
• I pitched an idea for a new product to my bosses and they liked it.  We will be building it early next year.
• I built a website for a friends business.
• I went to Lisa’s parent’s house for Thanksgiving.  I met all of her immediate family (She’s the middle of 8 kids) and all of their kids.  I’m getting her sibling’s names down, but I currently don’t have a prayer with all their kids.
• I went to a Jon Schmidt concert.  If you ever have the chance to go, I’d recommend that you do.  You can go to Youtube and look up some of his music.  Awesome stuff.
• I went to a “Love You Long Time” concert.  They’re a modern band that seems like they’re tragically stuck in the early ’90s.  Check ‘em out on Youtube.  It’s fun stuff.
• I went swimming at a public pool in deep rural Idaho.  Like almost an hour away from Rexburg rural.  It was fun, but I saw some things there that made me want to pour battery acid on my eyes to make the evil go away.
• I’ve been working on my Mustang.  Almost ready to be back on the road.  Probably would be by now if it wasn’t for a meeting getting rescheduled at exactly the wrong time.
• I helped Lisa set up her Christmas tree and she helped me with mine.  That was really fun.
• I rode my motorcycle for 30 minutes in -2 degree weather.  I now know what cold is.  And to make it even funner, I got to immediately go sit in an air conditioned server room.  It has to be kept cool to keep everything working at its best.

Well, there you go.  A quick update.  The OS installation is at about 97%, so time to get back to the grind.

And for the Smith Kids (A.K.A. the Crazies):

Just so you know, that first vid is available in really mega high quality HD. Click on the HD button and then the Watch in Full Screen button. Or double click on the video once it’s playing and you can watch it on the youtube site, where it shows in full 1080p splendor.

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog. I even bet some of you thought I forgot about it. But please understand that it wasn’t for lack of stuff to say. I’ve just been busy. But today something so spectacular happened that I just had to write about it.

Today, In-N-Out Opened in OREM!

That’s right, people.  The undisputed best burger chain it the world opened a store not ten minutes from my house.  I really wanted to camp out and be the first person in the door, but wisdom prevailed and I just decided to try my luck this morning.  I got an email stating that they were going to open the doors early at 9:00 AM, so I just ran by on my way in to the office this morning.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the line hadn’t formed up yet.  I was able to walk right into the store.  In fact, two of the bigwigs from their corporate office were there holding the doors for everyone.  I was the 64th customer they had in the store.  I ordered my food (technically, I ordered two meals worth, but who cares?)  I waited for only a couple minutes, and then I was back out the door.  I rode on over to the office, unpacked, and then basked in the artery-hardening goodness that is In-N-Out.

I am a happy panda.

My stake had a service up at Temple Square this weekend.  Well, actually, there was a U of U stake there too, so it was a little Sharks vs Jets, but still.  We were re-planting the flower beds.  We all showed up there and they started dividing all of us up into work groups.  As I was waiting for my assignment, my friend Luke (who is also kind of large) and I got singled out.  They told us to go stand with this other small group of large guys.  We got put on Dumpster Duty.

The first step when re-planting the flower beds is to tear out the old flowers.  And something has do be done with them.  Which means composting.  The people pulling the old flowers would load them up into trash bags, which would then get hauled in little carts over to where we were at.  We would then empty the bags into big dumpsters (’cause plastic bags don’t compost too well).  And while flowers themselves aren’t too heavy, the dirt at the base of them that was still stuck to the roots was.  And once they started coming, they came fast.  We kept up, but wow, that was a workout.  There were two groups of us working on the dumpsters.  My group of 5 filled 1 and a half dumpsters, while the other only had half.  The main reason why is because our dumpsters were the first ones that the cart drivers came to.

I snapped a couple pics during a brief break near the end.

So the next time in General Confrence that you hear the Prophet say, “We would like to thank those responsible for the beautiful flowers on Temple Square…” you will know who he is talking about.

In my never ending quest to find the most awesome stuff on the web, I came across this little gem.

You can read more about it here or here or here.

I saw this blog post the other day and laughed. Enjoy.

A Date Idea Analyzed

While watching General Conference today, I was looking at some interesting facts about Temples in the Salt Lake Region.  Namely, the distances between them.  Watch this.

• Provo is the southernmost temple in the area.
• Distance from Provo to Mt Timpanogas: 14.9 miles.
• Distance from Mt Timpanogas to Draper: 16.6 miles.
• Distance from Draper to Jordan River: 9.5 miles.
• Distance from Jordan River to Oquirrh Mountain (Under Construction): 4.0 miles.
• Distance from Oquirrh Mountain to Salt Lake: 20.7 miles.
• Distance from Salt Lake to Bountiful: 13.3 miles.
• Distance from Bountiful to Ogden: 30.0 miles.  
• Distance from Provo to Ogden: 80.1 miles.

In that 80 mile stretch of I-15, you pass 8 temples.  From the begining of the world until 1945, there were not 8 temples on the earth.  When the Oquirrh Mountin temple is dedicated, we will have that many within an hour and a half of each other.

Our missionaries are going forth to different nations… The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.

Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men. Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work; for behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul; and faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work. Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence. Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.