Random Thoughts 34 (12/2/2012)


Thursday, November 01, 2012
- Funny book quote
“Anything I should, uh, know?”

“You’re expected not to know anything.”
Ah, then I might even exceed expectations.  –The Blinding Knife

Friday, November 02, 2012
- Having your Bishop walk in and catch you red handed… in the middle of magnifying your calling, good feeling haha :D
- The problem with trying new Subway subs. If I picked the bread, the cheese, the veggies, and the condiments, how do I know if I even made it as intended?

Sunday, November 04, 2012
- Excellent home teaching quote in the priesthood manual I’d like to implement! “Each visit should focus on a planned purpose. Before visiting a home, companions pray together. They discuss ways they can strengthen those they will visit." (pg 42? Melchizedek priesthood section
- Home teach on other days of the week so people have the opportunity to feel the spirit on other days than Sunday.
- Text home teachee’s when dozing at work. Good way to chat with people when you need.
- So I failed Saturday. I had the whole day open until a birthday party in Salt Lake at 6:30. I had all sorts of good intentions to be useful. But all I did from 8-5:45 was listen to an audiobook I’ve already read, and play a flash game. I kept thinking I should at least go home and hang out at my parents place, but I didn’t until after the birthday party. I decided to sleep over there (Gambit slept with me! So worth it! Love home :) ) and I found out Mom missed me extra, Dad could have changed my oil, and Mason went to his first dance! And I missed the opportunity to be there and get excited with him!
So the next morning I left to get back for church, and as I was driving away, I felt like I should check our “grab from home” list. And “cereal” hit me hard. And I was like “am I being prompted to grab cereal? Nope, I’ll be late for church, that wouldn’t make any sense.” But I kept feeling prompted, and I totally failed to listen to promptings Saturday.  So I was like “FINE!” and I went back. As mom was bringing out the cereal, I noticed my pee hose was totally twisted! And that would have been trouble! THAT’s what the prompting was about! Yay for following!
- So random thought inspired by Mason’s dating. He is mostly-officially dating his first girlfriend, who happens to be CJ’s first girlfriends younger sister, small world eh? Anyway, Mason has a goal to not kiss a girl until post-mission, or something along those lines. And he was taking Amy to their first dance, but he was afraid if she wanted him to kiss her he’d have to say no and it’d be awkward or what not. Anyway, on the date, Amy was like “we need to talk about something” and Mason was like “uh-oh”, and she basically conveyed “I know we’re dating but I don’t want to kiss yet, is that ok?” haha!* (*story retold from a secondhand account a month after hearing it). Anyway, the interesting part to me was, Mason was worried and didn’t want to kiss, so clearly he wasn’t putting pressure on her. Amy was feeling pressured enough to talk about it, so clearly she wasn’t putting kissing pressure on him. So who was? Society? Peers? Lame.
- I feel like Word should have the same level of spell correcting that smart phones do.
- I feel like I have bursts of random thoughts. I recognize partially why though. Thinking about interesting thoughts makes one receptive to more interesting thoughts. And when I finally flesh out my short note thoughts so I can post them, I’ve spent a bunch of time thinking, so I have a bunch more interesting thoughts right after I post. It’s usually not until after a cycle of a week or two of mindlessness and back to thoughtfulness that I finally post them though haha.

Monday, November 05, 2012
- I posted this today on FB:
“Today is my 8 year breakneckversary!!! In honor of this day, I will reduce all political posts on all of Facebook by 90% by the end of the week.
You're welcome.”
And Steve added this haha:
“Remember, remember the 5th of November. The wet shoes and injuries they brought. I know of no reason this break-necking season should ever be forgot.”
- “da Vinci once said: ‘You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself.’ Then he goes on to say that ‘the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment.” –OTM 271

Friday, November 09, 2012
- Take time to think about what makes your dreams more enjoyable than real life, and change your life to fit.

Saturday, November 10, 2012
- So I had a slightly bad experience with Divine Comedy today. Well, it DC itself, the show was great, it  just happened to be the venue. I tried organizing 9 people to meet at 5:00 and go in 2 cars. Instead people went in 3 cars closer to 6 and people kept needing directions and it was stressful lol. I used to love organizing groups and events, but I’m really not much of an organizer anymore ;/
- Also, I didn’t want to ask people who didn’t pay for their $5 haha. My justification is I spend money on other people for dates, but not these people. Like I owe everyone a little bit of money. Weird. I hate asking people for money though, even money they owe me.

Sunday, November 11, 2012
- I really really miss cuddling. I don’t know how it ended up so 100% out of my life, or how to get it back short of having a girlfriend. And a girlfriend appears to be something I still don’t get to have yet. Missing cuddling is a common theme lately though.
- Family singing is the best

Monday, November 12, 2012
- So I want to find some ways to exercise. Even just cardio.  I think it’d be good for my blood flow. This morning I couldn’t sleep through bowel care, so I decided to hold up my arm and bounce it until it got tired. I did literally 1000 and my arm still didn’t burn :/ need to find something better haha.
- I was so excited to be at work today, I literally peed on the floor. Take THAT Monday!
- I should eat lunch with others at lunch, makes deciding where to eat practically meaningless to me.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012
- They laid off Naor, Chad, and Dinesh today. I was shocked. They said it’s because they didn’t have the skill sets the company needed for the changes going forward. But I know for a fact Chad and Naor are far more experienced than I. The only possible explanation is their talking about skills other than technology knowledge, or there’s a strong likeableness factor that had people defending me. Whatever the case I’m very grateful for the Lords hand in protecting me in this position. We went from 6 EDGE developers to 2 (one moved to another team).

Friday, November 16, 2012
- Showed up to work today with no shoes haha. Woops.
- Funny how some people dislike the attention in small settings but hate being ignored in large settings.

Saturday, November 17, 2012
- Mormon 1:16 The people were so wicked that Mormon was forbidden to preach by the Lord? Yikes! Looks like our society has a ways to fall yet sadly. It’s kind of nice that we know the world will fall so far though, it makes it much easier to find hope for the future knowing things are going as expected.

Sunday, November 18, 2012
- Reading through old institute notes, found this quote from Brother Bartholomue. "If I were the devil, I'd know I can't get the saints to sin. I'd just make them busy." Strikes home! What’s worse, I’m not even busy, and I’m still terrible at missionary efforts.
- if you knew the Savior was coming tomorrow, what would you do differently today?
how can I reach out and bring others to Christ?

Sunday, November 25, 2012
- As a family we were discussing with Ryan his objectives with the custody battle (that’s coming up late December). And there was a slightly contentious air. But Charie made a comment that instantly brought the spirit in and I was at peace with the topic afterwards. I really do want a girl like that.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012
- I think I’d be more reluctant to marry a divorced 20 year old than a divorced 25 year old. If it’s right though I’d go for it either way :P
- read an Isaiah chapter until you learn a principle regularly.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012
- To increase your desire to serve others, increase your testimony of the atonement. (Advice to Amber in MTC)
- Moroni 7:45 replace the word charity with your name to learn what you need to do to be more like Christ. “And Corby suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not his own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Well let’s break this down! Note these all probably depend on the category/circumstance. But I don’t need to work on the stuff I’m already good at haha. I’m still far closer to the cocky end of the spectrum than the lack of self worth end. So don’t think I’m too down on myself for the comments below. I need to recognize my weaknesses before I can work on them no?
1- “And Corby suffereth long” –I have ups and downs with patience in dating. I have all sorts of good intentions to really study for 15 minutes minimum every day, but somehow almost every time I can barely ‘suffer’ 10 minutes of semi-attentive reading and I burn out. I feel like I could add more here but they aren’t coming to mind.
2- “and is kind” – Definitely could do better to reach out and fellowship others. I feel like the first month or so of moving somewhere new I’m really outgoing, but then I fall back into the comfort of the clicks I’ve created. I also always seem to have one person that can get on my nerves. Said person bore their testimony today and I kept thinking “just stop! You’re embarrassing yourself!” and I could do better.
3- “and envieth not” – um, maybe I’m ok here? There was a time I felt a bit of resentment seeing others get married, but none of that envy is focused at the individuals nowadays. And it’s much less as per previous dating ah-ha’s on this blog. I would love to play instruments again but that feels more like a longing than envy.
4- “and is not puffed up” – definitely guilty. I still put way more stock into my own opinions or the few people I really respect than I do into most anyone else’s. However the improvement I’ve had in this category I’d say is one of my most apparent personality differences between now me and high school me.
5- “seeketh not his own” – I really can’t think of anything I do regularly that’s for anyone but me. Even when I index or go to the temple, it’s more so I feel good about how I spent my time than it is about serving others. As always I really need to find more ways to serve.
6- “is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil” – Not much to add here besides not even having that one or two people that provoke me easily somehow. With the rest of my friends and family I’m usually pretty patient. Actually I’ve been a little short with CJ sometimes when I feel like he failed to communicate something important or left me waiting around unexpectedly for a while :/ I can improve there.
7- “rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth” – I certainly don’t rejoice in iniquity, but I’m not the best at rejoicing in truth either. I do love drawing people’s attention to the rare times when truth is spoken I popular media.
8- “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” – oh, just all things? EASY! Ok fine, dating, the difficulty of independence, dealing with money, dealing with insurance, dealing with health, all things I’m likely to be bothered about weekly. Believeth all things I feel I have a decent logical grasp, but not a deep enough confidence in that faith to act like I believe or hope for the help from the things listed above. Not completely consistently anyway.
Whew, that was cathartic.

Sunday, December 02, 2012
- do I often feel like I don't have the spirit with me because I need to learn to do the right things even without? Sounds weird to me.
- I always tell people in life to focus on utilizing their strengths rather than dwelling on their weaknesses. I think I need to do better focus on utilizing spiritual strengths rather than dwelling on spiritual weaknesses. As long as my weaknesses aren’t perpetuating sins of commission, then it’s better to dig in powerfully where I serve best rather than try to make sure I can barely do a little bit of everything.
- Parable of the loaf of bread. To make dough into bread, it needs to be kneaded, beaten, and cooked. Probably not fun for the dough. Our lives are often like this :D
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Random Thoughts 33 (11/1/2012)


Tuesday, October 16, 2012
- I think 3 is an unofficial burn out number for me. If I try to spend time with someone, and they are busy or flake out 3 times in a row, I tend to give it at least a few months. Dunno why I thought of this at random right now lol.

Thursday, October 18, 2012
- The new CTO at work is enforcing a “be in at 9:00” attendance policy. Not a good leadership idea :/
- CJ is just like Dad when you ask him to do things haha. He has to finish what he’s doing or often he sees something and starts that instead, like taking out the garbage. Maybe it’s just a guy thing.
- The promotion demotion was a total easy blessing for increased pay without complicating my life more. Awesome!

Friday, October 19, 2012
- “A person’s god is the thing or being in which he trusts and which he believes has the greatest power. It is the thing to which he looks for whatever salvation he believes is available. All other beliefs and actions are affected by that belief or object of his worship…. If a Latter-day Saint will not
tithe, is it not because he centers his trust in worldly things and the system that produces them instead
of in the providence of the Lord? In that sense, then, the things of the world become a god to him, for he trusts more in them than in God’s power. Those who do not pay tithing would likely be shocked to think they were guilty of idolatry just as the ancient Israelites were guilty of idolatry. The form differs, but the sin is the same.” – OTM pg 254
- “under the rule of the judges the people must demonstrate loyalty to the Lord and His commandments for this ideal form of government to function properly.” – OTM 258 I’d argue the same about our country

Saturday, October 20, 2012
- It’s funny how social and anti-social I feel at the same time right now.
- I am not a reading learner, this is why I can’t seem to get well read on politics!

Monday, October 29, 2012
- Awesome line from The Black Prism, “Kip spluttered, making some kind of sound like he was drowning. Seriously, if embarrassment were a muscle, I’d be huge.”
- Talking with someone online (Molly is her name, great fun so far J ) and I wrote this novel that I figured I’d preserve on my log. My Utah bubble rant, tangent inclusive. I do recognize and acknowledge the existence of the Utah bubble, but I don’t think it’s as big of a deal people make it. For example, I remember once being teased because I didn’t know a word was also the name of some random alcoholic beverage. First of all, there’s like a million alcoholic beverage names, pretty sure almost anything works. Second of all, I don’t drink alcohol, why should I even know the names of obscure mixes? If it was some sort of derogatory or offensive term that I was misusing, that’d make sense to know. But a drink name? Who cares! The point being, a lot of the things that people are sheltered from in the bubble are often things not really necessary for us to know. Random sexual terms, drink names, gang signs, and so on are all things that one can live an entirely healthy life without ever knowing. Maybe there’s hard life lessons that people would learn faster outside the bubble, but there’s nothing significant to our eternal salvation that we can’t learn regardless of where we live.
That being said, Utah Mormons can definitely take the passive sheltering of just being in a different environment a step too far, and actively shield their kids from everything. This is not good parenting. If you’re afraid your child might drown, you don’t try to keep them from ever being near a body of water. Someday they’ll end up at a party with a pool at the house, and when they get pushed in they won’t know what to do. No, you get them swimming lessons. In a similar way, you can’t teach them not to swear by never allowing them to hear swear word, you can’t protect a child’s chastity by forcing your will on who they date, you can’t protect your kids from pornography by not having a computer or tv. You need to teach proper principles and allow their agency. Anyway the main point is I think the bubble is less of a big deal than people make it, if you’re really living the spirit of the law you’ll be fine.
However, overall I am not very proud of Utah Mormons. I’d love to be wrong about this, and I never feel my opinions or observations are absolute. But I would say the vast majority of Utah Mormon’s would not fit in the valiant category. I have been pressured more to break my standards (both passively and actively) by my LDS friends than I ever have by my non-LDS friends. On the flip side, I would say the vast majority of members I’ve met that grew up out of state (excluding some parts of Arizona or Idaho, which are pretty much like extensions of Utah) are way more valiant than the majority of Utah members. I don’t have any personal basis to say this, but it almost seems like it’s just as hard to find a good member to date in Utah as it is everywhere else. The difference is there are just so many people in Utah who SHOULD be good members.
Living out of state where not everyone already knows my standards, where I could have open discussions with people about their different takes on the world (here it’s pretty much the Mormon take, an all out anti-Mormon take, or a “I don’t want to think that hard about things because I’m afraid my conclusions would require me not being so lax” take) I’ve LOVED the comparatively few times I got to discuss religion with a Jew, or a practicing Catholic, or an Atheist, or what not. It’s so interesting. BUT! I’m also super super close to my family, and I can’t imagine living far from them, so I don’t know what I’d do. Not to mention it’s a little harder to move your roots in a wheelchair.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012
- Fun random fact. The average person reads 250-300 words a minute. If we go with the upper average of 300, it would take the average person just under 240 hours straight to read the entire Wheel of Time series.
- Had an interesting conversation with a friend today. They mentioned how in games they are more willing to make firm choices even when the consequences are ambiguous, because the consequences are irrelevant. They could win, or they could end up dead, it doesn’t really matter. It can’t be that way in life though, because in life consequences matter.
For the most part I agree. Consequences in life certainly matter. Ended up dead in life experimenting with something brash is no small deal. Drugs, pornography, anger, lies, any form of sin really, have meaningful consequences we are meant to learn from. Luckily choices like these seem to have the most clearly defined consequences in human experience, and the consequences really matter. It’s good though that we don’t have to step on a nail ourselves to know it’s not enjoyable.
Going on in a religious light, the consequences of sins of omission are similarly clear (although not as vivid or direct). Not going to church our testimonies become lax, not serving in our callings we end up thinking less of others and more of ourselves, not receiving all the temple ordinances we won’t be eligible to enter the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom. All still moderately straight forward. All very real consequences that really matter.
The interesting thing to me here, is the choices in between these two categories. I’d argue that the consequences of these in between choices hardly matter. Note, this is if you’re living the gospel enough that you’re in tune when the Lord tells you no. But the consequences of whether you take this girl or that girl out, or whether you pursue this career path or that, while seemingly significant, I submit are not very consequential. Or at least not consequential such that we should be as paralyzed about our decisions in them as we frequently are. I mean, take asking a girl out for example. Maybe she’ll say yes, maybe she’ll say no. If she says yes it may make us happy, if she says no it may make us sad. But unless she ends up being our eternal companion, or unless the sadness drives us to sin, the consequences were really just more experience. I’d wager that people who are willing to step into the dark with good goals, without knowing the consequences, have much more to show in their lives than people paralyzed with the fear of consequences. I KNOW the people who step out all the time like that have had more failures than people who rarely do, but they have more successes too.
Well, I do think my above “consequences hardly matter” category does have consequences that matter. I just believe that win or lose they’re for the best for us when we look back someday and see it all. And if they worked out for the best, it didn’t matter really. Not in a way we should be very worried about our decisions anyway.
This is all a somewhat hypocritical rant for me by the way. I’m still fairly disenchanted with dating. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how low I’ve been. And while I do feel like I’m on the uphill now, I still have less faith in this category than I once had, and would like to have again. Not willing to take action becomes one is afraid of failure isn’t good, I call that a fear driven motivation. But not being willing to take action because I have low faith in the meaningful consequences of the effort is just as bad really.
-This may be idealistic, and it's definitely easier said than done. And it's not even a point I've reached so maybe talking about it is hypocritical. But as long as or opinion about ourselves is derived from others, we'll always be controllable by others. The only reliable and sustainable confidence is when we get our validation ourselves and from God. Someone confident with their standing with God is waaay more confident (and thus likeable) than someone who is likeable just because the crowd says so. And it doesn’t require any outside validation to find peace between ourselves and God.

Thursday, November 01, 2012
- No matter how justified anger is, it will consume you if not bridled.
- Awkward moment, I woke up with this song stuck in my head http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-su4WO5TVxQ and I wanted to show CJ, cuz it has Final Fantasy tribute in the middle. I thought the band was called GString. They’re not, the song name is. But I Youtubed G-String, not even thinking about what a G-String was for some reason.
I was assaulted with butts.
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Random Thoughts 32 (10/14/2012)


So, the quick version is life has been crazy and different (and mostly great J ) since moving out, August 14th. As such, I've rarely had the motivated alone time to update my blog. However, when I have something I want to write, usually I write down a sentence reminding me of what I is, so I can come back and fill it in later. Well it’s later. Oct 14th later (hey”! exactly two months!) and so some of these things will be written with as a past event, that I’m filling in later, and some will be written in present tense. Deal with it.

Wednesday, August 08, 2012
- Bucket list goal, get nuzzled by a large cat.


Saturday, August 11, 2012
- Just slept for 11 hours, like a boss.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012
- I don’t fully understand how they split books in the BoM. I mean the last half of Helaman is actually Helaman’s son Nephi, and then the book of Third Nephi is Nephi’s son Nephi. So why wasn't the book of Helaman just shorter, and Third Nephi was right after? *shrug*

Thursday, August 16, 2012
- So I noticed a failure to follow the spirit in regards to buying my education week ticket. I put I off a few times, and I thought I was just procrastinating. But even when I actually bought it I was feeling reluctant about it. In my head I was like “woahh, ed week is definitely a good thing to do! This can’t be a prompting!” and bought the ticket anyway. Turns out moving would take more time, I’d feel more sick, and I’d have less van then I planned haha. I probably should have done just Friday or some such. Throwing away $30 is a failure consequence I can handle. I hope I’m wiser next time though.
- So I had a night where I felt particularly tempted to make a stupid chastity blunder, and I didn’t, but I was SUPER upset about it anyway haha. I’ve been clean and making good decisions I feel consistently, and so I was totally blindsided by the temptation. It was too close for comfort though, so I decided to study more. What I was referred to was a talk called the abc’s of addiction. It talked about how with any addiction, we tend to focus on the behavior, but really the behavior is just caused by a deeper need. If someone keeps falling and getting bruised, and we just tend to the bruises every time, we’re never addressing why they keep falling in the first place, and their bound to fall and get bruised again. 
What I got out of it is that I was feeling lonely, and for the most part I was finding non-sinful ways to bandaid my loneliness, but I really still needed to find comfort and contentedness with just myself and God, or there was still the risk I might do something stupid. Luckily I didn’t have to get bruised to have this ah-ha, but it was a dangerously close stumble.

Saturday, August 18, 2012
- In connection to the talk mentioned above, I think maybe my shame or sheepishness from using a dating website is probably because I was “acting out” by using it (even though there’s nothing wrong with dating websites), and a subconscious part of me knew it.

Monday, August 20, 2012
- A friends following status “Why do I have to know so many awesome people. It makes me feel lame.”
 reminded me of the following quote from Elder Holland “Furthermore, envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment!” http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-laborers-in-the-vineyard?lang=eng
- Impressions of new ward

Thursday, August 23, 2012
- The new ward has been AWESOME!! There was a small group of close ward friends over the Summer, and they were ready and willing to invite all us new people into their circles. Also, tons of the new people were cool and ready to step outside themselves and make friends. We’re on the first floor right near the entrance, so basically we leave our door open and people just come in and hang out. It’s been way fun! And our apartment is a great clean inviting environment. Love it J

Saturday, August 25, 2012
- AWESOME Saturday! I got a great sleep in, then I went to work (since it’s so close now) to work on my creative spark. While there I got to chat with Sierra and Dr. K. and I even came home in time to socially with people while we left the door open! Awesome!

Sunday, August 26, 2012
- My apartment is such a different atmosphere from when I last moved out. Where with my last apartment I had to crank up my music to drown out anime or the like so I could study, this morning I cranked up my Pandora to drown out CJ’s loud conference talks in the shower haha. It’s like “HEY! Can you turn down the words of the prophets so I can study the words of the prophets!? GEEZ!”
- Money is not the root of all evil, the scriptures say it’s the love of money. This has never really stuck out or mattered to me, I’m not driven by money, I don’t feel greedy of worldly things, so it’s not a big deal. But in Sunday School, Salah (awesome name) put it this way, “it’s a sin to trust in money to solve our problems rather than trusting in the Lord.” That hammered me! I mathed out my finances and I theoretically will profit $30 a month with my health care spending, my crazy van payment, and my current spending trends. I was thinking “well, I’ll just have to make it work until I can get a promotion. Likely in February because that’s when they usually do them.”But this hit me hard. I was thinking “you'd have an easier time being independent if you had more money.” But no, I'd have an easier time being independent if I trusted in the Lord more.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012
- Amazing day! Lots of neat thoughts from institute to follow, I’m going to love that class (with Brother Soderberg).
- So remember my note above about deciding to rely more on the Lord on Sunday? Well, Monday Robert pulled me into his office at work, and asked me to be the new team lead for the Client team!!! (since we let go of the Uruguay office) So excited!!
- How can I make Christ not just an influence in my life, but the controlling influence?
- You should care more about how long you read than how much you read. (future addendum, I changed my daily study from ”1 chapter a day” to “15 minutes” and the results have been wonderful.)
- We don't have to fight the devil. We fill ourselves with truth and the Lord fight the devil for us. D&C 93:36-37. Endowment movie follows this pattern. He sends people down.
- Reading the book of Mormon doesn't bring us closer to heavenly father than any other book. Abiding by its precepts does.
- Nephi emphasizes blessings more than trials, implied by the order he mentions them at the very start of the BoM.
- Oh man, Brother Soderberg and I DEFINITELY have very different trials haha. He came from a broken home and never wanted to get married. One day he prayed and told the Lord he’d do whatever the Lord wanted, be whoever He wanted him to be, except that he wasn’t going to get married. The next Sunday he met his future wife and was basically bludgeoned that night with a revelation he should marry her. He said “I rolled over in my bed, and swore.” Haha! Ahh man, I would LOE to be bludgeoned with a revelation of who I should pursue and marry. I do like meeting people for fun purposes, but I am waaaay ready to be out of the searching phase.
- If you pay tithing you will be able to do more with your 90% than you would with 100%. Tithing your time with temple attendance works the same GOOOO!
 - When you stop yourself in relationships, take note of why, and if it works for you.

Friday, September 07, 2012
- So Kellie (sister) was doing school for emotional processing. She encouraged me to try it (not with her) and I figured “why not?” and scheduled one. Long story short I didn’t really get much out of it sadly. I’m pretty self sustaining apparently. The two main things though were #1 I need to let go of the guilt of people I’ve tried to help and failed at. #2 I backed off on physical expression  too far, and it doesn’t make me happy.

Sunday, September 16, 2012
- Super awesome day today. Wish I wasn't having to write on my phone. I write my ideas better on my computer. But I'm already in bed.
 To sum up, we had an awesome stake conference where Elder Oaks wife ( who didn't get married until she was 53) talked about how you may not be doing anything wrong, it's just about the Lord's timing, dedicate yourself to him whatever that means. Marriage or no. Then me and CJ went home and had an awesome day with the family. Then we came back for ward prayer and went to this small scripture study group afterwards, and it was AWESOME! I have a powerful renewed commitment to dedicate my life to the Lord whatever that means. We talked about how everyone who makes it to the celestial kingdom will have to undergo their own Abrahamic trial, being willing to give up the thing do you love most in this world for the Lord. I'll bet we have various of these types of trial throughout our lives. I know putting the Lord before Brandon Sanderson novels is hard for me. Ridiculous but it's true. But I'm sure and even bigger one is not getting married yet. Being willing to fully commit myself to the gospel even if it means no wife. There has been times when the thought of this is painful or ridiculous. But I feel like I've been tempered enough to trust in the Lord in this, whether that means I get a companion in this life or not. I just want to be a tool in his hands whatever that means. People make such a huge deal out of things like gay marriage. But I love it when the prophets come out and ask us to make a stand. I guess maybe I could be more outgoing with my stand. I'm not really sure what that would look like. But the real point is I love having an opportunity to follow the prophet when he asks something of us that society doesn't agree with. I know I'm probably only at the most basic point of faith, and that I will probably get barraged with crazy hard trials as I make this commitment. But I do definitely want to be whatever the Lord wants me to be. I am done assuming I know what He wants. I'm done assuming even I know what I want or need. My first big hurdle will probably be developing a confidence when I get an answer or prompting versus when I'm having a stupid thought on my own. But I want to be the type of disciple that would trust in the Lord enough to take my only son up to the mountain for sacrifice if I knew that that's what the Lord asked of me.
 On other news, my parents are pretty sure they'll be able to sell my van this week. So I went and opened the door with the taillight one last time. And I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the independence that van had brought me over the last five or so years. It also made me want to commit my life to Heavenly Father.
 Also it was awesome that I can listen to conference talks with CJ on the way back to Orem.
 Also it's 12:37 and I have bowel care in four hours, ugh. Haha.

Monday, September 17, 2012
- “You NEVER check your religion at the door.” https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/ces-devotionals/2012/09?lang=eng Whew! Elder Holland is a powerhouse!
- “When He comes, I want to be caught in the act of spreading the gospel.”

Thursday, September 20, 2012
- Double tender mercies yesterday. Leaving work, I needed food but I didn’t want to eat alone. I told myself “if someone texts me I’ll take them to dinner” and Claudia did. So I did J Usually stuff like that doesn’t work. Anyway on the way back I had to drive the long way around my building to get to parking, and I passed by Chelsea/Kylie/Ayrika’s window, and Chelsea saw me and kept calling my name as I got out of the car, so I ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night haha. I Love this place.
- I’m not very good at journal lately… but my scripture study has improved!

Saturday, September 22, 2012
- Get the little big planet Beethoven song as a ring tone. (future note, I totally did this :D)

Sunday, September 23, 2012 (phone notes)
- Go to the temple or fast with the purpose of understanding your patriarchal blessings better.
- I was baptized last CENTURY!
- Don't ask "what am I doing wrong?" ask, "what more can I be doing right?" Or "what other good can I do?"
- Read discourses of the prophets

Saturday, September 29, 2012
Interesting day. Scott Pilgrim and Tetris with Micah Josh. Chicken enchiladas and monsters Inc. with the youngins (Ayrika, Kylie, and Jodee are all 18 :/). Tried to get on our hard couches but no go. If there is an appropriate cuddle outlet I haven't found it.

Sunday, September 30, 2012
- In answer to your unspoken question, yes, I am holding a small adorable child who is feeding an even smaller adorable child. 


Tuesday, October 02, 2012
- True disciples speak often with others about the gospel. 3 Nephi 24:16 “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard; and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.”

Wednesday, October 03, 2012
- Is my hug instinct diminished? I saw Kylie, who is super cute, at the end of the hall, and didn’t drive to her for a hug! Maybe it’s cuz I was just playing a TD…

Friday, October 05, 2012
- “I bless you to be actively engaged with people that you might live as a beacon of hope and promise for the future in their lives as well as your own.” Phrase in my blessing stood out to me today, just felt to write it down. Particularly the “as well as your own” part.

Monday, October 08, 2012
- Haha ok so since I’ve been promoted to team lead work has been absolutely CRAZY! I run around all the time! It’s a good thing I wasn’t in a phase where I had someone I’d text or FB chat with regularly, because they would have felt ignored.
Anyway, we also got a new CTO (chief technology officer) and BIG changes have been going down. Team structures, testing strategies, who is under which VP, etc… Wednesday is our dev complete day for 3.17, and there have been so many crazy quirks and bad requirements and technical pitfalls and such this sprint. So Monday, Robert pulls me and Naor into his office and tells us Allen (new CTO) has decided to “flatten the teams”. So me and Naor are going back to being developers. This may sound sad, BUT! #1 I was pretty darn stressed, and it was an instant load of passing it to Robert. #2 they aren’t revoking my pay-raise :D.  #3 I feel like my experience as a grunt lead will make me a better grunt myself. #4 it’s not like I did anything wrong, Naor has been a developer for 12+ years and our team lead since May, and they pushed him back into the team too. Anyway it was cool.

Sunday, October 14, 2012
- And now we’re finally to today! Nothing particularly interesting to report. I’m still trying my best to dedicate myself to whatever the Lord wants me to be, and I include it in my prayers. I took Kylie to Divine Comedy last night, it was fun. She’s an amazing girl but I doubt she’s romantically interested in me, which is fine cuz she’s 18, but she’s great companionship. Work is great, I’m well used to my new van and wheelchair. It’s starting to get cold outside and it makes me sad. Yeah… Oh! I’ve decided I really need to make a bucket list, something to look forward too. It’s not of dire import because I’m pretty happy as is. But it’ll be good to have stuff to look forward to the times I am feeling low, seeing as I’m usually not in a brainstorming mood at such times :P.
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Gratitude and new stuff


Tuesday, August 07, 2012
- Well, I’d sure be ungrateful if I didn’t take a minute to recognize and acknowledge God’s perfect timing and gentle but powerful reminders. So insurance is supposed to replace my power wheelchair every five years. There have been various problems with that, like trying to work with government health care, and changing private health care providers, twice. My chair was doing ok though, and we were a bit discouraged, so we weren’t pushing as hard for the new chair. One morning I woke up and my chair’s recline functionality wasn’t working. Sounds like a small deal, but I can’t even fit under my steering wheel if I can’t adjust my chair. I had to cancel work and have mom drive me to the wheelchair shop, where they tapped on the motor and that fixed it haha. A great long-term solution :P. So we redoubled our efforts on getting a new wheelchair, and following up weekly and such. And finally got the new chair… a month ago? I didn’t start using it yet though because it’s slower and the joystick apparatus is different than I’m used to. I figured I might as well wear out the one I liked first.
Meanwhile, my van is at 160,000 miles, and I know that doesn’t sound terrible, but it springs a new leak at least twice a year, and I even saw a list at work of problems my van usually has. I’ve already fixed seven out of the eight of the most common ones. And “most common” for some of those meant “20% of the time this model has this problem by the time it hits this mileage”. It putters randomly when starting up, the air bag light won’t turn off, the fan in the back sounds like a witch being boiled, etc… It cost me an average of $171.25 a month in car repairs over the last 12 months (that’s up $45 a month since February! Man it’s cool to be able to figure out stuff like this in seconds using mint.com haha). Anyway, we’ve been shopping since like, September 2011? (p.s. whenever I say “we” I’m probably referring to me and my amazing mom. She really gets full credit for the van shopping) Finally found a great van, and I’m paying a ridiculous sum for it, but that’s what modified vans cost :( (fun fact: the modifications for me to get inside and drive independently cost more than the van itself, good thing I’m a bachelor and a college graduate with a wonderful job that I love) it’s been taking FOREVER to modify (I’ve made five payments on the van already haha) BUT! It’s almost ready!
So today I took the day off because the guys at Mobility Solutions were ready to have me come park my chair in place behind the steering wheel, so they could see exactly where to put the lock and hand lever. And coincidentally (hah! Coincidence? No.) my power chair broke this morning. So I had to finally switch to my new chair, and so that was the one I fit to the van.
The interesting part about this whole scenario, is that once I was working hard on getting my new chair again, my old chair stopped having problems (problems we never really fixed, mind you) and once I bought my new van, my old van kept running (with it’s quirks, but things like the door and the battery, frequent problem children in the past, were fine). And THE DAY I was getting into my new van is when my old chair finally died. I feel like the Lord reminded me gently that my stuff was dying and I needed to get new stuff, but then once I was moving on it, He sustained what I had as long as I needed. Until the day of even, THE DAY OF. Pretty neat. I’m very grateful for the tender mercies of His timing, and for the means to stay independent.
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Random Thoughts 31.5 (8/7/2012)


So I forgot to include the random thoughts I wrote in my phone. Rather then add them in, here’s a half post.

Wednesday, July 04, 2012
- Had an interesting day with Alicia. We saw Spiderman, and I feel like she positioned herself so I could hold her hand, but I was afraid to. I thought, “Why didn't I just grab her hand like how I would do with people in the past?” But it was probably good that I didn’t. That night we had a deep chat about how she’d been dating Marcus, but no officially, and he doesn't make her feel needed. She was kind of bummed about it. Also in further retrospect, I now now (8/7/2012) that she doesn’t like me, so I was probably misreading the body language anyway.

Friday, July 06, 2012
- A good new motto I’d like to internalize. “If it's Thy will, I will.”

Sunday, July 08, 2012
- Teaching is like bearing your testimony. Where you plan out everything you're going to say, but then you get to the front and your mind goes blank.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012
- Alma 48:21 great imagery of reluctance to sin. “Compelled reluctantly”

Wednesday, July 11, 2012
- Think of, refer to, and treat sister-in-laws like sisters. Why in society do we care to differentiate them like they're some sort of different part of the family?

Wednesday, July 18, 2012
 I swear I let the same fly out the cards for many mornings in a row now. It's the same one that likes to attack the right side of my face when I start the car haha.

Sunday, July 22, 2012
- Buy a fan to carry in your backpack, it’s fun to have random items people around you would benefit from (in this case, on a hot day.)
- At ward prayer the story was told of a pregnant wife who wanted to do something to help her overworked husband, so she decided to mow the lawn. It was super hard to push it around and it was taking hours but she was almost done by the time her husband got home and stopped her. As he took over she asked what the second handle he was using did, and it was the throttle to make the lawnmower drive forward itself. They used this as an example to the gospel. I don't want to get to Heavenly Father's presence and explain why I didn't use the atonement during hard times. Why I struggled to push through life alone when I knew there was help within reach.
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Random Thoughts 31 (8/5/2012)


Monday, July 02, 2012
- Firefox has failed me for the last time. It crashes on me literally every time I try using it at work. That’s more often than IE!
- Random female characteristic I love in a girl (not required by any means). She can keep up over written mediums if I talk like this. 
- It’s crazy to me how an immodest woman can both draw the eye AND be a huge turn off all at the same time.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012
- I have an easier time going to weddings than I used too. Maybe it’s because years ago a larger majority of the people getting married were friends I may have been romantically interested in at one point.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012
- I love my job. I had nothing going on tonight, so I worked an extra hour. Then I said bye to John and ended up helping him for 30 minutes something that took me days to figure out. Then I went o say bye to Dinesh and ended up teaching him for 30 minutes something that took me days to figure out. I felt SUPER useful haha. Then I chatted with Jimmy and Randy for 45 minutes. Then ran into Darek (my VP) and talked to him for 45 minutes. Didn’t end up leaving the office until 8:30 haha. But I feel like I socialized all night, it just happened to be with people I work with :P.

Friday, July 13, 2012
- So a while back I talked about backing kissing in courting relationships to almost nothing. It’s not like I need the practice, you can tell physical compatibility even without, and it just makes you want to go further, so I’s just dangerous. However, I wonder if I backed off TOO much on cuddling and kissing. It’s usually part of the dating process. It’s not surprising I’m usually seen as just a good friend if we only do things good friends do. This probably has nothing to do with my dating success actually. I just need to better accept the Lords timing.
- Hmm, I want to eat, but I’m already sleepy, and I think I’ll get more sleepy if I eat. Dilemma!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012
- I wonder if part of why it was easy to fit in at work is because I get along with people older than me easier than with peers my age.
- So, you know how sometimes my leg will shoot straight out and shake around a little then fall to the ground in front of my foot rest? Well, today it landed right on the off switch for my computer's power strip. Hilarious. But I’m moving that power strip.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012
- This is how I felt about batman before seeing it.
   I didn't get on FB all day Thursday and Friday, just so there was no risk of expectation taintage. I saw it Saturday with Micah and Josh and enjoyed it :)
- So somehow a circuit got tripped at work and everyone but my computer and Todd’s turned off. Not sure how we’re wired to a different circuit. So I told everyone me and Todd were powering our computers with sheer force of personality.
- So I’ve been talking to a girl online (I meet one every so often) named Carrie. Super fun to talk to, seems cute, she’s an x-ray technician so there’s the hope a wheelchair isn’t weird to her haha. She’s been forward with giving me her number and flirting and she called tonight. So I had to break it to her that I’m in a wheelchair (she was going to invite me over for a movie, but she’s on the third floor :P) and pretty sure it was a deal-breaker. Could tell she got sufficiently awkward and I wasn’t sure what more I could do to alleviate it. We talked about some other stuff after and she had to go since her other friends were arriving for the aforementioned movie night. I’m not broken up about it or anything, I don’t really expect to find dates online, it’s just nice if I do. But it got me wondering if I should change my approach. I mean, I could put actual wheelchair pictures, and a funny statement about the whole wheelchair thing, so it’s there on the table right up front. I mean, I’m pretty sure any girl who wouldn’t talk to me originally is the type who wouldn’t date me for all time anyway. The difference is there a phase where I get to talk to them. I LOVE getting to know new people, it’s super fun! I’m wondering if it’s rude to girls like Carrie to let their expectations of non wheelchair Corby pile up, and then surprise them with wheelchair Corby. Who is pretty much the same guy mind you, but if they don’t get that I don’t particularly blame them. I’m not sure I’d have been willing to see. Maybe it’s time to switch the profile to handicap openness and see what happens though?

Thursday, July 21, 2012
- Last night was rough, really rough, both physically and emotionally. Last night I came the closest I have in years to breaking down and looking up pornography. I’m proud to stay I didn’t, I stayed clean despite the relentlessness of my mind that night. But I was also PISSED! Haha. Usually, if I’m ever tempted to look up pornography, in my mind I can be like “lol, no.” and move on and the temptation abates. Last night it wouldn’t leave me be! And on top of that I felt physically crappy (probably part of my lowered resistance :P) and couldn’t sleep from like 12:00 to 3:00. I finally started singing a hymn in my head and managed to fall asleep. The only thing that held me fast was I promised to myself and the Lord that if I ever broke, even just a little, I’d confess to the Bishop ASAP. And I didn’t want to have to confess haha. Thanks Bishop! Glad I stayed clean, but all around otherwise not happy about that night haha.
- So tonight I went over to Steph’s to discuss the crappy night I had just had. She has been doing a lot of research with pornography for her masters and her career path right now actually, and I wanted her advice. What I got out of it is anytime we’re relying on validation from any source other than ourselves or our relationship with Heavenly Father, we’re codependent on that validation. Basically I could still improve on being fully content single haha. But gratefully not ever day was as crappy as that one. Not any day is really haha, that’s why I was so annoyed :P.
P.s. the next day was back to simple resistance. For which I'm very grateful :)

Friday, July 20, 2012
- So we randomly had a “bug out” contest at work, where we had all day to just poke at the product and find as many bugs as possible, and I won! A nexus 7 tablet! Basically a google smartphone with a 7” screen and no phone haha. Good times, that makes two contests I’ve won at work. My ego is too big again :/ haha

Tuesday, July 24, 2012
- The church activity was indexing. It was way fun! I only got one batch done because I spent a bunch of time getting others set up and teaching them how to do it. Pro tip I for anyone reading this, do NOT go across s whole row, it’s super slow. I GUARANTEE you will increase your speed a ton if you index a column at a time. Do all the surnames then all the first names, etc… getting your mind in the same mindset for each column, and the columns auto-duplicating data when applicable, is SO helpful!
- On the way out of the activity I asked Alicia if it’s legal to take her out anymore, and if it’s even a good idea. She started giving me the “I love you as a friend” speech, but I didn’t need it, I had already suspected this. So it was sad to have that door officially closed, but it’s helpful to have closure all the same.
- So Naor (team lead at work) was at the Uruguay office for 3 weeks, and right after he left we got our three new hires haha. Dinesh, Jake, and Chad. Usually the team lead would help set them up and advise them and explain product and company background and so on. But with Naor gone it basically fell to me. I wasn’t getting much of my own work done for like a week, but I loved it. I like helping others be productive more than I enjoy producing something on my own. And in DSM they even recognized that’s why I wasn’t getting through my tasks and thanked me for helping everyone else out. What a great company. I love my job.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012
- Went upstairs to ask Travis about doing a background check on my PA I’m hiring. I’m going with a guy named John Rossi, the only thing he has against him is that he isn’t a cute girl haha. Sadly that’s not a necessary part of the job requirements. Anyway, I meant it to be a brief chat with Travis, but we talked or like 40 minutes, and I left with the conviction to draft a simple contact for me and John haha. I have a hard time having brief chats at work!!
- So I assume one of the big reasons Alicia isn’t interested in dating me is because I can’t be very physically active. And I figured this will be a problem with most girls. But it seems like Alyssa Quinn, who is quite athletic, is interested in me. If so that shoots down the assumption. I don’t understand dating at all. The good news is at this point I never really expect to haha, I just seem to try to anyway.
- Went down a 125 foot slip and slide tonight haha. With Alicia and Alyssa under each arm. Here's a link to the public video on my FB, but I don’t know if it’ll always work… 
- Had an interesting chat with Micah. He was getting pretty upset about the angry homosexual debates online. And I told him I don’t read them because they just bother me too, and he said he feels like he should be able to hold his own in a confrontation. And this was my response
“I can relate to the hold my own should I be confronted idea. And I'm just brain storming about this now... But I've been reading a book called "how to Win friends and influence people" and one of the recent sections was "you can never win an argument". It talked about how in an argument both people's egos flare and they dig in their heels regardless of their conviction to their original stance. And how even if you "win" an argument and lay down all the facts and prove the other person wrong, they still hang on to their opinion, and resent you for making them look like a fool. Being "confronted" sounds like an argument to me. As such, no matter how educated I am on the matter if I argue back with the material I've read it won't make any difference. If I'm having a discussion with someone with an opposing opinion, they won't be swayed with a Chick-fil-A article I read, or stupid bigot comment that I know how to counter. They'll be interested in the principal, and my stance on the principle, and why. Thus I really can't see in what scenario having read stuff that just upsets me is helpful at all. I'm just brainstorming out loud…”
In addition to that, I was talking to Alyssa about the debates and she linked some church articles on the matter. The most powerful of which was this link. It helped solidify my feelings on the matter, they are as follows.
#1. Marriage is ordained of God and explicitly listed in the scriptures as being between a man and a woman. Anything that is innately connected to marriage, like adoption, must stay available to only a man and a woman legally and lawfully wed.
#2. I’m fine with gay couples having rights to anything that isn’t innately tied to marriage. For example, hospital visiting rights. I see no reason why that should be restricted to a spouse, they can come up with systems that allow hospitalized people to pre-declare people other than their spouses who can visit.
#3. Homosexual tendencies are part of someone, whether due to the nature or nurture argument, they’re there. However, acting upon them is a choice, and a sin. I’m sure this is a point that there’s just no way to find common ground on. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me any more than I’d expect others to agree that heterosexual sex before marriage is a sin. Maybe in order to live the gospel, a gay person will never get to feel sexually fulfilled in this life, or never marry. But I run the same potential of lack of intimacy or marriage with my disability. We all have different challenges, designed to shape us in to who we should be.
#4. Drew likes to use the parallel of how gay people are being denied rights to how black people used to have their rights denied. He talks about how in 40 years we’ll look back and we’ll all feel like idiots for standing against gay marriage. There IS a massive difference between the two scenarios though. Nowhere in the scriptures does it say it’s wrong to have different color skin, or that only white people can have the priesthood, or so on. Those were incorrect interpretations or assumptions of men that needed to be corrected. However, the scriptures DO explicitly say that acting on homosexual tendencies is a sin. People with such tendencies are not any less of a person, “don’t judge me because I sin differently than you” certainly applies here. But it is a sin, it’s in the scriptures, we can never bend and accept or legalize it without also basically saying that our doctrine is subject to the whims of men.  It doesn’t surprise me that people like Drew, who don’t believe the scriptures are the word of God, won’t agree with me. But that’s fine. Everyone is just living the best they know how.
-  It is painful to watch someone who is an exclusive clicker operate a computer.

Sunday, July 29, 2012
- Commit to go for the girl the Lord lets you know to go for. It worked for Grandpa Campbell!

Tuesday, July 31, 2012
- “For those who are discouraged by their circumstances and are therefore tempted to feel they cannot serve the Lord this day, I make you two promises. Hard as things seem today, they will be better in the next day if you choose to serve the Lord this day with your whole heart. Your circumstances may not be improved in all the ways which you desire. But you will have been given new strength to carry your burdens and new confidence that when your burdens become too heavy, the Lord, whom you have served, will carry what you cannot. He knows how. He prepared long ago. He suffered your infirmities and your sorrows when He was in the flesh so that He would know how to succor you.” – Elder Eyring 2007 Aprilconference

Sunday, August 05, 2012
- Moving out in !!!8 DAYS!!! Holy crap! This is probably the last random thoughts I’ll post from home :(.I am excited for change, but I’ll definitely miss the ward here too. It’s become a great tight knit group like unto my Orem ward back in the day. I hope me and CJ can be part of making our new ward like that. Or that it’s already close :D
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Random Thoughts 30 (7/1/2012)


Wednesday, June 06, 2012
- “’You get what you pay for’ applies to spiritual matters too.” – Elder Holland, October 2010
- “She gives me presents, with her presence alone.” – Jack Johnson, Angel

Sunday, June 10, 2012
- At ward prayer, someone shared a great talk from 1952 by President Kimball. It talked about how often times we can’t see the end from the beginning, we just need to take a step forward anyway. Nephi didn’t know how he’d get to the plates when he went in. Moses didn’t know how he’d cross the Red Sea. There was no ram in the thicket when Abraham went up to sacrifice his son. It was perfectly stated too, but I tried looking it up and didn’t find it. The search on LDS.org is not very good. It finds a bunch of hits with matching “the” and “of”s… but a 1952 talk might not be on there anyway :P.
- Was thinking about what I could be doing better and singing O Lord My Redeemer in the car, and the lyrics “And the more that I'd inquire, the hotter burned the fire. I found joy, beyond compare.” Hit me hard. How can I expect answers if I don’t ask questions?

Monday, June 11, 2012
- Me: Procrastinate. It's the only logical course of action. Kate:  what are you putting off? besides a fair amount of sex appeal ;). Me: That was the best response, I have EVER received, to any comment EVER

Wednesday, June 13, 2012
- So I just got an automated call that said “Hi this is Bob Bennett. I apologize for intruding on our evening with a robo call but I think this is important.” And I said “alright Bob.” And the call hung up, haha.

Friday, June 15, 2012
- I’ve come closer to really believing I’ll never get married in mortality than ever before during this past week. I dislike my lack of faith.
- Those who followed Satan in the pre-mortal world lacked trust in God to get them to eternal life. How often in mortality do we do the same? (prompted by Elder Eyering Oct 2010 Sunday morning)

Saturday, June 16, 2012
- Super awesome day! It started with a great episode of Legend of Korra, and ended with dinner at Neal’s place that night. But probably my favorite was mid-day. Micah and Josh brought their friend Cullen, and I got Rob and Spencer (DnD with Steph friends) over, and we made our crew for the Mistborn adventure game. It was super fun brainstorming with that bunch of guys! I’m super excited to get to play! But it won’t be frequent, lol. Thus far I don’t think we’ll meet up until July 21st at the earliest haha.
- Dinner at Neal’s was also good though. I wanted an excuse to see some Orem people. So we got Todd Schriener, Camilla Meyer, and Jorden Hobush over. Me and Jorden are supposedly going to go see the midnight showing of Brave (the new pixar movie) Friday, so that should be fun too. But the best part of the whole thing was after Neal took me back to my chair (I was stuck on his couch before) and we got to talk 1 on 1 for an hour. It’s good hearing him talk about wanting to be more motivated (church and life) although he doesn’t quite have the right motivators around right now it seems haha. Especially with Andrew getting married. P.s. Andrew Clark is engaged! Marriage in September. They won’t get married in the temple at first L Megan has a past. But as Neal understands it, Andrew is confident Megan is re-committed and moving in the right direction. I hope it’s the case, Andrew deserves someone who supports him in the gospel.

Sunday, June 17, 2012
- Another reason I love cats. Gambit sleeping, head on my shoulder, stretched out between my arm and my torso, with a paw on my face.

- So I’ve tried the solving a problem per week thing. And it’s been TOTALLY SUCCESSFUL! We found an apartment for me Cj and Josh. I took a half-day off and we all went shopping  12-4. Finally settled on Ventana apartments behind the Krispy Kremes near UVU. Way bigger than my Wolverine Crossing place, just as close to the freeway, and I’ll even have the roll in shower I want! Then the second week my objective was advertizing for bowel care help. I got sick mid week so that slowed me down and I haven’t posted these yet… But on Friday I made…

- If you feast on the scriptures, they WILL tell you all things you should do. If you look forward to scripture reading like you look forward to eating on fast Sunday. If every day is a scripture fast, you'll be worthy of the above blessing.

Monday, June 18, 2012
- Me: “OH YOU REMINDED ME OF SOMETHIN... I'm shouting aren't I?” Sarah “You are what we call cyber-shouting, yes.” Me: “Who does "we" include? I mean, I'd assume you and I, since we're (<-- see the "we" in that?) the ones having a conversation. But then if I'm included in "we", how is it that I'm being introduced to a definition already established by we? So confused...”
- I figured out why there are more awesome and physically attractive women than there are men. See, when someone lacks the standard "popular" traits, they tend to make up for it by developing an awesome personality. Good looks is the foremost requirement of "popular" people. My experience of girls as a whole is they never believe they're as beautiful as they really are. So, believing their looks less, they make up for it with awesome personality. But in the end they actually have BOTH!
- Audrey just called at random and apologized for “treating you like crap. And I don’t ever say crap so that’s saying something.” And it was nice. I have felt stepped on a lot and I was ready to let it just dwindle into whatever. But I also don’t like holding grudges. So I’m happy to do my best to go back like it’s a clean slate.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012
- “All I know is I don’t know how to be someone you miss.” Sappy Taylor Swift lyric that resonated with me today haha.

Friday, June 22, 2012
- Still pretty low on dating. I have an active run around type personality, so I tend to be attracted to similar girls. However, girls like that tend to be attracted to similar guys. Since I can’t actually run around and play ultimate Frisbee, or soccer, or go hiking, etc, I can’t seem to hold said type of girls interest. So it feels like I can’t have that type of girl. I also don’t want someone that feels like I’m settling for someone though. Whoever I marry deserves to feel like I love everything about them, I’m not good at faking genuineness. Anyway it adds up to feeling pretty hopeless. This was spurred a bit because I don’t think I have a chance with Alicia at this point when Marcus is interested in her (and her back) and he can do all the things I used to do but can’t now.

Saturday, June 23, 2012
- Youth activity summit! Awesome activity. Some of my favorite highlight quotes conveyed John Bytheway or Sheri Dew.
- “Regardless of your original intention, you will eventually become what you surround yourself with.” And “You are the average of the 5 people you hang around with most.” These really make me wonder about what and who Neal and Micah surround themselves with. But as far as I go? I think I’m doing ok. Not great but ok haha. 5 most common
     Sheri Dew:
“There’s a common lie that a ’balanced man’ deliberately guards against becoming too righteous.” (Elder Carlos)
- Fun dating activity idea. John Bytheway showed a clip from candid camera where people would walk into an elevator and face the opposite direction, and see if people would follow suit. It’d be fun to come up with and do some candid camera-like activities.
- Suggested number getting line I thought was fun haha "I'd love to get to know you better. And I'd kick myself if I didn't get your number!" The dating coach was fun, but her whole lecture centered on first interactions. I can get a number if I really want, or go on dates. Making any of those turn into meaningful relationships is the hard part.

Sunday, June 24, 2012
- Audrey is still awkward around me haha. She just reacts differently than before to my jokes or sillyness or serious comments or anything really. Goof.
- So sacrament meeting is a good time to make and review weekly goals, this week they were:
- Read a chapter in the BoM every day.
- Read a chapter in the OT thrice a week.
- Index a batch
- Temple (I only go bi-monthly)
    And I totally did them all. I also like to throw in a non reoccurring problem to solve, like fixing my car or deciding where to move. Haven’t always hit those goals every week.
- Awesome quotes from the fireside tonight with Dan Clark:
“If we became what we thought about, I'd be a woman by now.”
“I was so skinny I had to jump back and forth in the shower to get wet.”
“You’d make a lousy someone else, so who is the real you?”
“Self esteem and motivation don't change behavior. Behavior changes behavior.”
“There's a huge difference between being discouraged or disappointed, and being depressed.” So true by the way! I think people assume depression far too quickly when it’s really just discouragement, I know I’m currently discouraged :/.
“Ask not how to get better but why should I get better, and the how follows.” 1 Nephi 3:7
- “Don't be depressed about growing older. It will make you feel even older. Which is depressing.” – Sarah Flinders Blog

Monday, June 25, 2012
- Try reading scriptures out loud, like you’re recording it for posterity.
- I often feel like there’s actually nothing wrong and I’m just a big whiner when I show up to the doctors office.
- The weird thing about having a 9-5 job is I’m used to change. Classes changing, routines shifting… but with a 9-5, there’s hardly any change in routine. Weird. Note, stuff I work on between 9-5 shifts all the time, and it’s very engaging, I love being a developer J. But the “work 9-5” block doesn’t change.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012
- So I used to date cute girls with low confidence, and I haven’t for years now. But I had the thought I went for those girls because I had confidence in their potential. Have I lost faith in them? Or become more selfish in my expectations? Or was my preference shift really a good thing? I don’t know, or really care to answer it right now since I’m not focusing on dating anyway, but it was an interesting thought. And if I don’t write such thoughts down I stop having interesting thoughts.
- Sat next to Camilla from Ireland in institute. Every time she comments it makes me smile haha. Accents are awesome.
- Had to have CJ drive me to work in my new van today while my radiator was getting fixed in my old van. And #1 I really dislike being a passenger, I’m way too used to always driving haha. #2 since CJ was in Orem already, I spent the majority of the last 2 hours of work asking team leads if they could use an intern and telling them about CJ, then bringing CJ in and letting them have an unofficial interview while I went back to work. He basically interviewed for 2 hours straight, but it was good, we talked about it the whole way home. We have high hopes one will pan out :D.
- We all have the light of Christ. One of it’s roles is to act as our conscience. One of the easiest ways to chase it out is by blaming others. Did Christ ever blame anyone for anything ever?
- Even with the Gift of the Holy Ghost we still make mistakes, but it will warn us before we ever make a big mistake (Boyd K Packer, 2011). I don’t remember getting a warning before breaking my neck. I think that’s another small witness it was meant to be.
-  Learned a little tonight about the Holy Ghost’s role as the Holy Spirit of Promise. Who seals our actions in this life. This was a new one to me, I should learn more.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012
- Work chat highlight “I used to play video games, but then I took a wife to the knee” hahah.

Thursday, June 28, 2012
- Took the day off and went to Yuba Lake for a Higgins family reunion. It was pretty fun. I knew most everyone would be out on boats the whole time, and so I was excited to play this “fourteen across” solitaire type game I learned at a previous family reunion. But it was CRAZY windy! Like no fun to be outside windy, and throw stuff off the table windy. I had my computer though, and I wanted to play that game!! So I coded it up and managed to play twice (and fail, haha) before my laptop battery died.

Friday, June 29, 2012
- I keep waking up and feeling like after the events of the night, my life will now be significantly different. But it’s not, and I can’t remember what about my dreams would make me feel so haha.
- “And God created Saturn and he liked it, so he put a ring on it.” haha

Saturday, June 30, 2012
- Fun day. Josh is in Japan, so picked up Landon to play board games with me and Micah. We played Stone Age twice and I won both, the first by a fair margin, the second by ONE point! It was like 212 to 213 or something. After Micah left me and Landon went for a walk haha. Discussed philosophy and video games place in our lives (if any) and Andrew’s engagement and such… it was great. Then we came back and played Carcassone with CJ… with FIVE EXPANSION PACKS! So many extra rules! I got absolutely destroyed that game, CJ won by a ton, but it was fun.

Sunday, July 01, 2012
- I may have wrote this already, but I reversed a previous dating conclusion recently. I’ve talked long ago about how every girlfriend I’ve had was just a natural progression to togetherness, I didn’t have to try to go on multiple dates before they started to like me or I them, it almost always was just right up front there was a connection that led to a relationship. However, this is like a Hollywood version of relationships, and real life isn’t like the movies. So I decided maybe I need to try multiple dates, or take out great people who I’m not drawn to yet but think I could be. I’ve been trying that for a good while, it’s why I was pretty much going on a date a week or more for quite a while. But this extra effort stratagem doesn’t seem to be making any difference in my success rate. So I’m stepping it back to “if I want to take them out, I will. But I won’t force myself to try to find someone to take out if there’s no one that’s genuinely calling to me.” Maybe I’ll switch back to focused dating again after moving out, but this is the now.
- Can you get an answer to a prayer about what to pray and fast about? It seems like whatever you prayed about as a possibility, you didn't answer like "yeah that's a great idea!" That being said, today I’m fasting about finding and having the courage to participate in some sort of service. I’m still in a bit of a slump.  I’d like to lose myself in something good, something not alone at my computer, and something service oriented. 
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