Random Thoughts 22 (11/6/2011)

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

- It’s funny how much I (and many of my friends) avoid making plans with just guys when every time I hang out with guys it’s so socially fulfilling (saw Micah, Neal, Landon, and Andrew these last few days…)

- Brother Bartholomue taught apostasy wasn’t just not knowing the truth, it’s acting against the truth. It’s not that the early church lost the truth, it’s that they had it and chose not to follow it. Are we any better? Apostasy against covenants, priesthood, ordinances, and the temple?

- Our generation seems content to “know” the truth or “know” the answers to gospel questions. But we hate it when we have to do stuff. Fulfilling a calling, doing home teaching, attending the temple. Am I in a state of apostasy?

Thursday, September 08, 2011

- I think for such girls immodesty is like swearing. They realize it's inappropriate but they do it anyway because they don't think it's a big deal. I'd argue immodesty is a much bigger deal than swearing though...

- So I’m loving working out, it does just make you feel good. Also, I love that the person I worked with this time said “watching you work out is like an anatomy lesson, you can see every little muscle!”

Friday, September 09, 2011

- So I’m working with code that sends texts, and every time I get a text I get all excited until I’m like “Dangit!! It’s me again!”

Monday, September 12, 2011

- I had a dream last night I was on a bus with Will Smith, and they were going to film new fresh prince of belair episodes, and he wanted me to audition…

- So I was driving on the freeway this morning, lost in my thoughts, and I realized I hadn't seen any construction in like 15 minutes. For a minute there I was worried I was driving entirely the wrong direction. "No construction!? This can't be Utah County!"

Thursday, September 15, 2011

- It’s really embarrassing showing up in the same outfit as someone else, right? This is why I’m never going to a nude beach.

- This is when I wrote my Neuroworx note below.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

- I had enough upright tolerance to “go for a walk” around the neighborhood in my manual chair today. I’ve like, never ever done that before. I was always so light headed it was an option, and then the idea never occurred to me to do so after I got more stable. It was fun.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

- I may have made this observation before… But I think it’s interesting that in the Book of Mormon the enemies of the church tended to try to convince people there’s no Christ, but they still had a religion, or the Law of Moses. But nowadays Satan seems to be going for convincing people there’s no God, or need for religion altogether.

Friday, September 23, 2011

- So I was feeling pretty smug about the supposed amount I’ve accomplished despite being in a wheelchair. However, I haven’t done anything cool for a wheelchair, basically I just continued to do normal things (drive, graduate from college) despite my wheelchair. I haven’t done anything difficult to do specifically because I’m in a wheelchair. Neuroworx has been interesting…

- I don’t think I ever mentioned, back when we went to Lake Powell, we listened to Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card. And not only did his super interesting boo make the seven hour drive there and back super easy for me to stay awake through (I never dozed either way) but! He saved us $5000! When we got to the lake it was like 11:00, and we started undocking the boat, but we wanted to finish our chapter first, so we delayed like five minutes. In that five minutes, a ranger came up and told us if we got in the water now I’d be a $5000 fine! If we hadn’t delayed to listen, we would have been in the water already!

- So dating 18 year olds is weird. But that’s the main audience that seems available. And my dad married my mom when she was that young and he was 27. Sometimes I wonder if I need to date an amazing but still immature young girl and train her up haha.

- I’m feeling like I don’t have enough listeners in my life at the moment, everyone wants to talk at me but few want to listen after they’re done lately. I’m feeling a bit selfish because of it haha, oh well.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

- Mason posed a brilliant question during scripture study yesterday. If we have to be transfigured to be in the presence of Christ, will everyone be transfigured at the second coming? I have two theories. #1 we know that even many members will not know the second coming has taken place. I think people tend to think of the second coming as some unexplained explosion of fire with Him at the center. No, He will probably come somewhere silently, and only those in His presence need to be transfigured. #2, he appeared to Mary and the Apostles after being resurrected right? Apparently He can appear without having to be in a glory that needs transfiguring.

- For someone who claims to be able to do anything he sets his mind to, I sure can be lazy.

Monday, September 26, 2011

- I feel.. .attachment numb today?

Thursday, September 29, 2011

- I’ve decided I’m definitely not a workaholic, nor a playaholic. But it’s harder to find balance than it is to just overindulge in one! Haha.

- The only thing as crappy as no free time is too much free time.

- I’m like a Brandon Sanderson missionary. I go around trying to give people his books, while promising if they read one they’ll develop a testimony of its awesomeness for themselves.

Monday, October 03, 2011

- UGHH! It’s so hard to tell the difference between personal fear/insecurities vs promptings haha.

- I said something in a text today that I regret bringing after I sent it. But somehow, they didn’t get that message. Divine malfunction?...

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

- The Hunger Game is the reading equivalent of a song with a catchy beat but disgusting lyrics. (it’s a well told story, but a terrible story to tell.)

- Funny how many things take time. It's clear as a general rule humankind must be really terrible at learning patience haha.

Friday, October 14, 2011

- Elder Uchtdorf hit it right on the head when he talked about people focusing so much on the golden ticket that they forget to enjoy the candy bar. Getting married is definitely my proverbial golden ticket sometimes. “The happiest people I know are not those who find their golden ticket; they are those who, while in pursuit of worthy goals, discover and treasure the beauty and sweetness of the everyday moments. They are the ones who, thread by daily thread, weave a tapestry of gratitude and wonder throughout their lives. These are they who are truly happy.”

Saturday, October 22, 2011

- “When Dad grows up he wants to be like Gambit” – Mom, after Dad caught a mouse with a bucket and peanut butter.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

- I realize that I sleep much better when breathing through my mouth. Anytime I get a real good sleep I wake up with a dry mouth which I hate, but it’s worth it. I wish I could actively breath through my mouth to fall asleep but it just doesn’t work. My mouth is not at rest while partially open, so I have to consciously focus on keeping it open. And feeling the dryness set in while awake bugs. Darn.

- I just realized how grateful I am that even though I can’t use the muscles in my fingers, I still have feeling in them; Partuclarly the index finger and thumb. I was holding a yogurt and eating it with a spoon and thinking about how precariously balanced both the yogurt cup and the front loaded spoon were in my limp fingers. But I could tell they were stable (enough) because how the pressure was allocated in my fingers. This would be a lot harder in absence of that feeling haha.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

- Yesterday was an awesome 12 hour day at work (which never happens btw, meaning I never have to work late). Everyone was getting stressed. So, naturally, I got really hyper and boisterous.

Friday, November 04, 2011

- So I read the first two chapters of Alloy of Law today, and then when heading to my car I spit on the driveway and almost got it on myself. My first thought was “that was dangerous” but then I was like “dangerous? I must lead an interesting life if getting a little spit on me is ‘dangerous’.”

Neuroworx

What a day! Well so I went to Neuroworx for my weekly work out. I mostly am working out posterior shoulder muscles, but I do some biceps too. My biceps are already pretty strong though so we want to catch my other muscles up.

Three random thoughts from today. My experience there today.

#1. The last two times I went I was the only non-staff there (It’s an after-hours program). But this time there was a guy named Barry(sp?) who I actual met way back five years ago when I went for a short while. Barry is on his 16^th year as a quad, making it over half his life now. He is pretty much the same muscle picture as me, except he’s actually got a small functional bit of triceps now. But anyway, he has been independent with transfers (before he had trace triceps) since about five years out. Which means, if I’m understanding all the relevant factors correctly, I could be too.

Me and Barry were talking afterwards, and he asked if I’d thought of getting in a manual chair. Let me back up, five years ago when I first went to Neuroworx for a while, I was struggling a ton with orthostatic hypotention (low blood pressure, particularly while sitting up). I had a chest binder and tedhos and everything we could think of, and if I tried to exert myself physically even for like two minutes, I’d get super lightheaded and my muscles would burn from lack of oxygen. Now, my blood pressure is MUCH more stable. Today I went and did 15 minutes of cardio, and three sets of five different exercises all of which made the muscle in use burn enough that I couldn’t do another rep. My blood pressure is definitely more stable now. So when Barry mentioned a me being in a manual chair, this is the first time the thought entered my mind in a “you know what, that’s actually a possibility!” way.

However, I asked him what the benefits of manual chair vs power chair are, and he basically said “you just get to move more, keep your heart going, better quality of life.” I still am a bit skeptical about the worth-it-ness of the manual chair. I have experienced first-hand how exerting myself physically does just seems to release feelings of happiness and usefulness. And so if wheeling around all day just that effect as a bi-product I can see the appeal. I guess I’m just a bit skeptical about the consistency of that, or the potency. I feel like sporty people just seem to get more a sense of fulfillment just because they’re doing something physical in general. As a non sporty type, working out just for the sake of working out doesn’t make as much sense. Although as mentioned I have been experiencing the appeal, and so it’s making more sense. Part of my mind just isn’t convinced that making my life more difficult in various ways, on purpose, would “improve my quality of life”. However, I am, for the first time ever I believe, open to the idea, because I see it as an actual possibility at this point. Something it never really felt like before.

#2. (yeah, that was just number one.) I now know where to find the wheelchair meat-heads haha. Apparently, the wheelchair rugby group does all sorts of other biking/rafting/high adventure activities. Once again those activities in themselves still have a moderate appeal at best. As a social person, the biggest draw for such an activity in my mind is it would be a great date activity haha. On the social train of thought though, it would be a place to actually interact with other wheelchair guys/girls. This is all sorts of wrong of me but I still somehow don’t associate myself with “that group” in my mind. I see myself as not in the “normal” group either, I love all the wheelchair jokes and uniqueness of the whole thing. But I somehow don’t see myself as one of the wheelchair people either. Two tangents on this, A) it’s surprising it doesn’t make me feel terribly lonely feeling like I don’t fit in either group. B) Probably the real solution is I shouldn’t differentiate either group, we should all just be people wheelchair or no, oh well. Anyway, it might be good to participate in other quad friendly high adventure things. Definitely open to the possibility. Definitely going to need some more toning to get there haha. I’ve only been at this Neuroworx thing for three days over three weeks! Oh full time jobs get in the way of EVERYTHING.

#3. I found out today that there’s a procedure they can do to attach tendons from muscles I do currently have use of to my fingers, so basically I’d have some semblance of grip and release. It would be all gripping and releasing at once, so not individual use. And it’s still not like “normal”. But it’s definitely a conscious grip and release, how cool is that!? I asked if Barry could think of any reason not to, and he was like “no, but don’t rush into a decision”. So that could be very interesting. It’s also like a 6-8 week recovery though, which doesn’t mix well with working haha. Totally going to research further though!

So, in short, going back to Neuroworx to see what I can learn? Totally worth it! Learning tons for now J so much to explore!

Random Thoughts 21 (9/4/2011)

Saturday, August 27, 2011

- So… went on a date with Brittany Bird. We ended up at walmart buying a crab, and the old (like 65+ type old) employee helping us started ranting about how there’s not enough employees because the top management is supposedly hoarding the money blah blah… but the best part was when Brittany said “I’m sorry!” and he goes “Don’t say you’re sorry! Never say you’re sorry! There’s three rules, never let them see you sweat, never say you’re sorry, and no good deed goes unpunished.” Funny old guy… not the best take on life though, if he was being sarcastic it didn’t come through :P.

- That night I went out with Cari DeCoursi (yes, two dates the same day, so sue me). She told me the story of how she had gone on a bunch of dates with a guy in her ward, and after one recently they had DTR , she was willing to keep pursuing the relationship, but he said something like, ”you know how the world has this image of what a girl should look like? I just kind of struggle that you’re not that.” Holy crap, I wanted to kick the guy in the nuts. Men like that should be allowed in public. Cari said it’s probably the rudest thing anyone has ever said to her. the next day she was over crying with her mom though, and apparently that’s the day I decided to text something along the lines of “Cari! I miss your beautiful face! When can I see you again?” and it made her day. Yay for inspired timing I suppose? I sure didn’t feel like I was acting on a prompting when I texted haha.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

- So during scripture study we read a scripture where the author was about to say more, but felt he had to stop. And we of course were like, “I wonder what that stuff is?” Cj offered a good theory “maybe we’ve been getting it all along at a slow rate through modern prophets.” Which I like, but, I think it’s not correct due to 2 Nephi 32:6. We of course are getting great and new advice from the prophets, but not new doctrine, which I think is more what the author who couldn’t write more was referring to.

-Went to the ER Tuesday night! My cath stopped draining and we (me and mom) went to put a new one in, but my bladder clamped up and we couldn’t do it. And my blood pressure kept rising painfully… so I took the emergency drug that is supposed to lower my blood pressure a crap ton. Even with that in my system my blood pressure was above 180-200 until we solved the problem. It’s one of the few times ever I remember being in so much pain I literally cried. We called 911 and an ambulance took us to the ER (hopefully ambulance rides are covered under my insurance…) during the trip the drug I took finally alleviated most of the pain, but my legs shook constantly in pain until we got a cath in 45 or so minutes later. After the pain though the whole thing was kind of fun. I joked around With the hospital employees and such… Dad even came with this time. Kind of fun to show him what our hospital adventures are like J.

- Once we got everything at the ER worked out and were just waiting for them to finish paperwork so I could go home, I texted Robert (my manager) something like “Hey Robert, so I had a bit of a medical emergency and I’m at the ER right now, but it looks like we’ve got everything worked out and we’re just waiting for them to let us go. I’ll probably need to sleep in tomorrow and I’ll be a little late for work, sorry! Thanks for your patience!” so apparently, Robert only got the second half in the morning that just said “I’ll probably need to sleep in tomorrow and I’ll be a little late for work, sorry! Thanks for your patience!” and he was like “what the?... have we been too lenient with Corby?” glad we got that straightened out haha.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

-Did lunch with Natalie Haight! It was super great. We got to have a pretty deep conversation about dating (not each other) and stuff. I think I actually see Natalie more regularly than any other girl I spend time with, and I see Natalie like monthly… Further evidence of my campfire analogy in my last blog haha…

Thursday, September 01, 2011

- Real life girls are just as beautiful/physically attractive as movie girls, but they have a personality to go with it. Whenever I’ve met movie looking girls in real life they have all the wrong motivations/aspirations (if any). It makes it easy not to date them though because no such girl would be interested in a guy in a wheelchair anyway.

- Almost got in a car accident this morning, had to veer between some construction barrels into the unused but finished portion of the road to avoid rear ending someone. Apparently they had slowed to their ridiculous stop because a construction barrel was rolling around on the freeway though. Good times.

Friday, September 02, 2011

- “I want, when I die, them to find me sitting in my chair with my face having fallen on the keyboard and having just typed seven thousand pages worth of the letter 'Z.' In this way, I'll have written even after I die.” – Brandon Sanderson

Sunday, September 04, 2011

- So I think I’ve mentioned this in blog posts before, but I’m going to apply to do a CS masters at BYU. Mostly due to the stagnantness I feel with my life now. I didn’t think I’d miss school THIS much! I was even a bit jealous when people were posting status’ about the first day. Anyway, one thing needed for applying is to take the GRE. The GRE is a test that examines your records and tests your reasoning/logic skills. I went online and took all the practice problems and actually had fun haha. I enjoy proving my knowledge or discovering where I lack (in areas I care about :P. Lack of knowledge in bio-chemistry doesn’t bug me at all :P).

Random Thoughts 20 (8/28/2011)

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

- I realized something weird. I think I like reporting in, and telling my managers about my bug progress, and when I leave for lunch or what not. Odd.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

- Oook a few rants. So I was out to dinner with a new friend (Julia) and she made a comment along the lines of “you like to have every night planned, huh?” it had a “you’re not very spontaneous, are you?” energy to me, and I wanted to deny it, because I consider myself a spontaneous person. But in truth lately, I haven’t been. Or at least if I am technically a spontaneous personality, I’ve made so many plans I haven’t had time to be spontaneous. I really plan most nights.

I used to be super spontaneous. I was great at living in the moment. I used to drive around to friends houses late at night and throw marshmallows at their window to get their attention just to chat a while. Even when I threw parties in high school I didn’t have any rhyme or reason. It’s not like I was known for having a monthly party. If I felt like throwing a party, I did. Even when I moved out, my instinct any time I went to get food was to check if I could find companionship in the process.

Now, somehow, if I don’t have anything planned I feel useless. Part of my contentment I know as that even if everyone said no, I’d still have video games to play. I feel mostly lame playing video games alone now though (although they’re a great social activity), and I don’t have any other consistent activity I enjoy. All of this basically adds up to me being less content.

I had an “ah-ha!” while praying the other night though. I have not been acting on the confidence I have that everything happens for a reason. I have been clean, and going to the temple every week, and so I have this expectation that I should be worthy to be guided into constant growth opportunities or “useful” things to do. But my life hasn’t been living up to that expection. On days I’m doing nothing I feel like I’m failing somehow. But, I feel at peace having to made the choice to stay home (for now). I think as long as I stay worthy and listen, I can stop feeling guilty about “wasting” time when no other plans came to fruition.

- At the moment I’m still terrible at vegging, when did this happen?

Sunday, August 21, 2011

- “For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one hacking at the root.” – Henry Thorough

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

- I titled the left side of my left monitor towards me an inch so it's facing more directly at me, and I feel like everything has changed.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

- I used to be a professional handicapped person (I got paid for it!) but now it’s just a hobby J

Friday, August 26, 2011

- Where do construction workers park? There must be a construction bus.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

- So… Karissa Kim loves this fantasy series called the Belgariad. As a general rule, I Karissa Kim has good taste in stuff, so me and CJ decided to read the Belgariad series (5 medium-small books). I learned something interesting about my reading preferences though. To me, it’s not just enough to have a random adventure in a known world. I love discovering what’s going on along side with the characters. I realized this because the Belgariad drove me CRAZY. They give you a prophesy about the main character in the prologue, and then he embarks on an adventure with people who know who he is, and he keeps asking them who he is and they tell him to shut up or clean the dishes. Having the characters continually have discussions about something I the reader already knew about made me want to gouge my eyes out. And it took the rest of the joy of the small discoveries in the world out of it. I completed book two and the main character still doesn’t know he’s anything special. Two complete books of them lying to him and avoiding his questions! Ugh! On the way to Lake Powell we read Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card, instantly and massively intriguing. And while there I picked up Fablehaven and read the first third, also entertaining, and I decided “yeah, I’m not finishing the Belgariad…”

- I had a bit of an aha, which I haven’t thought through in detail so this will be kind of a free write. But, I have concluded I’m even worse at dating than I thought haha. Or at least, the way I date leads to the fact I have friends but no girlfriends. I mean, I even call many of my dates “friend dates” and if people are like “oooOOOooo a date! What are you going to do?” I’m usually like “I don’t know, she’s a good friend so I don’t think it really matters much”. I started doing these friend date style dates and luncheons because I found showing romantic interest scares girls off, and so I don’t even get a chance to spend time with them. At least if I put their mind at ease in regards to romantic pursuit we can spend time together, thus there’s theoretically a higher chance of romantic opportunity, and I think this theory is still moderately true. However, I think I may be unconsciously wussing out.

Most of my previous relationships have taken no effort to begin. I spent time around someone, we enjoyed each other’s company a lot, we end up spending progressively more time together, finally we discuss it and decide to date. That’s been the trend for almost all my relationships. I don’t know how to pursue otherwise. I can however think of one big difference. For example, back when I ended up dating Katie, I found her on MySpace, and the first message I wrote her I was pretty forward, forward enough that now I’d be worried a girl would think I’m a creeper if I said those same things. Part of the reason that worked with Katie was because she had a kind of low confidence, and responded well to being complimented. But part of it (and a part I feel I’ve lost) was my confidence. I knew I wasn’t a creeper, I didn’t analyze or second guess what effect my words might have on her, I just said what I wanted to. She told me she had emotional walls, I told her I didn’t care and it wouldn’t be a problem, and it wasn’t! And I had an excellent dating experience with her. Now, in a similar circumstance, I think I’d be less forward, and I’d back off a little when they expressed fear of relationships. As such, I remain single.

Another thing I realized is I don’t know how to keep momentum going. I basically take a wonderful girl on a date, we have an ok time but nothing magical happens. I take her out because I’d be totally open to something happening. But when the date is just ok, I figure it didn’t work this time, and I end up not going on another date for like three months. It’s like I have ten fires I’m trying to start and I keep rotating using my flint and steel on each pile for 20 seconds, and when it doesn’t start I try the next pile. By the time I get back to the first pile again, my previous efforts have left nothing to build on.

As always, I’m not really sure what to do with this information/theory. It’s like previously I just had the confidence, and me and someone clicked, and a relationship happened. I have frequently had such confidence lately, and been around people, and we didn’t click in a relationship way. So that alone isn’t it. As always it’s just not something I can force or plan to move forward with, especially given the uniqueness of each girl I may be interested in getting to know or pursue. But yeah, there’s a dating rant haha.

Random Thoughts 19 (7/28/2011) Primarily A Rant

Monday, July 11, 2011

- So, I was feeling anti-social and didn’t want to go to the activity tonight. I have somewhat mixed feelings on whether I should force myself to go when feeling socially lame or not. Sometimes I get there and get invigorated and I’m glad I went. But sometimes I go and I’m socially blah, in front of people I’m attracted to, and I’m sad I showed them that side of me haha. Today was close to the middle but leaning towards the “my blah showed up”. But overall it’s probably good that I went. Oh well.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

- I think I can be officially deemed a ‘former gamer’ at this point in my life. Someone asked if I play some new game that’s out and I hadn’t even heard of it. I’m proud of this haha.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

I, am a maelstrom of emotion. Since graduating my fears of what might happen have come true. Which is funny now that I think about it. If I predicted this, why didn’t I do more to prepare/prevent it? the answer is simple, I felt like I was doing something about it, and maybe I’ve been doing well, but tonight, it just doesn’t feel like it’s been enough. Here’s what it is, I don’t feel like I’m progressing. I don’t feel like I’m working towards anything, I don’t feel like I’m growing into anything. I know this life is about learning, and I feel like I’m stagnant, and that every day that goes by is added to the useless category. Also, I entirely rationally realize this is irrational, even selfish as my mom has pointed out. Irrational because I AM growing, the stuff I’m learning at work is DEFINITELY valuable. I’m learning tons about work environments, management strategies, dealing with the specific people around me, coding techniques, cool development tools, and sound design patterns; All the while earning more than double my monthly spending. That, in its self, should probably be pretty satisfying. In addition to that, since I received my endowments on April 21^st I have been back to the temple literally every week. I do find some peace there, but mostly I go because I know it’s a good thing to do. I wish I was more motivated by the service aspect of it.

Which brings us to the selfishness of my whole outlook right now. Why should going to the temple (or doing anything really) be about me? Me feeling fulfilled, me feeling like I’m progressing, me gaining something at all. Why do I have this feeling I’m wasting time? And here’s the stupid part, you know what for some reason makes me feel like all these things wouldn’t be a waste of time? Marriage. For some reason, in my mind, once you hit marriage, time isn’t wasted, it’s kind of just like a “endure to the end” mode for your personal life, and a “provide a stable environment so you can have kids and they can progress too” mode. Money, is not motivating to me. An attribute I do still like by the way, and it’s funny that I’m frugal as I am when money is such a small deal in my mind. But I guess, to me, the whole purpose of money is to provide for a family. If not that… what? And another oddity, I see a friend going to China and teaching them language for 4 months as a really good thing to do, that counts as progression to me. It’s like another unique experience counts as progression… for them. But for some reason, the thought of doing such a thing myself doesn’t carry the same usefulness. Finding health care in China would be a lot trouble anyway. Maybe I do need to do something that extreme though.

All of this is particularly keen on my mind tonight because I had a plan, and it shifted, and now I feel like I’m floundering again. I’m currently living at home. For some reason, living at home keeps a semi constant shame in the back of my head. It’s funny how many people think I’m a yellow personality. If I were primarily a yellow, I guarantee I wouldn’t worry about wasting time this much. I need to get better at living in the moment. I’m good at doing it with individual circumstances. I don’t feel lame at work, or at FHE, or at church, or on a date, or with friends. I can just be in the moment and enjoy it there. Tangent, I still love my job, it actually keeps getting better even. Anyway, it’s just the nights I have nothing going that I feel this waste. Which is probably appropriate seeing as I’m doing nothing at the time. Go figure.

Anyway, I got a call from Dan Garner mid-summer wanting me to move to Provo with him and Alex King in August. Two huge social and spiritual studs from my Bluffdale Arts Council days. Epic! I prayed about it, didn’t really get an answer either way, and decided to go for it. I kept feeling uncomfortable like something wasn’t lined up yet and I shouldn’t sign the contract, but I did anyway. A few weeks passed, and I kept feeling more apprehensive about the whole thing. I can name specific “reasons” that came to mind, but at this point I’m pretty sure they were just excuses I was finding to justify my apprehension. Last night I prayed about it after a session, and honestly I still mostly got nothing, I’m basically basing my whole decision off the fact that the thought of moving out makes me more nervous than staying here. I’m not someone to allow myself to be ruled by my fears though. If it’s just me being insecure, I’ll go for it. But in my efforts to be as in tune to the spirit as possible, I’m trying to follow my gut instincts, even if I don’t see why, and even if it’s a tiny thing. Moving out despite my gut instinct was the only exception, where I ignored my gut. Well, now I’m not moving out. Surprise! I talked to my wonderful mom about it, I think I’m going to start going to Neuro-Works (physical therapy) and see if there’s anything new I can learn, or if there’s ways I’ve atrophied that I can repair. And it feels like less of a waste when I write it now than it did when I first had the idea. In fact “I’ feel less like a waste than I did when I started writing this whole blurb. Venting is great. Ahhh… Anyway, I’ve left out a ton of details, but I don’t care. Having put my decision down in writing and throwing it to wind has made me feel better. Goodnight Neverland!

Oh, I haven’t been adding posts for my temple miles (since I haven’t been posting at all…) they have been as follows starting June 24 to the present day. 359.9, 317, 344.7, 434.4, 136.8 (twice in one week!), 435.2, and 451.7.

Random Thoughts 18 (6/19/2011)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

- 152.8 miles since the temple (went last night)! Oh yeah! And we did sealings with Brother Litster, he was amazing. I loved it more than my endowments haha.

Friday, May 13, 2011

- Started listening to the Miracle of Forgiveness while driving. There was a great quote along the lines of “we can’t just hope for circumstances to help us avoid sin, we must create them.”

- I had the thought my friends who can’t seem to find peace but continually struggle with pornography need to break free. They are perfect examples of Mormon 2:13 “for their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin.”

- So I’ve been bailed on by 3 different women in a single 7 day period, and I was kinda frustrated with women because of it. I don’t have enough time to spend time with everyone I’d like to spend time with. Is it lame of me if I make even less time for girls whom I’m pretty sure I have no dating potential with?

Saturday, May 21, 2011

- 715 Miles before the temple. Thus far I’ve successfully gone once a week every week since my endowment :D I hope I can keep it up forever. This was a Tuesday-Saturday gap though, I’ll bet if I go the same night every week (thinking Wednesday or Thursday) it’d be around 500 miles regularly.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

- So it’s been an interesting week at work. My team leads boss, Darek, the only person at work who still intimidates me for some reason, even though he has done or said nothing to make him so that I can think of, has been out for 10 days at various things. Tuesday, Andy, my team lead, asked how fast I can get my stuff done, stuff he’s been telling me wasn’t due for weeks yet, I told him like 2 weeks. The next day he quit! Nobody knew he was going to haha. We’ve reworked everything down to 1 week hopefully, and then the day after memorial day I’m taking a week off to finally have the damage done years ago to my urinary tract surgically repaired. (the source of my “I can’t stop the bleeding, but besides that I’m fine!” story)

Thursday, May 26, 2011

- 359.6 temple miles. I need a cool name for this…

Friday, June 03, 2011

- So my favorite Christmas song, I celebrate the day by Relient K, says “from the first time that you opened your eyes did you realize that you would be my savior?” Which is a kind of fun thought/question. But we know the answer! D&C 93 states a bunch of times that “He received not a fullness at first”, and that’s quoted by Christ about Himself!

- Am I needier than I need to be? The one night I spent in the hospital after my recent surgery we needed one more pillow for my 4 pillow set up, and my mom offered to give me hers, she said she could do without. We ended up finding another pillow anyway, but I had a thought like, “wait, so Mom is going to sleep in discomfort so I don’t have to? At what point am I being super picky when I could just be a bit uncomfortable like everyone else?” I’m not expressing this well… So I get uncomfortable sometimes if I lay on my back too long. In the hospital they used to roll me every 2 hours so I wouldn’t get pressure sores. So when I’m uncomfortable I ask to roll because I assume it’s a pressure sore developing. But where’s the line of when it’s a medically good idea, or I’m just being extra picky? I’m pretty sure I do a decent job of staying towards the medical necessity side, but still…

- hmm, I had a note in here that said “last temple visit” that’s supposed to remind me of a thought I had, but I don’t remember what it was about haha.

- Ok, so I spent most my week laying on my side after the surgery ‘cuz I have to keep pressure off the incision. There’s not a lot of things one can do while laying on their side. I started playing this turn based space conquest game called Galactic Civilizations 2. Great replay value, it’s one of those games where everything is randomly generated. Anyway, I was up until 3 AM two nights in a row playing. Not ok! Haha, with WoW if midnight struck and I was like “meh, I’ve got nothing going tomorrow, I might as well keep playing.” An alarm would go off in my head and say “NOOO!! You’re justifying! Turn it off NOW!” and I would (also note, I haven’t played WoW since the end of April. My subscription is inactive even). Anyway my “you’re addicted! Turn it off!” alarm is more powerful with WoW specifically, so I didn’t heed it when I had the same thought with Galactic Civilizations, but I think I need to heed it regardless of the game.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

- 242.6 mile temple visit today, kinda cheated though. I had the bladder surgery on Tuesday and can’t sit in my chair for long before the incision starts to hurt. And I didn’t want to leave in the middle of an endowment session or anything, so I decided to come read my scriptures on the temple ground. I probably won’t let doing this count every time, but today it’s the best I can do. Also, like 30 of those miles weren’t actually me, they were taking the car for repairs and back haha.

- A random thing I’ve noticed from having various CNA’s, different people but very different amounts of toothpaste on their toothbrush. I put relatively little. When you see commercials put a massive chunk of toothpaste on the toothbrush, is that really how you do it?...

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

- D&C 101:5, we can’t be ‘sanctified’ (perfected) if we don’t endure chastisement.

- Went to the Oquirrh temple, 140.8 miles (shortest ever!). The Jordan River is closed for 2 weeks. Note: Oquirrh is slightly less wheelchair friendly haha.

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

- I think I know more people with multiple jobs than with no job.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

- So, darkness isn’t actually something, right? It’s simply the absence of light. If there’s no light, the natural state of a room is dark. I was talking to Marie, and the subject of being bored came up. She said “why should I bored?” like there was no reason to be bored. And it got me thinking, for me, if there’s no reason not to be bored, that’s when I’m usually bored (as a kid anyway. I haven’t been bored in quite a while now…) but to her, if there was no stimulus, her natural state was content. For me, if there was no stimulus, my natural state was likely bored. It made me think about friends who are depressed unless there’s a reason to be happy. Me I’m happy unless there’s reason to be sad. So if there was nothing going on in both lives, one would be depressed and one would be happy (but possibly bored haha). It was just interesting to me how different people can be. The same circumstances (absence of circumstances counts as a circumstance in this context) can have such a different effect on different people.

Friday, June 17, 2011

- It’s sad how often people don’t act on recommendations they know they’d enjoy because they don’t have enough time. Or at least it’s annoying to me ‘cuz I want to do/read/see/hear all this stuff!!

- Realization! When I play video games it’s usually a waste of time overall and makes me a bit more bland (this isn’t news). Reading a book seems similarly useless to those around me, but! Usually it makes my hyper. More worth it!! still just a leisure activity…

Saturday, June 18, 2011

- 750.8 Temple miles. Draper Temple this time, I liked it a lot J. It’s also funny the contrast between how helpful some people are, and how some people freak out and don’t know what to do.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

- So I’m hitting a point where I’m really feeling the… weight? Uselessness? Something… of not progressing my life. I like the feeling of progression, I knew that’s something I’d miss when I graduated, and right now I miss it. My life goals have been pretty much “get to the point where you can support a family, and start a family.” Well, I got to the first one, and the second one I don’t have much control over (I’m still dating, that’s about all I can do.) So really all I’ve been doing the last few months is working, and going to the temple every week, both good things to do, but both of which to me are more like just survival, and not progression. Yes I’m accumulating money, which is good I guess, but money just isn’t a motivator for me. I guess to me the sole purpose of money is to provide for yourself and a family, without a family it’s kind of pointless, and I don’t need this much just for myself. Anyway, I’m not the type to mope for long, I like to take action, so I’m looking into moving out again sooner rather than later, and going back for my masters degree.

Gimpman Continues May 2011

So, I actually have some random thoughts I need to turn into complete sentences and post... But on Sunday I did this on my website instead!

Gimpman Continues (May 2011)