Random Thoughts 24 (1/1/2012)

Sunday, December 04, 2011

- I think I focus my excess flirting need into friends that I know I have all but 0 dating potential with (Ie: Kjersti, Karissa, Natalie…) haha

Thursday, December 08, 2011

- Had an excellent institute lesson on having a broken heart and a contrite spirit. How broken means broken like a new shoe that now fits, or like a horse who’s learned to be obedient, not broken like “the kids are broken, we need to go home.” I worry I’m not broken at all, I do all sorts of stuff for myself when I could be doing something more useful. I also worry though that I’m trying to be too much of a perfectionist, and if anything is just for fun, I feel like it’s a waste, and I’m sure that’s not right either. But if I was told never to play a video game again or read a fantasy novel, I’m not sure I could do it, so I don’t feel truly broken. I thought about it more though, I believe the reason I don’t think I could do it is because I wouldn’t be confident I’m even doing what I’m supposed to. I do believe if I felt the prompting as strong as the one to break up with Karina was, I’d give up video games or novels. I don’t think that will happen though. I hope not. I don’t do either of them excessively anymore like when growing up. They’re still my solo outlet though.

Friday, December 09, 2011

- Note to self, don’t ask a girl out when you are currently more intrigued with another girl. It doesn’t give you or the second girl as good of a chance.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

- Crazy 24 hours. Car broke (although not in traffic!) wisdom teeth out, lost my AmEx, was told health care is ditching me.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

- To continue on my crazy week my CNA slid into a curb on the way to my house, a nurse lost her key in our house for three hours, my cath plugged up and the first change left me uncomfortable all day, and I found out there’s basically no way I’ll get my chair before the end of the year. Since work is witching insurances I’ll have to start the process all over again.

However, I think all this has been good evidence to my claim that only relationships and homework seem to be able to get me down. I’ve been in a fine mood all week, not ecstatic but content haha. The first presidency message this month recommends writing down 100 things we’re grateful for. Now seems like a good time for that. In no particular order, I’m grateful for/that:

1. My car didn’t die when I was alone on the freeway Monday

2. My car died when I had family around to fix it with me, it was actually fun.

3. It was only a 1-day $400 fix and not a “get a new van!” problem

4. I’ve been able to get to know Audrey lately

5. My upright tolerance is almost never a problem anymore

6. I have a stable job who cares about me

7. I enjoy the challenge of my job

8. I’m financially stable (if not ahead)

9. Money isn’t a big life motivation for me

10. Trials rarely depress me

11. I have a wonderful example in my parents and all my siblings

12. My typing aids

13. My laptop

14. My relaxed Sunday mornings

15. My opportunity and motivation to home teach

16. My ability to easily bond with people

17. My wheelchair seems to have stabilized for now

18. I have many people fighting to get my insurance stuff worked out

19. Home cooked meals

20. The safety of living at home

21. Having had the experience of moving out

22. My patriarchal blessing

23. The ability to go to the temple often, even when ones closed

24. The ability to drive my van

25. Having almost exclusively happy memories

26. The gospel’s pre-emptive principles keeping my clear of drug porn or alcohol addictions

27. The freedom to do whatever I want with my life

28. The ability to communicate effectively

29. The joy I get out of talking to people

30. My sense of humor

31. My intellect

32. My healthy teeth

33. I don’t have to work hard or watch what I eat to maintain my size

34. My smart phone

35. That there’s more to my life now than video games.

36. The exciting ReEn shift at work

37. The closeness of my team at work

38. The awesome and smooth interaction between everyone at work, team or no

39. Fun movie quotes

40. Snickers, twix, and plain M&Ms

41. Discovering my fun Mario Blaster project

42. Having enough coding knowledge to make the above project go fast, fun, and be easily expandable.

43. My extended family parties

44. Playing games with Rob and Jill

45. Closeness with Stephy even when we haven’t been able to spend much time together

46. My singing voice

47. My love for music

48. That the music I love is stuff I can listen to around anyone without being embarrassed

49. That I’m aware of myself enough to not just be run by instinct

50. That I’ve been able to read fad series’ and gain my own opinions.

(that’s all the further I got that day, hopefully I find time for another 50 sometime)

Monday, December 26, 2011

- Where your treasure is your heart is also? My time seems mostly spent on entertaining myself with books and video games, what’s that mean?

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

- Sad I think all my single guy friends struggle with the church, or at least with keeping what I see as important commandments (who am I to say though?). All the firm ones are happily married, and pretty much all my female friends are valiant too. Hopefully this doesn’t say anything about me :/.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

- Wrote the new year entry below.

New Year entry 2012

New year! Life continues to change, most of my plans don’t work out as I expect, but I’ve been able to have fun on the way, and overall I’m probably better than the year before. Pretty much my only real complaint that bugs me is I’m already older than I’d like to be unmarried, and I feel like I’m “getting behind” in some way. But I know it’s mostly silly and everything will work out. I was going to move out with CJ and Bryan but both are happily dating, and CJ’s pretty sure he’ll keep Michelle forever if she’ll let him. I’m actually less independent than when I was living on my own. So my two main thoughts of where my life was going independence-wise and roommate-wise are pretty shot down. But, I’m on the trial of how to get independent again (well, government aid :/ but a portion I still qualify for…), being as independent as before is pretty much my new years resolution, although has nothing to do with the changing of year, it’s just my goal right now :P.

Roommates is harder, sometimes I think it’d be fun to live with Neal and Andrew again, it’s tons of fun whenever I see them again. But location-wise (I’m using -wise a bunch today huh?) it’s not very good for all parties. Bigger than that though, it’s clear the humor, media choices, and some standards choices are still ones I was happy to be away from when moving apart in the first place. Probably 50% of the stories or jokes that come up when we’re hanging out fall into the “mmm, actually Corby wouldn’t think it’s funny” category, which is good and bad. I do understand what’s funny about these things, I used to make the same jokes along with them for quite a while, and I’d say I regress temporarily while I’m with them, so they can see I still relate. But I just think swearing is easy to avoid, even if it’s funny. And objectifying women and making a mockery of chastity just isn’t something I want to participate in, whether I find it funny or not. So living with them A. I’d feel like a killjoy when my presence makes them self conscious about things they say (no one has to make the same decisions as me by any means) and B. I don’t really enjoy being exposed to grime in media anyway.

Micah is a better thought but still highly unlikely. Although when we lived together he often slept through 1:00 church, and may have struggled with other things, he still has a testimony and wants to do the right thing, he just seemed to struggle with… motivation? I don’t know, whatever it was he was struggling with. If we lived together again I feel like I’d spend a lot of time and energy again trying to help him somehow, and I don’t think my “help” really helped much at all, it could be very draining on me though. We’ve been getting together most Saturdays for the past couple months and that’s been fun, we don’t have to live together to maintain our friendship. I worry with the way I’m trying to live now, living with Micah, or Neal or Andrew, would strain our friendships more than strengthen them.

Which basically puts me back in the unknown. Maybe Dan and Alex who I was going to move out with? But what am I expecting anyway, the perfect roommates? I’m not a perfect roommate. We had some struggles back at the apartment, but I talk to lots of people, and our apartment got along better than average I’d say. I just don’t know, I’m not even sure why I feel the need to move out and be independent when it’s so nice and loving and helpful and a standards-match all around at home. I’m grateful that I have this drive though and I’m not content to just work at home and let time fly by. I do see that living at home this past half-year was meant to be. With technology breaking and insurance failing to meet expectations I would not have been able to function as normally as I have without family (particularly my Mom) to rescue me. How long I’m supposed to stay? I don’t know, I’ll definitely work on becoming independent again in the meantime though.

I’d start into dating stories now but right now my objective is to just follow the spirit and not over think everything. I found an amazing girl who I’ve seen usually once a week, and talked to almost every day, but I worry she recently lost interest, and I’m doing my best to just be I guess. Not force something to work, or give up on it before it even really died, or expect a girlfriend from a just friend, or even to assume I know what is and isn’t the right person for me.

Spiritually… I have read at least chapter a day months now, and I’ve still gone to the temple every week without fail. I feel like it’s not enough though, I feel like I have to really sacrifice if I want to really get spiritual growth. I also feel like I might be making it harder than it needs to be, why must it be difficult? If I make scripture reading and temple attendance a priority enough that I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing other things to do them, does that take away the growth? I don’t think so, but sometimes that’s what it feels like.

Random Thoughts 23 (12/4/2011)

Sunday, November 06, 2011

- Maybe the only difference between times you were confident with your spiritual attunement and now is your attitude? Right now you wonder if it’s a prompting, but before you’d just go with it?

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

- “It's kind of a weird world we live in, where being anti almost anything is a horrible taboo, but being anti-religion is so acceptable it's almost popular.” – Micah

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

- “I respect "I don't know" far more than a made-up answer. The former represents honesty, the latter...cowardice” – A tweet I saw

Thursday, November 24, 2011

- I tend to code with the expectation my code shouldn’t get any longer for some reason. I like to keep it as small as possible… But really you generally can’t add a new feature without adding new classes/methods/variables…

Friday, November 25, 2011

- So I went on a date tonight with a friend I haven’t seen in like a year or more. When we came out of California Pizza kitchen we found some douche with a rich car had parked on the lines on the handicap space next to my van, so I had to have my date back my van up so I could get in. I guess I didn’t explain it very well, because she put in the brake, put it in reverse, let it idle out, and then tried putting it back in park without braking. Needless to say, that didn’t work. However, the moment where I’m yelling “forward! Push the lever forward!” the van made impact, came to a sudden stop, and I see my date fly backwards in my van was absolutely priceless. The look on her face when she got back up was equally so. Luckily there was a pole right behind the parking space, so we didn’t hit a car. And the pole had a big cement square around it, so it was mostly just tire impact. Could have been a few thousand dollars worse, rather than just a good story. Ahhh…

Sunday, November 27, 2011

- Talking to someone during a decision making period is almost more interesting than the actual decision...

- An alarm clock app that makes you do simple math in order to stop/snooze the alarm? BRILLLIANT!

Monday, November 28, 2011

- Memo to self, don’t bite the nail you used an hour ago to poke around in your ear. Regrets follow.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

- I like the way this scripture is phrase, Helaman 4:23 “…and the judgments of

God did stare them in the face.” In the FACE! haha.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

- Ok, so a lot of these next few random thoughts I had any time over the last while. I wrote them in my phone to transfer here later. It’s now later.

- I saw a pic of a paper taped up in a bathroom that said “Warning: objects in mirror may be distorted be societal standards of ‘beauty’.” SO dead on! Definitely a sign in a girls bathroom. I find that girls tend to believe the grungiest version of themselves is what they “really look like” but the most beautiful read-for-church version of other girls is what those girls “really look like”, and when comparing the two they always feel not good enough. It makes me sad. It also makes me glad I’m a guy haha.

- For being someone who genuinely wants to make sure everyone feels comfortable, I am really bad at making people who are particularly different from me feel comfortable. I mean, I was the home teacher of a girl 19 year old girl who had a 4 year old and was just starting to get away from drugs. And I could get her to come to the activities, but if it was just the two of us talking I don’t feel like I made her feel like she had a friend in me. Someone she could trust yes, but not someone she could hang out with. I was very grateful for other ward members who did fill the role as friend when she’d show up. But I still feel a little bad I don’t seem to be able to be friends with everyone. If there’s nothing in common I just don’t know how to make the interaction enjoyable :/

- I need to find ways to serve. I feel I have a self sustaining testimony, but I should pray for a testimony strong enough to share.

- I’ve found my over the top flirtation is not always a good tactic for confident girls. I mean, I mean my over the top as a joke. My favorite reaction is when I give this ridiculously over exaggerated compliment and the girl calls me a dork or something haha. With non-confident girls the flattery works even if they now it’s cheesy. If it’s a confident girl that doesn’t recognize it as a joke though, it seems a big turn off for them, it makes me look desperate methinks. Oops.

- “Whether you get a goose egg or golden egg depends on the chick you choose.”

- I seem to think I need to respond to super enthusiastic girls with as much enthusiasm as they show me. Why? Is it possible I could have a great relationship with a girl who likes to jump around and “just dance” even if I don’t like too? Generally I assume “a girl like that wants someone to bounce around with them, and I’m not like that, thus she’d be dissatisfied with me”. Anyone who knows me knows I can be hyper and wild, but the dance party style wild is just awkward for me haha. Even pre-chair, I never enjoyed it :/

- So I did almost nothing yesterday. Just video games with Josh and Micah, then CJ then CJ Mason Bryan haha. It’s funny though because when I was going to quit at 6ish CJ came out and was like “I finished my homework! I get to play!” and it’s like I felt obligated to play with him (even if watching. It makes the game more fun for both people). I didn’t notice until the end of the day that I felt that way though, because I wanted to join anyway haha. I had the thought though. If Jason had come back right as I was getting off, and wanted me to play with him, and he had been productive all day, I probably would have shrugged him off and did what I felt anyway haha.

- Went on a date with an amazing driven smart beautiful but 18 year old girl Friday haha. I met her because I was asked to speak in an institute class by a lady in my family ward. The girl I ended up taking out struck me as super cute there, and I didn’t get her number on the way out. But the next day I called my institute teacher and asked what the girls name was and if I could have her number haha. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so bold. Thinking about asking her out just didn’t make me as nervous as asking girls out usually makes me though. She’s a perfect example of the super enthusiastic personality I described above, so my knee jerk assumption is it’s not a high dating probability. My only counter evidence is how not worried I felt about asking her out…

But anyway the real point of this post is in talking to her, and seeing how motivated she is and such and what she’s doing, and then trying to answer questions about what I’m doing, reminded me how stagnant I am. More importantly how I’ve been playing small. I mean, I am content now at my current level of stagnant (which is dangerous :P) but I finally admitted to myself that night that there are all sorts of goals I’m unwilling to make because I think I know much trouble it will be with my limitations. For all my talk of moving forward with faith, it seems I’ve really selected a small amount of categories I’m willing to wade into without guaranteed success chances (Ie: dating) but there are many I don’t want to do because I think I’ve got it all figured out and so I don’t want to act unless I can set up the perfect circumstances (Ie: moving out.) I need to sit down and think, “what goals if nothing held you back?” and then find ways to make them work anyway. Like a road trip, or moving out. Lol even thinking about these now, the problem for me is that the solution to these things is just imposing on people, and I don’t like to impose if I don’t have to. Either way, I’ve become more complacent in my chair the more I think I’ve got it figured out, and I should shift back into “I can do anything I put my mind to”. Well, I mean I still believe that, it’s just there seems to be a growing set of stuff I believe I can do if I wanted, but the effort doesn’t seem worth the gain. So I don’t know exactly what should shift, I just feel like something should.

- Temple miles! I didn’t post these the last time it looks like, so these are all the weeks since July 28 haha. I’ve still gone every week by the way. I think twice I was sick and only spent 90 mins studying in the parking lot rather than going IN the temple. But that still counts as going to the temple that week in my book. Anyway 332.2, 594.2, 961.3, 202.1, 574.9, 455.5, 435.3, 402.2 (made it due to date bail!), 614.2, 520.7, 474.1, 448.3, 479.2, 611.9, 516.7, 245.3, and 255.9. (note I text myself this number, and then pull them off my archived text history in Gmail, but it’s got the dates too if I ever want them…)

Update 11-6-2011

So I wrote a letter to a missionary friend today, and I decided it was a good recap of life right now. So here's a big excerpt from it haha.

If I remember correctly, when last I wrote, I was working weekdays 9-5, attending the temple weekly, institute weekly, and I was single. I was also feeling pretty stagnant. I didn’t feel like I was progressing in any meaningful aspect of my life. No measurable learning, feeling of spiritual progression, or even hints of dating opportunities. It was pretty disheartening all around.

The past few months, so much has changed, yet nothing has changed haha. I still work weekdays 9-5, I still go to the temple weekly (a few times attending a session didn’t work out, so I studied in the parking lot for an hour, but I still went to the temple haha), I still attend institute, and I’m still single (although I had a girlfriend, story to follow). But I’ve had great outlook changing experiences with each of these categories.

My job is amazing. I was so blessed to stumble into this job. The people here are all just great, everyone cares about everyone, even the high ups care about the bottom people. In fact, I didn’t even realize some of the friendly guys I ran into and joked around in the halls with were big wigs until after the fact. Anyway, one evidence of how much the company cares about it’s employees is they pay for private career tutoring. They have us take a test which determines our strengths, and then do their best to provide opportunities for us to participate in tasks (or move to positions) which play to our strengths (which provides great job satisfaction by the way) and it’s just awesome. In a one on one career tutoring discussion I expressed my feeling of stagnancy and lack of growth, and she recommended I keep a “work journal” where just once a week or so I write down a few bullet points of things I learned in the past week. That way I can look at it and see some quantifiable growth. It has made a huge difference, I feel much better in this category now.

It didn’t stop there though, a few weeks after I started the journal, we had a meeting to announce a radical and exciting shift in the way we are going to develop stuff here. I can explain the concept to you if you’d like, but it sufficeth me to say it’s a method I’ve always wanted to try since I heard of it, but it was never feasible before. It’s a method that takes a huge overhaul in the company and so most development industries haven’t made the shift. But it will make it so rather than taking 6 months to get a new version of our software to our customers (like it takes now) we could do it daily if we want. For your gee-wiz collection, it’s modeled after the Facebook development model (which everyone thought was crazy at first, btw), not that Facebook ever amounted to anything… so yeah. Intellectual progression need totally being satisfied right now, and I’ll be getting leading edge experience with a company who is willing to invest in me until I learn it.

Spiritually I feel like I’m being a worthy valiant member, yet I still didn’t (don’t) feel very in tune with the spirit, and it kind of frustrated me *sheepish look*. It’s like I feel entitled to it. A big thing that hit me during conference though was towards the end, Elder Cornish said, “Don't be discouraged when you don't learn to be attuned to the spirit all at once. Like any foreign language it takes time and practice.” I was like, “oh, duh! It’s not like I can start being valiant and expect to be a spiritual powerhouse the following week!” and so I’ve been more patient. I’m still trying my best though. And even if I can’t tell if something is a prompting or not, I try to follow it anyway.

Dating… So for some reason I decided to try a online LDS dating site (I feel dumb admitting that for some reason, but oh well) and I met a few people and had a lot of fun conversations. I decided though that it was making me less happy with my singleness for some reason. It’s like when I felt lonely I’d go to the site hoping to be instantly gratified, but of course it didn’t work. Conference Sunday I decided to cancel my subscription. But I got on the website anyway and started chatting with someone new haha. She turned out to be super awesome and the conversation was really great. I’d been telling my brother Mason we’d play something that night though, so I reluctantly was trying to taper off the conversation. However, she had mentioned she loves playing games with her fam. So I said “well, if I was feeling extra creepy, I’d invite you to come play games with my fam. If you were my close friend though and you told me you were going to meet a guy you’d just found on the internet an hour before, I’d Probably discourage you.” To which she replied, “I grew up with four brothers, I think I can handle myself”. So she ended up coming over, and we had a fun time J. It was impressively brave of her too.

We talked a TON over the next four days, went out Thursday night, talked till midnight, and then Friday morning we decided to officially hook up. Yes, five days after meeting. Seems weird, but I know tons of people who hooked up that fast and are still married. I complain when dating isn’t going well, why should I hold back just because it was going TOO well? She didn’t have any red flags, I didn’t have any momentum with other girls I’d be losing, I couldn’t see any reason why not (besides my instinct to take it slow anyway…) it was actually great. We set down kissing boundaries right up front that made chastity danger a breeze, we got along great in general. I didn’t really have any emotional attachment to her though. No “spark” or “magic” or whatever you want to call it. I had this amazing lesson on revelation two weeksish after we got together, and I prayed about Tiffany the whole way home asking what I should do. I didn’t really get a “yes break up with her”, but for some reason the idea of listing myself as in a relationship with her on FB gave me anxiety haha. So as best I could guess that was the “stupor of thought” category. I’ve found that if I keep debating doing something I don’t want to do, it’s probably from the spirit. I didn’t want to break up but it kept coming up. And in my effort to follow the spirit in big things as well as small things I to the Lord “ok, I’m breaking up with her, hopefully this is the spirit, please stop me if I’m wrong!”

So we broke up, it was probably one of the smoothest break ups ever. Basically I told her how great she is but how I just don’t feel it and as best I can tell it’s a prompting, and I let her see how frustrated I was about the whole thing haha. And I was frustrated. I still hadn’t found any red flags, she was genuinely physically and intellectually attractive to me, I just didn’t have the emotional “magic”. It really bothered me that I found an eligible gear who would date me back that I still didn’t to keep just because of some magical feeling I can’t control. But luckily, since that was the truth, I could just convey that to her, and she didn’t feel like she wasn’t good enough or anything like that. Thus the smooth break up. I felt so much peace after going through with the break up, so I’m sure it was right, I’m just not excited to keep doing the singles thing haha.

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).