Secret Agent Man...

Yesterday we finally set up our computer for the Ward Clerks. Being the one that is computer literate, I did it. After we got it up and running, we noticed some problems. First, we didn't have a USB cable to connect the printer to the computer. Nowadays, they all use USB. I'll have to go buy it and get reimbursed.

Another problem is that the CD with the programs that they promised us was not there either. We had Windows XP on it, but no church software. I made a myriad of calls and finally ended up with a guy who said he'd just burn me a copy of the software. I told him I would need it soon, as we have been a ward for two months and still have not reported a single dime of tithing, meaning that we have a stack of tithing envelopes from the floor to the ceiling. He told me to come by his office Monday morning. It just so happened to be right next to the housing office. I work in the Hale 4 office every mon, wed, fri and check the mail anyway. It was a perfect match. I told him I'd be by around 9:30am.

As I was mopping the floor getting ready to go check housing mail and fulfill my calling, Mom Terese comes to me and says, "I'm going to the front office."

"OK." Uh...wait...that means that she won't let me go. I need to get that CD, and while I'm out, I want to sack my breakfast or I won't eat at all. Hmm. I guess its time to become...SECRET AGENT MAN!

I looked around the corner of the hale. Her van was gone. She drove. I have to walk to the caf the tennis courts way. The road is one way, and if she has already left, she will come from the other route. Then I made it to the caf. She might be getting food then, too. She wasn't. That was easy. Now I have to check my mail in the mailroom on the way. I took the less traveled back route. She either had already checked her mail or has not gotten around to it yet. I had no mail anyway. Then I had to be real tricky. This guy's office is literally right next to the housing offices. If mom was there, I would defiantly be seen going in. Her van was parked in the front of the office. I knew of a less traveled side door. I thought I might be able to sneak in that way. As I walk by, I can see her standing 30 feet away talking it up with someone in a housing cubicle. Rats! I knew that she was parked out front. Seeing her was even better. Now I can sit and peek around occasionally to see if she had left yet. She'd walk to her van, and I'd walk right in. As I was thinking of how great it will be to tell the story of my victory, she walks out of the back door! Why would she do that?

"Jared, what are you doing here?"

"I, uh, well, I got a call from Tom Wride (full names make it sound more important) who told me that I need to get something from his office. Its for my calling in church (can't get mad at a man for magnifying his calling) and I needed to pick up this software soon. He's waiting for me (good, urgency). He told me his office is next to the housing, so I figured I'd just check the mail while I was at it (smart man, killing two birds with one stone, who wouldn't admire that?)."

"What for? I already told you that I was going to the front office!"

"Well, I wasn't sure if you were going to pick up the mail or not."

"I did. You cannot do those personal things when you are in the office. You need to do your personal things on your time! You cannot just leave the office like that." I don't see how it's that different from me leaving to check the mail anyway, same distance and time taken, but, whatever. "There is no one in that office anyway, it's empty!"

Gulp. That does me some great service. "Okay, sorry."

"You need to do your things on your time." She loves to rehash.

"You are right. I'm sorry. I'll go right back."

I check his office. There was an aide in there expecting me and CD in hand. Then for kicks I checked the hale mail. There was mail in it! She didn't even check the mail! Ugh! And she'll still think I was lying about it.

I am not so good being sneaky like I used to be. Or I just don't remember getting caught so much as a kid. Either way, I saw the errors in my ways afterward, but hindsight is 20/20, and that does little for me in the present. I think my days of SECRET AGENT MAN are over. I might as well admit my secret identity and become a civil servant. But never fear, citizens of this great world. I will still be around if you need me. Help is never too far. Call my name and I'll be there...I just can't promise on the results...

What's My Motivation...?

Peter Gibbons : "You see Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care."

Bob Porter : "Don't? Don't care?"

Peter Gibbons : "It's a problem of motivation, alright? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's another thing, I have eight different bosses right now."

Bob Porter : "Eight?"

Peter Gibbons : "Eight Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired."

- Office Space (1999)

I'm sitting in my RA office right now. What am I doing? I'm watching an episode of "Angel" on DVD and typing in this. What should I be doing? Maybe work, or even, heaven help me, my homework.

I have not done any actual homework for some time. What's more, I don't care. I will even bring my backpack in the office to work on something, like statistics. What happens? It sits there long enough to gather dust. I just can't bring myself to do it. I have no desire to do it.

I know this may not sound like a revelation for you, but for me, this is new. I have been a 4.0 student my whole college career...until last semester. This last Spring term, I got all "A"'s. My reward? A 3.7 GPA for the term. I was given "A-"'s.Ya, BYU has the wonderful pollicy of the +\- system. I had 109% in a class last year. Did I get an "A+"? No, they don't have that, only lower. How can that be fair? As a result, I don't have my 4.0 and can never bring it back up. So long for that motivation.

In these classes, I don't seem to be getting it at all. School has come somewhat easy for me. I did my work, and as I did it, I felt myself understanding it and felt good. Now I just do the monkey work and feel nothing. I take the test and feel nothing. If I study hard, I get the same grade as if I put in less effort. I don't have that 100% golden touch in my tests and quizes any more. I can't seem to break through that glass celing. Same grade for less effort, why bother?
Also, I don't seem to understand it any better either. Again, why bother?

How about work? Last night while working I got a call from the hale mom. She wanted me to walk around the Hale telling people to be quiet. I did. After about 10 minutes, I came back to the office to lock things up. As I am doing so, Mom comes around the corner in a huffy. "Jared! I thought I told you to walk around and tell people to be quiet! Why didn't you!?"

"I did. I just got back."

"No you didn't! How come they are still noisy if you did?!"

"Well, maybe they got loud again after I left?"

"No, you didn't go out! I just got back and had to tell them myself to keep it down! All you did is just sit in your office!"

"Mom, I'm telling you I did it!"

Then she just gave up and walked away from me in disgust and as she muttered something under her breath I yelled in anger, "Are you calling me a liar!?" just as she slamed the door shut. So much for catching more flies with honey...

So, why do I do what she wants if she won't belive me about doing it anyway? I am not feeling the motivation.

The worst part about not being motivated is that I don't care about that either. How can one motivate oneself to get motivated? What's my motivation for motivation?

Long story short: I don't care...and I don't care that I don't care. And that is what I do care about.

Jeff And Susannah

Jeff And Susannah

Great pic, great couple.

I am trying out a new hosting service for my pics. This one lets you make actual posts from it and lets me customize my settings better. I have yet to figure out how to post multiple pics from it at a time, but I'm working on it.

In honor of my photo hosting glory, I would like to take this time to make an offer to you, my loyal reader. I will take requests. Let me know what three (3) pictures you would like to see the most. It could be anything from the inside of my toilet to the outside of my room. Whatever. The 3 most requested (or what I think is the best ideas) will be chosen and posted. Why do I do this you ask? I don't know. I think it makes for fun stuff, I guess.

Get creative!

[Guitierrez tries to find Freakazoid's weakness, he pulls a green rock out of his cloak]
Guitierrez : What do you think, Freakazoid, one pound of the purest Kryptonite. Are you feeling weak, Freakazoid? Oh so weak?
Freakazoid : That's Superman.
Guitierrez : [pulls out a yellow pad of paper, and holds it in front of Freakazoid's face] Does the yellow hurt your eyes, Freakazoid? Are you in great pain?
Freakazoid : That's Green Lantern.
Guitierrez : Oh, that stupid man at the store!
[throws it down, picks up a glass of water and throws it in Freakazoid's face]
Guitierrez : Are you melting Freakazoid? Melting away?
Freakazoid : Thats the Wicked Witch!
Guitierrez : Look, lets try to speed things along, why don't you just tell me your weakness?
[quick cut to Freakazoid in a cage]
Guitierrez : So, Iron bars electrified with a negative current are your weakness.
Freakazoid : [to self] Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Never tell the villain how to trap you in a cage.
Guitierrez : You probably shouldn't have helped us build it, either.
Freakazoid : I know. Dumb.

What is my weakness you ask? What can it be that would bring me down to a whimpering shell of a man in the fetal position? I never knew. I thought it was impossible.

Good guesses would be sliding down a razor blade into a pool of lemonade. Another guess is having my eyes gouged out and having lit cherry bombs put in place. Or you could guess having my feet nailed to the escalator in Ala Moana until my body is ripped underneath leaving a pile of my skin at the top, then crawling back up to throw my leather around my neck and walk out in humility only to run into anti-fur folk and be beaten by them profusely. (The last two might have been influenced by Itchy and Scratchy.)

No, my weakness is...WAXING! I cannot explain the pain! And the stupid part it, I did it to myself.

I know. Dumb.

I got this stuff called "Sugri-Wax" from Anna. JD bought some self adhesive strips from Wal-Mart. Saturday between conference sessions I heated up my wax and applied it to my stomach first. What, you may ask was running through my mind as I tore off that first strip of wax? I think my thoughts were something like this:

"AHHHH, OHHHHH, what the $%^#@$&^! are women thinking!? AHHHH EEEEEEEH When will the hurting stop?! EIEIEIEIE WOOOOOOH YA! Wow that smarts!...should I do a Brazilian wax next?"

Well, it was likely something like that. I'm not all that sure, to be honest. I didn't record too much of the event. I have my cardinal rules to enforce, such as rule 1, No taking off of the shirt. This is especially the case with posting pics on the net. So, Instead I got some low quality footage of JD waxing the same place I did, the stomach. I have yet to post the footage as JD is hesitant as I would be. Keep checking back in to see if he lets me post it.

One thing I will post is this:

This is not the hair ball from an oversized ear; this is my left overs from my waxing expirence. I think I can get some money on it from E-Bay!

Ya, this is just the hair from my stomach. After doing this much, I decided I could do no more, and shaved the rest. That area is sensitive, is hard to pull it real tight, so the skin gives and the hair is in there better than I thought. I will still do my back, but I will have someone else do it for me. I pity the person I can get to do that for me.

Lesson not learned. I will not do my stomach again, I don't think, but if the hair comes back slower and thinner, I'll keep it up on some spots. I'm not a masochist. I figure that I can make this weak thing a strong point to me.

Once I build up an immunity to this, I will be invincible!

The Debate Is Over...

Yesterday was the big Presidental Debate between our choices for the President of the United States. I did catch some of it. From what I saw, Bush did an OK job defending himself. What I hate to admit is that Kerry did a real good job too. I disagreed with him, but he was well posed and seemed to know his facts. There were times when he would respond to a Bush statement or accusation with some off topic attack. Unfortunatly, Bush seemed to be peeved with Kerry. I don't blame him, but it doesn't look well. I hate to admit it, but I have little faith in our common voters and they respond more to that than the facts of the issues and who is right, not more polished.

To furhter aide Bush (without supplying any monitary support) I will append some thoughts to the debate that might just be your deciding factors.












My understanding is that some of these pics might be slightly imbelleshed. I'm not so sure about that. Still, I provide some convincing arguments, don't I?