A Few Updates

#1 - Las Vegas Trip. Things were pretty fun with the possible exception of the fact that Mitzi and I were both sick almost the whole time. I couldn't sleep through the night without waking up in a fit of lung-racking coughing, and Mitzi got mastitis...again. We still managed to drag ourselves to see "Ka" - the cirque de soleil show at the MGM Grand, and it was pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, because I was sick, Mitzi got stuck handling late-night baby duty because I didn't volunteer (the way a good husband would) and she felt bad for me. Well, those things combined (and remember how she wanted to leave the baby at home - also my fault) to saddle Mitzi with about five hours of sleep in as many days and so she's still recovering from her multi-faceted, fatigue-induced wave of sicknesses. And to add insult to injury, or sickness in this case, Mitzi didn't even get to take Corbin swimming which was her one big goal for the trip. Things just didn't work out too well for the poor Mrs. I also managed to somehow develop conjunctivitis in both of my eyes that made me look like a "rage zombie" from 28 Days Later for a couple of days. Stupid contacts. On the other hand, Corbin was a dream to drive with - he didn't fuss a bit until about the last hour of the 20 he was in the car during our trip. We also got to eat at a bunch of swanky restaurants and consume lots of yummy gelato ice cream. And Corbin got to meet lots of family members that still hadn't yet seen him. Here are some pictures (the last one is kind of gross, so beware...):

Lobby of the Venetian.

Family photo in our suite.

Corbin playing with Uncle Clarkie - The double-chin duo.

Mmmm...Gelato.

Corbin was a very good bunny during all of our dinner outings. He usually slept right through them, but would occasionally wake up and join the party.

Scouting out the pool that we would sadly never use.

The pool area with fountains, flora, statues, and other aesthetic delights.

This is a picture of conjunctivitis. Mine looked a lot worse. This was one of the least graphic pictures I could find to illustrate.

#2 - Job Hunting. I had a meeting with our ward employment specialist who showed me this pie chart that indicated that 75% of jobs are found through word-of-mouth/networking, and 25% are found through all other efforts. Guess I'd better start rubbing some elbows. He also helped me try to figure out my "dream job," now that being part of the hot fuzz is out. That was harder than I thought - I really just want to do something that takes care of my family and allows us the time and resources for an occasional vacation. More specific than that and I was kind of stumped. So I did some searching around and came back to my enthusiasm for financial planning and investing (because as of right now, my other dream job of directing movies or owning a photography business seem a tad impractical and more like retirement hobbies than realistic near-future career plans). Consequently, I'm looking around at jobs with Vanguard, IFA, or some other investing corporation. But that's the long term. For short term, I dropped off applications at Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Seagull Book in order to get some kind of income. I've long wanted to work in a bookstore - someplace I could have hours on my own to read and learn while only occasionally having to help people, and getting paid all the while. That way I could get ready for my financial standards tests (Series 6 and 63) that I'll need to get my long-term jobs rolling. I think that the applications I dropped off today mark the third and fourth job applications I've ever submitted in my almost 27 years.

#3 - Scott's Temple Photos - A New Venue. So I finally figured out how to submit photos to one of my favorite websites, ldschurchtemples.com. This guy started it as some sort of school project. People have submitted photos of all of the different temples across the church that you can download to your desktop as a background. They also post construction photos so you can check the progress of the new temples going up, like the Draper Utah Temple and the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Anyway, as I would visit the site, I would think to myself, "Some of my pictures are at least as good as these. Why can't I show them off to others with my same love for temple pictures?" Well, I finally figured out how, and submitted a bunch of my favorites to the site. The webmaster selects the ones he likes and then posts them for people to download, along with the photographer's name and date the photo was taken. Well, I was happy to see that quite a few of my photos have been accepted, and many others are pending. So for those of you who may be interested, head on over to the site, click on the "Operating" link under "Temples" to the left of the page, and then click on any of the following to see my pictures: Salt Lake, Nauvoo, Provo, Jordan River, and Redlands Temples. Once you select a temple, click on the "Wallpaper Gallery" link on the left, scroll down to the bottom, and have a gander. I've also submitted pictures of the following temples, some of which will hopefully be posted soon: Bountiful, Las Vegas, Logan, Manti, Mount Timponogas, Newport Beach, Oakland, Reno, St. George, St. Louis, and San Diego. It's not much of an accomplishment, but being accepted in a circle of like-minded individuals is exciting.


#4 - Ever Learning. How many of you could explain the theory of relativity, E=mc^2, beyond telling someone what the variables mean? I couldn't until I listened to Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" on audiobook for the second time the other day. Basically what it says is that energy (E) is equal to an amount of mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared. Now, the speed of light squared is a ridiculously huge number (> 89,000,000,000,000 km/s). So in a nutshell, if you have even a tiny particle of mass, like a Hydrogen or Helium atom, and you multiply it by 89 trillion, then you get the amount of energy potential contained within that unit of mass. He said that knowing this, the amount of energy contained just within the atoms that make up our body is enough to explode with the force of something like 30 hydrogen bombs (and I may be remembering that wrong - it may have been more like 3000 hydrogen bombs). This also means that taking something as comparatively massive as a Uranium atom (massive compared to most other atoms) and trying to convert that mass into energy (i.e. using an atomic bomb) really only reveals how bad we are at converting the potential energy contained within matter into realized energy. But this also explains how stars, which use Hydrogen and Helium atoms for fuel, can burn so hot for so long without running out of fuel - they're much better at realizing that energy than we are. Anyway, there you have it. Now you can go explain E=mc^2 to all of your friends to a depth I'm sure none of them could match.


#5 - 9/11. I've watched quite a few programs on 9/11, and most of them have been far from intellectually or artistically satisfying. However, I just rented National Geographic's program on 9/11, "Inside 9/11" from the library and have to say that it is fantastic. They did a tremendous job at showing how this was a long time coming and how determined and wide-spread this jihad really is. It was very unsettling to see all of the radical Islamic preachers with congregations in our own country from LA to Phoenix to New York City, and who have been preaching death to Jews and Christians for the past thirty years right under our noses. Anyway, I'm starting to agree with Newt Gingrich in that we are at the beginning of an engagement like a Cold War for our generation, and that it's going to last for the next 50, 60, or even 70 years. Fasten your safety belts ladies and gentlemen. Even if we count the early 80s as the beginning, rather than 9/11 or something more recent, we've still got 30-40 years left to go in this war of ideas, cultures, and beliefs. ***I just finished watching the second part (the program consists of two portions: Part 1 chronicles the +20 years of events leading up to this, Part 2 chronicles the events of the day and the aftermath) and the closing scenes show interviews with FBI, CIA, and other authorities. They are now saying about 9/11, "They [the Islamic Terrorists] didn't kill enough people. We need another 9/11 [or else things aren't going to change the way they need to]." I think I might have to agree. With all of the people just wanting to go back to "business as usual" and get out of Iraq and Afghanistan because of its inconvenience to them ideologically need to have a serious reality check. The final scene of the program has a quote from Osama Bin Laden that says "The Americans value life. We value death. That is the big difference between us." (I found an almost identical quote in "Black Hawk Down," given by a Somali gunman, living in one of the most impoverished nations in the world) That's exactly right. The people who hijacked those planes and who blow themselves us it seems come from countries or backgrounds of hopelessness, poverty, disillusionment about their governments and cultures, and get sucked into these radical groups that offer them meaning and purpose. They have nothing to lose. We have so much to lose. If they had more to lose, maybe they'd be a bit more hesitant about strapping bombs to themselves and abandoning their families. Sure, there will always be a percentage who will do this regardless, but I think that if we succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan, by creating prosperous, capitalist, democratic nations (which is by no means a certainty), then maybe we can give some of these desperate people a purpose in life that doesn't involve murder and martyrdom. They talk about this problem/solution in the PBS program "Commanding Heights" which I have also recommended, noting that a globally interconnected economy has the potential to help everyone, but also to more dramatically separate (or at least highlight the existing separation between) rich and poor. This is where I could get into a whole big thing about socialists, communists, "progressives," environmentalists, and other special interest groups who make it their mission to impede, prevent, and push-back the very capitalism that has the power to save these desperate, destitute nations. I've rambled long enough.