Random Thought #29

Got this in an email from my mom. I liked it so here it is. Helps us remind ourselves that we need to become more like little children


About the Song...

While at the mall a couple of years ago, my then four year old nephew, Spencer, saw kids lined up to see Santa Claus. Having been taught as a toddler that Christmas is the holiday that Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, he asked his mom, "where's the line to see Jesus"?


My sister mentioned this to my dad, who immediately became inspired and jotted words down to a song in just a few minutes. After putting music to the words, and doing a quick recording at home, he received a great response from friends. He sent the song off to Nashville without much response, except for a Christian song writer who suggested adding a bridge at the end of the first chorus. My dad then asked if I wanted to record the song to see what we could do with it.


I listened to the song, made a few changes to the words to make it flow better, and we headed to Shock City Studios. It was at the studio where Chris, owner and producer, rewrote the 2nd verse and part of the chorus... with goosebumps and emotions high, we were all hopeful and felt like we had something special. The demo was recorded in just under 2 hours and sent off again to Nashville ... still no response.


Then 2 weeks before Christmas last year, my cousins Greg and Robbie decided to do a video to see what we could accomplish on YouTube. The first day we had 3000 hits and it soared from there. We received e-mails, phone calls, Facebook messages from people all over asking for the music, CD's, iTunes, anything... we had nothin'. After a couple of meetings with Chris following the amazing response, we got serious. We headed back into the studio this past spring... this time with guitars, drums, bass, pianos, choirs... the real deal.... and here we are today.


Getting iTunes set up, a website put together, and loving that thousands upon thousands of Christians have come together... remembering the true meaning of Christmas. Out of the mouths of babes come profound truths that many adults can not understand. Hopefully Spencer's observation will cause people all over to reflect on the love of Jesus, and that one day we will all stand in line to see Him. We are most thankful to our Heavenly Father to have this chance to share our music with you.


Merry Christmas everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/user/beckykelleySTL

Random Thought #28

Never use any words or sentences that contain words that make the idea absolute. What a contradictory statement. I violated the content of my sentence in the very first word of it. LOL. Dunno why, but that popped into my head today at work. I know...strange.

Random Thought #27

No more disposition to do evil, seek for treasures in heaven and not for treasures on the earth, live in the world, but not of the world, seeketh not her own, when you are in the service of your fellow man, cast aside your nets and bear up your cross and come follow me. These are all statements that describe a changed heart. They are descriptions of attributes that someone has who has forsaken the world and chosen Christ. I am by no means perfect, but I can honestly say that I've had a change of heart. I think one of the biggest and most definitive tests to see if a man's heart and thoughts are in the right place is to see how he responds to the challenge of leaving everything behind and following Christ, would he have even a shred of a second thought? The thing is, if you have any care whatsoever for the things of this world, you would have that second thought. If you despise this world and the things of this world, you are anxious to get rid of it. You view things differently. You see things in this earth as temporary and we only abide them so as to exist in peace and harmony but we have no affinity towards these things. We care not for them. Many would say they fear death, the Apocalype, the Second Coming of Christ. Others would look forward to all of these things. We are described as a peculiar people because we don't fit in. That's a good thing. We should stick out like a sore thumb. We probably think people of this world are weird because they have weird attractions to things of this world. They love things and money and do not fear God. We sometimes look at them and raise our eyebrow as if not understanding how they could think or act that way.

I used to be big into Twitter and would keep up to date on all the latest happenings of the tech world, but nowadays, I have completely quit Twitter and have no desire to return or get involved at all. The Lord has blessed me with other ways of staying relavant in my field so that I can support my family, but its just a means to an end. It means nothing to me. I often spend much of my days studying and learning about other more important things. I have no earthly aspirations. It means nothing to me. Many would say that I'm strange or peculiar, but I find it perfectly normal and those that will backstab and step on anyone to get more power, fame, money, advancement in this world make no sense to me. They are missing something.

I've also found that as I read and study more, the world makes more and more sense and I can see how mankind has corrupted everything and will eventually self-destruct. Its like I have "eyes to see and ears to hear". I know there is much I still don't understand, but I feel like I have a worthwhile purpose and direction and I'm happy. I think the Lord is also happy, because I'm happy.

Random Thought #26

My thought tonight comes from a number of unlikely sources:

Richard Feynman
Martin Lowrie Hofford
Hugh Nibley
My Family

1st - Richard Feyman. If you don't know Richard Feyman was a world-renowned Nobel Prize winning physicist. I've been engrossed in his lectures as of late and one particular piece of instruction caught my attention as he was talking about gravity. He was talking about how everything attracted everything else and got to talking about the tides and how the moon's pull on the earth affected the tides. Without going into too much details, basically we know that there are 2 tides a day, morning and night. I'm not sure which one is high and which is low but basically when the moon is closer to the earth, there is a stronger pull (guessing high tide is at night) and the other side of the earth is further away and therefore has a weaker pull (guessing low tide in the morning).

Cool website if you're interested in Feyman's lectures - http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/

2nd - Hugh Nibley. As most of you know, I've been doing some heavy Nibley reading. Again, without going into much detail, he basically states that the ancients (especially the Egyptians) always looked to the cosmos to understand their place in the world. They were especially fascinated with the problem of how does one make it from this world into eternity (i.e. Resurrection). That's why they were so nutty about funerary stuff. Anyway, there is a basic drama (and this is basically the point that Facisimile 2 in the Book of Abraham is pointing out) that describes the Resurrection process. Its called the Re/Osiris drama. Osiris represents the deceased and Re (his father) represents the sun (more specifically the morning version of the sun). They think that the setting of the sun represents the journey into the underworld (dying) and the rising of the sun represented bringing the dead out of the underworld and back into mortality (albeit immortal).

Tons of Nibley Literature - http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/authors/?authorID=2

3rd - Martin Lowrie Hofford. This fine gentleman was a very intelligent evangelist and was the author of the text of one of our hymns, #165, Abide with Me; Tis Eventide. I couldn't find much of a history on this guy but the basics are here for you to know.

4th - My Family. How is this all related you ask? Well, I was giving my girls their bath, but figured I'd let them play around a bit first in the tub. After they had played around a bit, I started singing various songs quite loudly and changing a few words in hopes that my lovely wife would come up from whatever she was doing and help me with the bathing process. I sang stuff like "The girls have need of willing parents who wear the worker's seal, come help me give the girls a bath, put your shoulder to the wheel". Well, one of the songs I sang was Abide with Me; Tis Eventide. It went something like this. "Abide with Me; my lovely wife, the girls are almost done. I need some help to get them clean, oh please, please darling come".

Anyways, as I sang that song, I thought about that song and the actual words and everything just clicked. I had no idea what eventide was. You know how we just sing the songs and don't think much about the words, well since I have been doing this Nibley and Feyman research, I realized that even tide meant evening tide. Its almost night time and is watching the evening tide, and is begging the Lord for his companionship, perhaps even the Holy Ghost to remain with him. Quite beautiful really.

The funniest part is that this came to me as my girls were making some serious tides in the bathtub at night time. How ironic is that!!

Random Thought #25

I was in the shower the other day and right when I was about to shampoo my hair, I saw the body wash and shampoo just on the other side of the glass*Sigh*, maybe in the future.

Random Thought #24

So I was reading over the last couple of days about how light works and a little bit about Quantum Mechanics. I didn't realize this at first, but Quantum Mechanics is just another word for how light works.  Quantum in physics is defined as "the smallest quantity of radiant energy, equal to Planck's constant times the frequency of the associated radiation" Quanta is the plural form of quantum and therefore can be simplified as groups of photons, which is the essential building block for light. Therefore, Quantum Mechanics is nothing more than the study of how light works. I'm especially intrigued with light because whenever you begin talking about matters that deal with God, there are always references to light.

In understanding how light is produced, light is made up of photons. Some believe that it is a stream or particles (photons). Others believe it comes in a wave of photons. Latest theory is that it is a combination of the two. What is a photon and how are they produced? To know this, we have to understand the structure of an atom. An atom is basically a nucleus (protons and neutrons) surrounded by electrons that orbit the nucleus in various orbits. Some elements have a different number of electrons, but as the elements get more complex, the higher the number of electrons. When an electron gets excited, it jumps to a higher orbital. When that electron settles back into its original orbital, the packet of energy released it a photon.

So how do you excite an electron? Apply heat. When you light a light bulb, you heat up the elements with electricity. When you make a fire, you heat up the wood, etc., etc. So getting back to the particle theory of how light is transmitted, in order to find out exactly how light is transmitted, we have to observe it. The problem is that as soon as you view the electrons, you excite them so you never know exactly where the electron orbit is. This is important to us because depending on the distance between the original orbital and the excited orbital determines what color (frequency) the emitted light is. So basically, just by observing the electrons, we aren't seeing them in their original orbits, but have to study them within a range of uncertainty. That's where the wave theory comes into play. Since we can't study the electron (particle) in exactness, we have to measure it within a range. So we find that light is transmitted in particles (photons that are released from excited electrons) but that they are found within a range (waves).

So why does any of this matter? Well, I was watching a video on wormholes and think that this theory that applies to the very small atomic level, could also apply to the cosmic level as well. See, everything has a particular orbit in space, just like electrons have particular orbits around a nucleus. At the same time, Einstein's theory about time and space was that the plane was actually curved (similar to how an orbit is shaped). Wormholes work as a shortcut between two distant parts of the expanse of space when the space/time continuum is bent. Think of drawing two circles on a piece of paper and then folding that paper in half. The circles overlap each other and provide a shortcut from one place to the other. When the paper is flat, the distance could be considered an object's normal orbit, but when its curved, a wormhole exists and can allow for not only travel over great distances, but also time travel, as you are traveling not just through space, but also through time.

Just a bunch of theories but needless to say, I love studying Quantum Mechanics.

Random Thought #23

I read a small article today that got me thinking. Have you ever noticed that the sun and the moon appear to be the same size? Granted its rather hard to measure these objects from where we stand, especially the sun since you can't really look directly at it, but for the most part they seem to be about the same size. How can that be considering the sun is millions of miles farther away from us than the moon is. The laws of physics would demand that the size of the sun be much smaller than the moon due to its distance from us. Interesting. Also, we know that stars come and go as they die and are born, but they are always there, why can we only see them at night? Why do they all appear to be about the same size when some are closer than others? How is it that we can even see them at all? They all seem so far away. We can't typically see more than 50-100 feet in front of us on a perfectly clear day, and yet we can see balls of fiery gases billions of light years away. Interesting. This all of course relates to relativity. I wonder how these things look from God's perspective. I've been reading about ascension dramas (out of body experiences where individuals are taken up to get a tour of the cosmos). The Book of Abraham says multiple times that Abraham needs to remember that everything he is seeing is from the perspective of the earth that he dwells on. Time is a limitation that exists in our world, but that differs from time in other worlds, if its even measured.

Speaking of relativity, I think that is one of the biggest hurdles people have in reading and understanding the scriptures. Most of the scriptures are written from a time, culture, and perspective of the author. Many of the things apply to our day because we do things much in the same way they've been done since the time of Adam and we're meant to learn from these histories. That's what history is for, to learn from the experience of others. There are a number of prophecies, but these come from God (through prophets of God) and not from man. Ever try reading something in the Doctrine and Covenants and then read something similar in the Old Testament? Which one is easier to understand? D&C of course. It was written by a contemporary of ours (Joseph Smith; we're at least in the same dispensation and within 100-200 years) Even more, he was living in America and spoke and wrote in English. The people in the Old Testament lived in a completely different time period, location, and spoke a different language. They have a completely different perspective. Its no wonder that the Old Testament, not to mention New Testament and even Book of Mormon are so much more difficult to understand. If we truly want to understand what they are trying to teach us, we need to put ourselves in their shoes and try as best we can to look at things from their point of view. This could mean learning Hebrew, Egyptian, and exploring their cultures. Things make so much more sense when you are looking the same direction through the same piece of glass. I only hope that one day I can look from above through the same lens as Heavenly Father. Only then will I be able to understand the many mysteries of God.

Random Thought #22

I also learned today more about the temple via D&C 109 (The Kirtland Temple Dedicatory Prayer) and as I was reading, one of Nibley's articles, he quotes President Joseph F Smith (another guy I'm anxious to study) as saying "much temple work would likely have to be done over again because of the slipshod manner in which it was done." That totally rocked my world, but it goes to show you that everything that is done, must be done perfectly and in the Lord's manner. Who would of thought that we could be allowed to do temple work imperfectly? It has awakened my senses as to how I approach the things of the temple. Do I sit on the edge of my seat anxiously trying to understand the mysteries of God, or do I sit back and close my eyes a little bit?


Imagine if that quote above came from our current prophet today at general conference? What would our reaction be? Denial? Recognition? What if somebody else said it? Stake President? Temple President? Member of a local ward? Would we react differently in each situation?


I wonder sometimes how open we are to the truth, even if it hurts. Brigham Young is one of my all time favorite prophets as he has an insatiable appetite for truth and knowledge and was very direct and blunt with the saints. Many didn't like to hear what he had to say and some even questioned his calling, but many times I think we need to hear these things. We wonder why we go over the same lessons over and over again in Sunday School. We're comfortable with the rhetoric and easily accept it. What if something more controversial were discussed? It would probably rock a bunch of people's testimonies if they weren't ready to hear it. Kinda scary.


That's why many people have difficulty reading Brigham Young or Hugh Nibley, because they are both very direct and very correct. We just don't always like to hear it.

Random Thought #21

I just found out today that the reason none of us knows the time or the day of Christ's Second Coming is because its constantly changing. If we take the example of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord kept wanting to destroy the place and all its inhabitants because of their exceeding wickedness, but Abraham kept pleading with the Lord to show mercy as long as there were some good in the people to be found and they were still worth saving. This world is getting pretty wicked but the Lord hasn't come yet (by the way, all the wicked will be burned as stubble) because there are still souls out there that need to be saved. Those of you in the Kingwood 2nd Ward witnessed that in action with the Smith family. If I were a full-time missionary, this is what would motivate me more than anything. As a member missionary, this is what motivates me as well. I'm anxiously hoping for the 2nd coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, as I can't stand this world and its wickedness, but the Lord knows that there are still those out there that are worth saving, and its our charge to go out and save them before that great and final day!

Random Thought #20

So I was in charge or moderating a little forum for employees with 3-5 years of experience who meet with a manager and just have an open discussion forum. Our guest of honor today was a guy who has a Bachelor's in Mathematics and Physics, and also one in Theoretical Physics, a Masters in Nuclear Physics, and a PhD in Science Education. He also has a wife who has a PhD in clinical psychiatry and has two kids, a daughter who is also studying to be a clinical psychiatrist and a son who is also some of astronomical physicist. Anyways, needless to say, he was an intriguing person to talk to. I asked him about some good books to read on some of these topics as Quantum Mechanics and Theoretical Physics are two of my favorite reading topics. He gave me a few references and I'm sure as I start digging, more and more literature will become available. I've also recently been studying Hugh Nibley, a famous LDS scholar, and some of his works. I recently stumbled upon a complete bibliography of all of Nibley's works. Including his 19 books averaging 650 pages a piece were a plethora of articles he has written on various topics which all together comprised an astounding list of 47 pages were of articles to be read and digested. As I thought about the large task in front of me, I couldn't help but wonder how we find ourselves content with the knowledge we have when there is so much more out there to be learned. We spend our time on worthless endeavors that produce little to no benefit for good in our lives such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites. Instead of keeping our nose in books, we stick it in other people's business and the news is always filled with how the world is decaying around us. When was the last time any of us took a step back and evaluated how we spend our time in a day?

I have to admit that I used to be addicted to Twitter, but now that I have so much knowledge in front of me, I can't help but spend my free time trying to understand how things work. After all, if we are to rule on high and Gods and Goddesses and Piests and Priestesses, creating worlds without end, how do we expect to be able to do that if we haven't the slightest clue as to how astronomy works, how biology works, how chemistry works? You think it just exists? Let us remember that there was a creation. Somebody had to understand how these things work. Glory is shared intelligence. "For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". God's whole goal is to give us the same knowledge He has so we can become like Him and do what He does, so that we can have everlasting joy. The scriptures are always telling us to feast (not just nibble), FEAST upon the words of Christ. We are to study out of the best books. Why do we limit ourselves to the standard works? Do we not believe in the 9th article of faith?

With so much to learn and so little time left in this world, I think it behooves us all to put a little more effort into learning the ways of the Lord and leaving the worthless things of this world alone.

Random Thought #19

Here is a link to a great story. Regardless of how you feel about politics, our government, our societal values, etc., this is an awesome story with a great moral to it.

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/article/6594

Enjoy!

Thanks Dad

Random Thought #18

So I just had this random thought that I absolutely couldn't pass up. I was thinking about the various TV shows and movies that involve time travel to the future and how its all screwed up and they have to change their ways in the present in order to change the future. That got me thinking, I wonder why we aren't capable of seeing the future, at least not for very long. If you think about it, only special people (prophets, seers, revelators) can glimpse into the future, and only to further their understanding of God's works.

In all of the movies, the current person travels into the future and tries not to interact but silently observes how life is as a result of their current choices. Some are actual characters (Back to the Future) and some are just an invisible spectator (A Christmas Carol, etc.) Let's look at the situation from the perspective of the characters that actually exist in the future. Can you imagine what it would be like if you met your previous self in your present? I think that would be kinda freaky. Everything that happens to your current self affects you as a future self. What if your future self gets mad at your current self and hits your current self causing some facial deformity, then you (the future self) would immediately end up with a facial deformity. Talk about "what goes around comes around" LOL. What if you weren't in the same plane of time as your current self, you still would notice the affects of the choices your current self is making. If your current self got into a car accident, your future self would go from walking down the street to wheeling down the road in a wheelchair. That would suck to be the future self. Every little choice that current self made affected your daily life. You'd be so sick of unexpected changes, you would probably wish that you could go back in time and smack yourself and straighten yourself out.

Now imagine if your current self meets your future self and changes his ways because of what the future self told the current self. (Back to the Future - where future Biff tells current Biff about cheating on the sports events based on a book of stats). Our minds are so futile that the movie producers had to come up with 3 Biffs for logistical reasons I'm sure. So there are now 2 future Biffs and one current Biff.

If you now change back to current self's perspective, if you had never met future self, what would your life be like? This is of course when current self is in the future and looks at the comparison between your two future selves. Does that memory travel with you when you are going back to your current present?

This guessing game is getting a little confusing so let's now change to God's perspective. If future and present and divided by an opaque wall and current self and future self have no knowledge of each other's existence (after all, they are the same, not two different instantiations of one's self as the movies depict) then God's perspective if that of someone looking from the top, seeing both. The interesting thing is that the future self (again assuming two different instantiations) never changes as we might think from the movies we've seen. God knows what the end result (bad word since our progression is eternal) will be because He is Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He knows all of the choices you are going to make before you are even presented with  the choice. Its not like God is thinking "...OK, so Mike is going to write this blog post" and then all of a sudden, I decide, I'm going to outsmart God and stop writing this post right now!! He knows that thought is going through my head and that I'm going to finish writing this post anyways.

Blows your mind right? The cool thing is that if we study enough and continually learn, we'll be able to do that as well as Gods and Goddesses. Anyways, getting back to my original thought, this is probably why we aren't allowed to see the future. Its considered cheating in this test of life. Those that are allowed to glance into the future are only allowed to do so for a brief period of time and are only shown enough so as not to blow their minds. After all, if you're a prophet, seer, or revelator, you're probably getting an A on your test of life anyways. Consider all of the examples of all openers of dispensations (Adam, Enough, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Joseph Smith). Every single one of them had a glimpse into the future, but only for a short time and only shown what they could handle or what was appropriate for them to see.

One of my favorite scriptures is Isaiah 55:8-9. It inspires me to learn more and more and to one day be as Heavenly Father and partake in all that he hath.

Random Thought #17

So my dad sent me a really interesting email today. I thought I would share it with you because part of me would love to participate in something like this some day. What makes this project most interesting is that I think the creator actually cares more about solving a problem and how to do it rather than the money he will be swimming in if this gets implemented.

http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/video/2010/061810.htm

Random Thought #16

So this previous weekend was fairly uneventful except for a little fiasco with our neighbors. They have a male and female chocolate labs. If any of you know me that well, I hate virtually all animals/pets and this is a good example why. One of their dogs dug the same hole under the fence and got into our yard again. Not only did he dig up my yard, he proceeded to urinate on our kids' playset and defecate right next to it. I immediately went over to my neighbor's house to get them to take care of it, but they weren't home.

I tried calling Animal Control but they were already closed and I had to leave a message. I then tried calling HPD, but they wouldn't help because it wasn't an attack of bite case so "not a police matter". I had to take matters into my own hands. I went outside and yelled at the dog to get back on his side through the same hole (keeping a safe distance). The dog obviously did not heed my commands despite their growing intensity, so I did the next best thing in my mind. I unhooked the hose from the back yard spicket and I proceeded to whip the dog to get it back into the hole. (I hate animals...don't judge me). The dog couldn't fit. Once I had beaten it enough and realized that it couldn't get back through, I finally grabbed the dog by the collar and brought it out of my yard and back into its own yard.

The owners didn't get home until after we went to bed. My wife thought she heard the dogs in our yard again so she got up to check. No dogs but the owners were finally home. It was around midnight and despite my advice to the contrary, she went over and banged on their door as this is the 3rd time this has happened since we've been neighbors. She proceeded to pound on their door until they answered. She told them to come over and clean up the poop right then and there but they refused and told her that she was disturbing the peace and that they were going to call the cops on her if she didn't leave them alone and then proceeded to slam the door in her face. That got her irritated. She came back furious and with a fire any bite to boot. Not a good night.

I called Animal Control (during "regular business hours") the next day and they basically said that all they could do was come out to the address and make sure that all of the licenses and vaccinations were in order and tell them to keep their pets restrained. I asked when that might happen? She said that they prioritize emergency cases (bites and attacks) and then these "other" calls in the order they are received and that they were extremely backlogged with limited resources. I asked, does that mean it could take 1-2 months or more before you come out to "lecture" these bums? Possibly was her response, with an additional note that they have limited resources. The only thing that I can do if this happens, its not an emergency and the animal control folks are not in the office? Buy my own kennel and put the animal in it and transport the animal myself down to the shelter. And what if the shelter isn't open? Well, I just have to wait until it is, because they have "limited resources"

I wrote an email to our HOA with detailed pictures attached ( 2nd one thus far) and all I got back from them was that they would send a letter informing the couple of their violation of the deed restrictions. HELLOOOO!!! You think they don't know that already? I said that they needed to be fined to get the point across. The HOA came back with "it would be too costly for the HOA to file a civil suit against them". What do I pay HOA dues for? Writing letters? For pitty's sake...I can write a letter for less than $400/yr

My point and the subject of this random thought what happened to:

1) Responsibility and civility?
2) Agencies that do their job and actually provide public services?
3) Politeness?
4) Common Sense?

The list goes on and on. Its impossible to live a good upright honest hardworking life nowadays. It pays to be an illegal, law breaking, lazy, pathetic, filthy, rude, and otherwise self-infatuated individual nowadays. I'd love to be Christlike and turn the other cheek and do everything the Beatitudes tell you that you should do, but in this society, you really gotta wonder sometimes.


UGH!!!!

Random Thought #15

Since there are such parallels among cultures that represent the same information from a common source in very different ways, we sometimes miss them due to our unfamiliarity with them. They seem foreign to us unless we look for commonalities and patterns in them and try to understand where the root of this information is. Given that's not our nature, I wonder how many of us would be open to new revelations, especially if they seemed especially foreign to us? Would we willingly accept additional apocryphal writings that share a common theme, even if they were written by prophetic figures unbeknownst to us? Would we take the same challenge that exists in the Book of Mormon? Read the documents with a sincere desire to learn and ask for a confirmation from the Holy Ghost? We say we believe in modern-day revelation. If new scripture were revealed, would we recognize it as such? This reminds me eerily of the parable of the ten virgins. All of these women were anxiously waiting the bridegroom's arrival (2nd coming of Christ) but never knew exactly when it would be that he would come. He purposely came around midnight because he knew that only those were truly looking and were prepared would be waiting for him. None of the 10 virgins were bad people (the collective church are the 10 virgins), but some became lax and were not prepared and so missed out on the event. They got so used to the way things always were, that they were not actively preparing for the arrival of their Master. If we are not increasing our testimony, it is decreasing. Faith without works is dead. I would also say that a testimony without constant study of the Lord's word to people is good for very little. We cannot be slothful servants and simply wait for our leaders to say "OK everyone, get prepared, Chris is coming in T minus 1 year" We must be ready to meet our Creator every single day of our lives. If we don't, we may find ourselves as 1 among the 5 virgins who was not properly prepared.

Random Thought #14

So I was reading in my latest book about 3 sub-cultures that all are extremely related and yet exhibit very distinct characteristics. I'm talking about the Near East and the 3 cultures I'm referring to are the Greek, Egyptian, and Semitic (Israel, Palestine, Syria, etc.) We have extensive records and a clear identity of the Greek and Egyptian cultures, but the Semitic never really had any permanent residents and it was frequently in turmoil, and thus a distinct culture is a little more difficult to discover.Many of the great works from the Semitic culture that are similar in nature and content to the great masterpieces of the Greek and Egyptian sub-cultures is attributed to Abraham (father of the people in these lands). So where are the great records from this group of people? Some claim the Torah, others the Quran, but the most convincing piece of literature comes from Abraham himself. The Pearl of Great Price. All 3 share a very common drama that depicts the pre-earth life and council in heaven and even the creation in great detail. They even have characters that play the same role. One example of this is the Egyptian Thoth, who is the Greek Hermes, and the Semitic Enoch. Much of what exists in Greek and Egyptian theology and doctrine is also found in the semitic sub-culture as well, we just don't have those documents, or haven't drawn those parallels yet. This is how Joseph Smith's translation and interpretation of his papyri is so amazing. Without any prior knowledge, of in-depth analysis of Egyptian theology or beliefs, he is able to translate these documents in such a way as to tell the exact same story as the Greeks and Egyptians had, but from a Semitic author (Abraham). Given the similarities, its hard to believe that there isn't a common source. This got me thinking on another tangent

Random Thought #13

Aglet - The little plastic protector at the end of a shoelace. Thanks Phineas and Ferb and Disney Channel. I now know one additional piece of worthless information. LOL

Random Thought #12

So I just finished my latest Hugh Nibley book and in there, I learned about an old alphabet that Brigham Young tried to create with the help of some linguistically blessed members of the church. It is known as the Deseret Alphabet and was created and intended to help those who did not know English better learn it by learning the sounds phonetically. It was abandoned in 1870 due to high costs but I found it fascinating, albeit a little difficult to master.

Full details here: http://www.deseretalphabet.org/

It seems as though this was created by mankind, but I wonder if President Young's intention was to make the mormons more peculiar and set apart from the world. Kinda makes you wonder what the Adamic language looked and sounded like. I guess we'll all find out eventually :)

Random Thought #11

Wow. Its been awhile since I've last posted a random thought. Sorry about that. Things have been a little hectic lately. So, my wife has been kinda sick lately and been having a pretty bad upset stomach. That's meant I've had to pick up the slack and do a lot of the things that she normally does. Sheesh she does a lot!! So she decided to take a nap because she wasn't feeling well and was kinda tired so I was playing with the girls. Well they weren't exactly agreeing on who should push their little dolly cart so Lily threw quite a fit. She has a pretty fiery temper. Well, I had enough so she went upstairs and took a nap (or was supposed to). I tried playing with Emma while watching the Cougars lose miserably to Florida State. Lily ended up not sleeping so I had to go upstairs and calm her down again and lay down with her. She finally went out and so I came back down and played with Emma. We ate some strawberries together and then mommy woke up.

Shortly thereafter Emma threw up all of the strawberries, plus some other stuff. That then set off a chain reaction of vomiting as the smell alone could choke a horse. I finally got it cleaned up and 5 minutes later, DEJAVU!! More strawberries and other stuff and another chain reaction. Cleaned that up again and then that set me on fire. I then proceeded to clean the toilets, do the laundry, vacuum the house, bathe the girls, do the dishes, take out the trash, and sweep and mop the floors. So far I've gotten to taking out the trash. This time Emma decided she was going to lock me out. I came back from dumping off the trash and the door is locked with my darling little daughter sitting in front of the TV. She eventually let me back in, but I'm gonna have to take a mental note not to mess with her.

Still have the floors to sweep and mop so hope I finish before collapsing.

I love life!

PS - BYU lost 34-10

Random Thought #10

Why do they call the study of weather "meteorology"? It doesn't have anything to do with meteors. I was curious, so I'm going to provide the answer to this one. The word "meteorology" is from Greek μετέωρος, metéōros, "high in the sky"; and -λογία, -logia. So meteorology actually means "The study of stuff high in the sky". Kinda cool. According to Wikipedia, most of the events in the Earth's atmosphere (which we can see) happen in the Troposphere.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the troposphere:

The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere. It contains approximately 75% of the atmosphere's mass and 99% of its water vapor and aerosols.

The average depth of the troposphere is approximately 17 km (11 mi) in the middle latitudes. It is deeper in the tropical regions, up to 20 km (12 mi), and shallower near the poles, at 7 km (4.3 mi) in summer, and indistinct in winter. The lowest part of the troposphere, where friction with the Earth's surface influences air flow, is the planetary boundary layer. This layer is typically a few hundred meters to 2 km (1.2 mi) deep depending on the landform and time of day. The border between the troposphere and stratosphere, called the tropopause, is a temperature inversion.[1]

The word troposphere derives from the Greek: tropos for "turning" or "mixing," reflecting the fact that turbulent mixing plays an important role in the troposphere's structure and behavior. Most of the phenomena we associate with day-to-day weather occur in the troposphere.

I love learning stuff. Wikipedia is awesome!!

Random Thought #9

So we've had a bit of rain recently as TS Hermine just rolled through and every morning, I hear on the radio what our percentage of rain is going to be for the day. It's always something like 20% or 60% or whatever. I thought to myself, how can you have numbers like that? My thinking would be you have 3 choices. 0%, 50%, 100%. Either it will rain for sure, there will be no rain whatsoever, or you have a 50/50 shot of one or the other. How do they measure this stuff? I think we should all hold meteorologists more accountable :P

Random Thought #8

As I was on my way to work yesterday, I saw a billboard that had an advertisement on it for a lawyer. It read "Chad Pinkerton. Lawyer. Warrior." Then at the bottom, it said, Personal Injury Attorney at Law. That got me thinking. What's the difference between a lawyer and an attorney? Is there one? Why does it say attorney-at-law? Can you be an attorney at something else? I did a little digging and found that the main definition of an attorney is someone who acts on your behalf, basically a proxy. The other main use of attorney is when you give someone the power of attorney. In this case, its considered a "planting attorney". I guess this makes sense because your lawyer is essentially representing you and acting on your behalf in front of the court.

That got me thinking some more. Does that mean that Chris is our attorney before the judgement seat of God? We do sometimes refer to Him as our Advocate with the Father. I kinda hope mine is an open and shut case (in the most positive sense of the phrase). Fascinating.

BTW - I'm not longer ending all of my posts with "I wonder..." (That didn't take long). I just found it too cumbersome to try and make my sentences end just right so that I could have a catch phrase.

Random Thought #7

Talking about Einstein in my last post got me thinking and I remembered an article I read once about a scientist who was fascinated with Einstein and always wondered what made him so smart. The article basically said that this guy was the person who performed the autopsy on Einstein and had kept and preserved his brain. He studied chunks of it trying to identify what made him so much smarter. What they eventually found was that he didn't have any more neurons (brain cells) than that average person and he didn't use any more of his brain than other people. What they found was that he had a much larger count of (i forget the name of it) links between the neurons than the average person. Many scientists have believed that these "links" were simply that. They were just links and didn't have any "processing power" in and of themselves. New research has found that they actually do have "processing power" so the links between the mini brains (neurons) are actually brains themselves. How cool is that!! Its amazing how much we miss because we don't read between the lines and don't ever challenge the status quo. I think that there is so much out there that we are just missing out on and I'm anxious to find out what it is. The more I learn, the more

I wonder...

Random Thought #6

Relativity. Its a fascinating concept. It can be looked at from a variety of angles (haha). When was the last time you looked at a situation and re-evaluated it from someone else's point of view. I know it can be kind of difficult since its hard to walk in someone else's shoes, but perhaps that little catch phrase has more meaning than we usually assign it. I can only imagine how many arguments could be prevented if each party would just sit back and put themselves in the other person's shoes. It would be nice if we could pause things and go look at the video through someone else's eyes and it would also allow us to feel their feelings and think their thoughts. Don't get too creeped out on me. Just think about it.

Now for a slightly different take on relativity.
I was reading an article awhile back on HowStuffWorks.com (shameless plug) about gravity, which of course went through the usual concepts developed initially by Sir Isaac Newton, but then it went in to talk about Einstein's theory on gravity. He actually believed that gravity was nothing more than a bend in the space-time continuum and that we weren't traveling on a flat plane, but rather on a somewhat cylindrical plane and that two objects traveling along two different planes eventually crossed and that drawing closer of each object to the next was what we experience as gravity. Interesting take, but I guess its all relative. Then I was drawn into Einstein's theories on Special Relativity. From our perspective, if we throw a baseball, the baseball is moving away from us but what if we looked at things from the baseball's point of view. It would seem as though we were moving away from it since all motion is viewed from a stationary point. Tons more on that topic for a different day. Next time you come to a routine situation or find yourself in an argument, just stop and think about how the other person (and/or object) is perceiving the same event. It might change the way you react to a situation. The more I think, the more

I wonder...

Random Thought #5

I was laying in bed last night and was thinking about my girls and thought how little time I get to spend with them. I'm gone by 6am and get back at 5pm and then my girls go to bed between 8 and 9pm. That leaves me just 3-4 hours per night to spend with them. If I have something else to do, I get even less time with them. Last night, I had to go and fulfill a church calling. I was home by 5 and out the door at 7 and didn't get back until 9 and by that time, my girls were already asleep. It made me realize how important my time is with them. I used to gripe about doing little things like playing with them because I was busy with other things, or taking my daughter to the toilet to help reinforce potty training. I'm grateful for my girls and even more so for my wife who raises our kids up so well and takes care of all of us. What would life be without them?

I wonder...

Random Thought #4

So I was thinking about how I read an article one time where it said that we, as human beings, only use 10% of our brain. I wonder why that is. What is the other 90% for? Will it ever be used some day? Are there parts of that 90% that controls other parts of our body that we aren't aware of? Is it all just storage space? Would we be able to understand the environment around us? What would it be like to use 11% of our brain? Would life be drastically different? Is 10% an average or an upper limit? How do they measure this stuff?

The brain is pretty cool. There are billions upon billions of neural networks that all work in conjunction to make us work. The neat part is, they all work off of electrical and chemical impulses. I wonder if we could short-circuit. Since our bodies are made up of 67% water, how is it that we don't short-circuit? 2/3 of our body is water and yet we have electrical impulses racing through our body's neural networks and we never short-circuit. Amazing. More questions than answers.

I wonder...

Random Thought #3

In talking about taking things for granted in my last random thought, I started to think more about other things I take for granted and how greatful I really am for certain things. For example, when was the last time you thought about breathing? Its probably been awhile.  How do lungs work? Who designed them that way? I'm encouraged by the fact that some very intelligent scientists have been able to replicate a lung cell with silicon. I don't think we need to go and re-invent the body, but its encouraging that people are trying to understand how things work.

How about the last time you checked your water bill? How many 1000s of gallons did you use? 10? 15? 20? How much water is that? How many gallons of water are there in the world? How does it get replenished? How much snow, when melted, equals 10k gallons of water? How many households are there in the US that could be using 10k gallons of water? 1 million households? That's 10 billion gallons of water!! That's just 1 country!! Kinda makes you stand back and say WHOA!! How many of you will read this and then think about the things you don't normally think about?

I wonder...

Random Thought #2

Why do some people not care about how things work? I've never really understood how people can just go living life without really thinking about how things work and how they came to be. It seems as though we all take things for granted until we don't have them. For example, I live in an area that is prone to hurricanes and severe rainstorms. Our electricity goes out more than we would like it to. Its amazing how many things use electricity. No air conditioner, no fans, no tv, no internet, no dvd player, no garage door opener. There are so many uses for electricity, we don't really think about what goes into getting electricity to our homes. We don't think about the people who service those poles that keeps electricity flowing. We don't think about the electrical engineers who design the power grid. We don't think about transistors and how they actually work and control electricity.

Another good example. I was asking a guy at RIM how BlackBerry Messenger works in light of the recent bans across Middle-Eastern countries. I wanted to know how you could add someone via PIN and yet also via smtp address. Did it use some sort of mail client? Does RIM keep some sort of database that has all of our device PIN and associated email addresses? Unnerving. I didn't get all the answers I wanted but I wonder why more people don't wonder.

I wonder...

Random Thought #1

So I was watching Elmo in Grouchland with my daughters tonight and the villain in the movie was a guy by the name of Huxley who always stole what everyone else had just for the sake of having it, said to the cast of Sesame Street "You guys just like reciting the alphabet and counting to 10 all day?" Zoe (the orange one) responded and said simply "Yes".

That got me thinking. Are there really people out there that just enjoy the simple things in life and don't need to be caught up in the rush of life? Wouldn't life be so much simpler and better if we were all kids or at least thought like kids? Why do people want their kids to watch Sesame Street and Disney Channel? Do they want their kids to grow up with good values and morals? Why do adults change their perspective? Why don't they just keep that same mentality in their own lives?

I wonder...

Intro

So this is the beginning of a blog that I hope to use to document my random thoughts that I have throughout the day. I've seen a lot of random thoughts blogs out there but none of them seem to get past the first post. I hope to break that trend and post a new random thought per day.