don't eat at joe's

mark prefaced this by saying, "we can never, ever, ever go to joe's again."
i was speechless as he told me.

food like that really was too good to be true.

at least in-n-out burger is almost here.

balance

two (or three or four) animation projects at two universities, a group of excellent friends, a ward and stake calling, working lay the foundation for future goals and dreams, continuing to be awesome, and a great schedule of movies at the international cinema, to name a few.

(i don't believe it! just yesterday, this video was up on youtube, and today it's gone--it's 20 years old, so how they chose today to remove it is beyond me. the only version i could find has dude's added score, which is unfortunate, because it's stronger with the silence.)

nevertheless, it's things like this that make me love the "short" categories at the oscars. we saw this in my history of film class, and i've loved it since. it's a few minutes long, but worth seeing (and it may not be up here much longer...)

mark your calendars

yes, it's getting to be that time already!

the annual muppets and egg nog party will be monday, december 14.

who knows what will turn up in the couches this year.

start practicing your sing-along songs.

two-face

i went to montana this weekend to work on a subaru commercial for a japanese ad campaign. i'm inherently somewhat fond of long car trips, even by myself, and my love for radio programs like this american life (and their blessed podcast) have only heightened that appreciation for time in the car. while i have not read my horoscope lately, but i suspect that the planets are alligning against me, because this trip would be an excellent opportunity to whittle down the growing pile of said podcasts. tragically, since my mac is dead, those hours of programming are sealed away on my nomadic hard drive. such is a telestial world.

up through salt lake, i listened to the morning show on the radio, then switched to a cd of general conference. from then on (a little north of ogden), i went to they might be giants. with my trusty ipod, i had 192 they might be giants songs, and, over the next six and a half hours, got through 154 of them. no repeats, no skips, singing my heart out, knowing the words to all but a handful. the trip was pure bliss, and i'm all the more excited to see the stellar johns in a few weeks.

coming home, i went through another conference cd, half an audio book, and tried r.e.m., but they have too many slow songs, and after about 12, went back to tmbg, who again took me all the way. i passed a semi that, on the back left of its trailer said "el passo" and on the right said "el smasho."

something else happened while i was in montana.

a few weeks ago, some certain friends decided that, if i was not going to sign myself up for facebook, they would. over the past few days, my inbox has been flooded with facebook friend requests. at last count, i'm up to 40 friends without ever having logged on myself.
so, if you want to have the privelege of being my facebook friend, hey, cool by me, but it's strictly ornamental. that's not me responding to comments. i didn't even choose my profile picture (although i approve of what's been chosen). i've looked at my page only once and very briefly. if you want to be my friend, you'll get added. but i prefer real-life friends.

as one astute facebook friend noted, the responses use capitalization.... : )

warm fuzzies at general conference

i remember the first time i got to be in the conference center for general conference. it was my first fall in utah, and it was as exciting as going backstage at a rock concert (well, same same but different). in the years since, i've had the privilege to be in there many more times, and it's still just as awesome. this year, i got to attend the saturday morning, priesthood, and sunday morning sessions. a lot of driving to salt lake, but the cost of a tank of gas is certainly worth it all.

the saturday morning session was, once again, my favorite. elder scott's talk on learning to hear the Holy Ghost was a message that, for me, reverberated through the weekend. it seemed that i heard, again and again, the importance of taking time to listen for those delicate promptings and to follow them.

as i've worked on my sunday school lesson this week, elder bednar's talk on the importance of consistancy in our efforts has come to my mind agian and again. the principle that being diligent in doing those things we ought to is more enduring that the seemingly meager immediate results.

brother osguthorpe's talk on teaching was like a fountain; i couldn't write fast enough.

looking through my notes, there was so much good said last weekend. i'm not going to post a review of my notes this time, but will let you to go back through your own. it's so wonderful to have this sort of council available to us. and that we can hear them speak in so many different ways (this was my first time watching a session over the internet) is fantastic.
and i'm looking forward to the conference cds.

saturday morning concluded with us finding an excellent asian restaurant, as is tradition. priesthood was followed by ice cream, as was tradition in our ward at home (and seems to be pretty ubiquitous through mormon culture). and sunday morning was followed by a text that made me smork and dinner at my sister's. feasting of all sorts all weekend long.

eat at joe's

a brief update: i'm taking an animation class at uvu and working on the student animation project at byu. it's a litte odd, since i don't feel fully at home at either place, and it's also odd to get back into the "student" mentality again. but it feels good to have a direction.

my blessed mac died (again) last week. this time it was the power supply, and my precious (and backed-up) hard drive is safe. i went to the mac store to get a lovely new mac mini and they said that they were out of stock, and that apple has withhelp shipping new ones, a very strong sign of a harder, better, faster, stronger (lower-priced) model coming soon. in the interim, i'm living off of my futurustic cell phone and my decade-old laptop.

bu the important news is this: last monday evening, mark and i went out to applebee's. i prefer cool local joints over franchises, but in suburbia there's not much of that. however, a tiny green plant has sprouted forth in a overly-congested world.
on state street in orem, between the arby's sign shaped like a cowboy hat and the yamato japanese restraurnt, is a small little plaza of shops. the sign post out front says "plaza 1100" and one of those store's in joe's cafe.

mark has been raving non-stop about it, and i finally went with him for breakfast on wednesday morning. i walked inside and joe, a black man from "h-town" (that's houston) with the self-ascribed "gift of gab" asked me what i wanted. when i halted for half a moment, he said "i'll tell you what you want, you want the biscuits and gravy!", then proceeded to show me the freshly made pot of gravy and the fresh biscuits. i had no choice.
and they were the best biscuits and gravy i've ever had. yesterday i got the "joe's omlet", and it was possibly the best omlet i've ever had. and i'm sure that if he made tacos, they'd be the best tacos i've ever had. when tim tried his burger, all he said was "wow" repeatedly for the next minute and a half.

he's been featured on x96's morning show, mark's been directly responsible for at least 14 meals there (he's brought people, although i'm sure he'll pretty soon have had 14 meals himself there), and joe takes a picture with you and puts it up on the wall.

in short, it's the best place to eat in town.
monday-saturday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

it finally happened

after playing rock band with my friends for nearly a year and a half, tonight was the first night i had a neighbor come over and ask me to turn it down. she was polite, didn't seem to be upset, and asked us to turn it down "just a little", since she was getting ready for bed.

i've often wondered if we get too loud (the family on my left says they've never heard us). i'm lucky to have cool neighbors, i suppose.

disturbia

i used to be cheerful and happy-go-lucky.
i think?




what happened to me?
i try. i resolve. i recommit. and i'm still the same.

to be fair, i'm really in a bad mood in only one of these.

nation/states

i've never known much about byu's 100 hour board other than it exists, they answer your questions in 100 hours, and that i briefly dated a former writer. tonight i asked a question (i'll let you know when i get my response), then have been browsing the board when i should have been doing the dishes.

one of the most popular questions was (paraphrasing), "what nation would each of the fifty united states be?" i enjoyed the list even before i got to "minnesota."

(l'afro, i'm still checking to see if i come across any of yours)

Alabama: South Africa. Demographically speaking, similar.
Alaska: Ukraine; it's freakin' cold and out there geographically.
Arizona: Egypt; hot, desert-like, the fashions of both ancient Egypt and AZ peeps (at least the ones I know) are eclectic and cool. And the girls are pretty cute, you know- Cleopatra and all.
Arkansas: Pretty much any random third world country (big-time generalization, sorry all y'all southerners).
California: Babylon. No doubt. For it shall fall. Yea verily. Don't get me wrong, I love Cali, but that's where the most evil is concentrated per capita.
Colorado: Chile. Beautiful vistas, parts cold, parts hot, almost uniformly mountainous.
Connecticut: Kyrgyzstan. Let's get the pronunciation right, people. And because Kyrgyzstan has the world's largest natural growth walnut forest. Sweet walnuts.
Delaware: By the wonders of television, you can be magically whisked away to... Chad. Hi. We're in Chad.
District of Columbia: Rome, right before the huns hit en masse. Corrupt senators, narcissism and pure self-interest in the name of government.
Florida: Cuba. Ummm... check out the demographics.
Georgia: Georgia. (BWA-HA-HAAA... I amuse myself)
Hawaii: Didn't Japan legally purchase Hawaii awhile ago? Ever actually BEEN to Pearl Harbor? The signs are in Japanese, THEN English. What's wrong with this picture?
Idaho: Italy under Mussolini. Pure totalitarianism.
Illinois: Oman. Cause OOOOOOhhhhh Man... it just is. It's like the circle of intuition.
Indiana: Poland. Geographically, everything seems pretty similar: situated right south of a large body of water, really just one big city, always kind of in the middle of stuff, but more by accident than anything else.
Iowa: Central African Republic. Smack dab in the middle of the continent, not really significant in any meaningful way, just kind of there.
Kansas: Oz. Strange tornados randomly drop houses on middle-aged women, creepy little men sing songs about lollipops to complete strangers, sporadically things go in and out of technicolor.
Kentucky: Palestine. They sho does loves they feudin'.
Louisiana: Mexico. You only go there to get drunk, see women that are also drunk, doing things that only drunk women do, party all night long, and contract strange diseases. Where do I sign up?
Maine: Scotland. Way up in the boonies, to the point where you have weird language changes (or a lack thereof) and beautiful countryside. Ahh... to be back in the highland.
Maryland: Norway. If the coast were stretched out, can you imagine how HUGE that would be? Anyway, beachfront property. Different climates, granted, but it's still beach, even if there's a little snow/glacial mass in between you and the sand.
Massachusetts: England. Closest ties to British isles, where we first landed, all that. Plus they've got pretty sweet accents, like brits (you know, different, but both cool).
Michigan: Guinea. And not just cause it's the original home of Snowflake the white gorilla, it's also been the scene of brutal oppression and fighting between the Fang tribe and the Bubis, and includes an island formerly known by the delightful name of Fernando Po or (even better) Fernando Poo. Just like Michigan.
Minnesota: The Holy Roman Empire. Benevolent, wonderful, glorious, set on and destined for complete world domination.
Mississippi: Brazil. The whole thing subsists on one huge river running through the middle.
Missouri: Garden of Eden. Heck, why not-- it's actually THERE, right?
Montana: Antarctica. NO ONE lives there.
Nebraska: Burkina Faso. Just because the names of their capital cities sound the same. You know, "Ougadougou" and "Lincoln." Go ahead, you just have to say them a couple times out loud, you'll hear it. No, really, just keep trying. Louder. Yeah, you hear it now? Good.
Nevada: Gomorrah, just for vegas, baby. Evil.
New Hampshire: It's like Portugal. You know, next to some other nation/state that really DOES matter.
New Jersey: Cambodia, for obvious reasons. Don't pretend you don't know what REALLY goes on there.
New Mexico: Columbia. A brief history of New Mexico should shed some light on why: A 40-year insurgent campaign to overthrow the New Mexican Government escalated during the 1990s, undergirded in part by funds from the drug trade. Although the violence is deadly and large swaths of the countryside are under guerrilla influence, the movement lacks the military strength or popular support necessary to overthrow the state government. An anti-insurgent army of paramilitaries has grown to be several thousand strong in recent years, challenging the insurgents for control of territory and illicit industries such as the drug trade and the government's ability to exert its dominion over rural areas. While Santa Fe steps up efforts to reassert government control throughout the state, neighboring states worry about the violence spilling over their borders. No kidding. It's just getting ugly down there.
New York: Holland. It's main city is somewhat of a cultural definition- Amsterdam is quite rich culturally, and boasts a sort of central appeal within Europe, though it is geographically peripheral. New York City has a similar depth to it culturally, and certainly stands out as a prototypical American city, representing the nation, but then the rest of the state is windmills, dykes, and farmland. Well, farmland anyway.
North Carolina: India. Rich culture, prestige, exotic, and don't eat the cows.
North Dakota: Iraq. Just like Bush, I PROMISE there are nuclear weapons somewhere within its borders, and I bet with enough UN inspectors I could find them.
Ohio: Sparta. They're just so feisty.
Oklahoma: The Anasazi nation. All of a sudden, inexplicably, everybody left, leaving behind a barren wasteland. Good ol' okies... at least they ended up in Cali, even if it is in Bakersfield.
Oregon: Bhutan. Mountains. Cold. Yetis. Beaches. Wait, no beaches in land-locked Bhutan. But there most certainly ARE yetis in Oregon, I've seen them. Loping gracefully across the plains, resplendently beautiful in all their glory... Ah to be among the herd again...
Pennsylvania: 1800s Transylvania. Amish people, backwoods lifestyle, c'mon, it's like the American equivalent of Dracula. They're the living dead, people.
Rhode Island: Vatican City. Are you kidding me? We allow this tiny little pathetic excuse for a territory representation in government? Yeah. Rhode Island gets a say in US gov, the Vatican sends reps to the UN. Ok, the UN doesn't really do anything.
South Carolina: Haiti. Nice beaches for vacationing, good ol' civil strife. (c'mon, civil war people)
South Dakota: North Korea. Dictatorship, aspiring nuclear power, wait... does South Dakota really exist? I know ND does, but really now, what is there in South Dakota?
Tennessee: Vatican City. The guy with the biggest hat wins.
Texas: You're telling me it ISN'T its own nation?
Utah: ancient Israel. HELlo, can we GET any more mosaic? I can't drink what beverages? How many steps can I take on the sabbath? I'm confused. I thought it was the spirit of the law... guess I'm a sinner.
Vermont: Switzerland. Neutral little land-locked pansies.
Virginia: Canada. People go there on vacation, but if you press them, they couldn't tell you why they went there. There's really just nothing there. I mean, it's Canada.
Washington: Panama. It rains a lot. There are poisonous frogs. Lots of nudity. Sweet, sweet grunge scene. Ok, I don't know where those last three came from. But it does rain a lot.
West Virginia: China. Only confirmed Mothman sighting locales.
Wisconsin: France. Stinky cheese, the women don't shave their pits, and lousy sports teams, except for that little fluke in 98. Yeah, I said it. Fluke. I also want to make it absolutely clear that I'm bagging on the Packers. The Packers suck.
Wyoming: Australia. Lots of ranchers, wide-open spaces (I hate the dixie chicks). Sort of like the rest of the english-speaking world, but different in weird ways. That's right, I said it. Weird.

i was there

smirnoff vodka's new ad campaign shows multi-racial good-looking twenty-somethings getting together to do crazy things. things like going ice blocking, filling a swimming pool with foam rubber, or blacking out the windows to an abandoned gas station then throwing a dance party inside. of course, they have plenty of hard liquor, too, as the campaign rests on the assumption that it is impossible to have fun without their vodka. the voiceovers of the hot singles have them describing these amazing events as if they can hardly believe they actually did it, ending with "i was there." and, with a few bottles of smirnoff vodka, there's a good chance they may not be sure they were actually there.

interestingly, most of these activities seem to happen around provo on a regular basis, defying the marketing agency's postulated alcohol requirement: ice blocking was a regular summer activity at centennial apartments, the commercial's dance party was similar to most byu stake dances, and my sister's gymnastics building had a giant foam pit (ok, that was when she was 9 and in minnesota). and this past friday night, i got to participate the latest fun and dry event, the world's largest game of capture the flag.

tim told me that the byusa (vote for himes and maevis!) was attempting to break the world record for the largest game of capture the flag. the established record is 1200 participants, and byu was having official guiness people there (the record book, not the beer) with a rumored goal of up to 2000 people. the day of, i was feeling rather ambivalent about it, but jaime encouraged me to go, and i knew that i'd be glad i did.

it was byu students, but my spring class got me an official id that is good until 2011, and, incredibly, i soon found my brother amidst the mass. i didn't realize how much i have grown in the years since graduation, but watching the students rally cheers around their team's blue or white flag, it was apparent that i'm not 23 anymore. and that's cool; to everything there is a season.

we signed a waiver, listed our names for an official count, and grabbed a glow-in-the-dark wristband. tim and i were both yellows, opposing the blue team. the numbers weren't as high as the organizers had hoped--it looked like about 800--and we were encouraged to text all of our friends to come while they pushed the starting time back half an hour. pretty much all of my

friends have already graduated, so i didn't have anyone to invited. instead, tim and i debated the merits of the crowd mentality, watching how quickly people rallied around their arbitrarily assigned team color, some attempting to give braveheart-esque speeches.

while i don't know if we ever did break the record, the game was interesting. starting shortly after 9 p.m. at orem's cascade golf course, our playing field stretched from the 1st hole to the 8th. red glow sticks designated the jail areas and the field's dividing line (as well as a few greens and sand traps, which we were asked to consider "off limits.")

close together, we could see one another vaguely, but as we lined up along the glowing red boundary, it was an odd sight watching an army of faintly glowing blue wristbands emerge from the other end of the course, reminiscent of the pirate ghosts from garfield's halloween special, in way. soon they appeared at the other side of the line, and we all looked at each other. how do you run across when there is a solid row of opponents just a few feet from you?

i started patrolling the line like a sheepdog, just daring one of them to step out. and i caught one. but just standing in the safety zone was pretty lame. who wants to stand around during the world's largest game of capture the flag? down the line a ways were some less-guarded areas, and a few of us reasoned that the only hope we had was a mass attack.

i'm not sure how many ran behind me, but i made it about halfway into blue territory before i was caught. not that i had any clue where the flag was, anyway.

there was a surprising number of my team in the jail when i got there, and as we were out of sight from the front lines, i doubted that the urgency of our plight to escape was on the minds of our remaining teammates. a jailbreak or two happened while i was there, but as that only releases two prisoners and i didn't have any buddies coming for me specifically, it looked like i would be there for a while.

i planned to only come for a bit, as mark and i had other things going on that night, so i took off my wristband and quietly walked across the red barrier. as i was nearing the parking lot, i heard a swell of cheers, and rumors that the blue team had captured our flag. cool. i got to be a part of it. i had been there.

i'm planning a game of glow-in-the-dark ultimate frisbee like we did at fhe years ago.

look harder...

i want to stand a little taller

how to make a scorpion teapot

hi.

yeah, it's been a while since i posted. i missed me, too. august was, by and large, pretty great. i've got a handful of things i want to write about, if i haven't forgotten them already.

somehow, september is here and school has started. i'm taking two uvu classes to a) improve my skills and b) qualify as a "student" to work on byu's student animations. this spring, i took an "intro to maya" class at byu and loved every minute of it.

maya is a professional-grade program used to create just about anything in 3-D. it's pretty dang. it's also got a pretty dang steep learning curve. no iphoto-like easy interface here.

our assignment was to make a teapot, teacups, and surrounding environment. a teapot is a sort of unofficial mascot of the 3-D graphics world, as it was the first shape rendered in the computer (or something like that). several people have asked to see my little teapot, but just putting up the final image would be the destination without the journey (if you're one of those people, just scroll down to the end; it's there). i think it's pretty cool seeing how this all comes about, and it's sharing time.

our first assignment was to bring in some teapot sketches. like any good designer, i googled "teapot" to get some ideas, and, like googling anything, learned that the world of teapots was vaster than i'd imagined. i sketched a few of the more interesting designs, and my teacher suggested that the one on the right here would be a good choice. at this point, i didn't know what would be considered "too hard" or "too easy", so i took his word for it.

his only caution was that the spout would be a little too complicated and recommended substituting a more traditional one.

3-D design is made up of different phases, with people generally specializing in one or two areas.

• modeling: creating the shape of the object (a teapot, grumpy old man, lovestruck robot, etc...) using basic geometric shapes and molding them accordingly.
• shading/textures: designing and applying the look of the model. essentially, you're designing wrapping paper that looks just like woody's shirt, buzz's space suit, or little green alien toys' skin. and making sure that paper fits just perfectly.
• rigging: assigning joints and how they bend and move to the model. our teapot just sat there, so we didn't get into this.
• lighting: pretty much the best part of it all.
• animating: again, the teapot is just a teapot. no jumping lamps here.

so, to model a teapot, you start with a sphere. click the "create: sphere" button and you're on your way. then you have to squish it, stretch it, and cut the top off so you can put a lid on it. that's a few days' work for newbies like us. but we felt pretty cool.

you can also see that maya lets gives you a top, side, and front view, as well as perspective camera that you can move in x,y,z to see whatever you need (disregard that sunset in the bottom left corner; i couldn't get that to go away for this example.

oh boy, i made a sphere.

and since my teapot is mostly spheres (handle, lid, legs), making a lot of spheres got me a lot of the way through modeling. which was good, because unlike my new friend ryan next to me, model and i didn't get along. i was never sure why maya politely told me i couldn't select that line, why shapes didn't bend like i asked them, or why far too many things disappeared when i said "remove selection." let's just say that i won't be applying any where to be a modeler.

as i was looking as this teapot, i noticed that the handle kind of looked like a scorpion tail. hmmm, a scorpion teapot.... tilt the pot forward a little and it looks like it's getting ready to attack. and that's more interesting that just a tea set on a tablecloth.

so, i modeled some legs and added a stinger on the end of the tail (and another atop the lid, just to carry the theme). despite the suggestion to add a traditional spout, i found a way to make a spout similar to one on the original pot, which i liked.

put them all together (once you've figured out how to group objects, so that your tail spheres don't all go floating off in different directions), and lo and behold, you have the skeleton of a teapot scorpion. this is where the different perspective views were helpful: working in 3-D, it was often hard to see if everything was lining up correctly. sometimes they were hovering apart, other times they were sinking into each other too far. flipping between direct "side" and "top" views was very helpful. ultimately, the rule is what my teacher said: in 3-D graphics, if it looks right, it is right.

and, at this point, you can ask the computer to show it with a surface, but the default is a dull gray. how exciting.

shading is, for me, about as much fun as modeling; with enough wrong moves, i eventually got the right look. i looked up some scorpions on google images, found some color schemes, and colored my teapot. wanting to make a nice teapot, i made it out of marble, able to alter the look and colors of the mineral veins and distribution pattern. i added rougher textures and slightly different colors where the legs and tail meet to show the cement that the different appendages were attached to the body (it's not a real scorpion, just a teapot, remember).

it doesn't look too fancy in the interface, but rendering the actual image was much higher detail.

and yes, little teacups as tribe of little scorpions to battle the big monster (and hooray for the duplicate function!) they're pretty shallow cups to drink out of, though....

while it looked like i was 90% done, we were reminded that the last 10%, lighting and fixing all the issues, can take just as long.

the first step was to create and environment. i found a picture from my trip to death valley last year (one of the few from that trip that was not lost in the great computer crash of '09), a sunset shot that pretty much dictated how my lighting scheme was going to look.

the bold orange sunlight created some interesting looks for my ground. everything seemed to glow as if they were standing on the sun, but when i turned the sand dark blue, then the orange light reflected a nice dark brown. cool.

now was the fun part: lighting. i added an orange sun to start with. interestingly, the shapes are, by nature (i guess?), extremely reflective, and by setting your render settings to a higher quality, you can see reflections in everything. pretty fun.

lighting in 3-D computers is the same art as lighting on a movie set. the theory is, anyway. from there, some aspects diverge pretty fast. i about died when i found out that lights only cast shadows if you want them to. i've spent hours trying to get rid of extra shadows on movie sets.... but adding key lights, back lights, fill lights, kickers, and everything else is the same, even if you get to choose what you want the light to illuminate (or not). so, while trying to comprehend a world with a new set of physics, i lit my teapot scorpions. in the shot below, all the red shapes are different lights.

finally, with the background added and the camera (the little green thing at the front of the plane) set, it's time to finesse the composition. overlapping helps create the illusion of depth, as do things diminishing in size in the background. but don't let it get too jumbled.

finally, you can turn your quality all the way up and do a final render. for this, i think it took about 40 seconds to render. on xing, the armadillo film i was working on, a mid-size render would take about 2-3 minutes (not quite enough time to get in a guitar hero song, but we'd try anyway).

the teacup in the foreground never fit how i wanted, so i actually took the cup and warped it into and ellipse, then broke apart the handle and just positioned the final few spheres to peak into the frame. if it looks right, it is right.

since this, i've worked on some dead armadillos, an over-imaginative girl with a rhino, and am starting on a ninja milkman and an arabian pizza delivery guy.

an attitude of gratitude

to all who made my 30th birthday so seriously dang awesome, many, many thanks.

i have pretty much the coolest friends ever.

i'll post more about it later (because you have to see the cake!)

xxx

this goes out to everyone but me and robert deniro.

i'd like to learn to play this.

right here, right now

at church last week, a speaker mentioned how we spend so much time texting. we all know i'm a texter, being grateful for the "unlimited texts" option on my monthly plan. the speaker noted how often we are consumed in texting a friend in another place that we ignore those friends we're with at the moment.

i thought about that. i've made light efforts to curb my rabid texting around others, but something about that chimed with me, and i decided to be much more conscious about giving my time and attention to those i'm with. plus, it's just polite.

makbule the puma

some friends and i went to lagoon on saturday. it was a perfect day for it, and we had a blast (the same can also be said for the oquirrh mountain temple open house i went to early that morning). leaving our never-to-be-used water park clothing at the oversized locker, we walked into the park and i decided i was going to win myself a jumbo prize at one of the games. i saw a two and a half foot pikachu that looked like a good prize, but soon found a better one.

down by the new wicked rollercoaster was game offering either a tiger or a jet black puma, each about five feet in length. i vowed to the group and to myself that i would that puma. after mark and i met a very nice turkish girl named "makbule" working the old mill lunch counter, i decided that makbule would be an excellent name for a five-foot jet black stuffed puma living on my couch.

as i didn't want to have to carry makbule around the park all day, i waited until near the end to play the game. the premise was simple and possible: toss a quarter onto a 15" glass plate situated atop a glass jar. the glass on glass makes it extremely elastic, easily bouncing a quarter off it. but when each try cost only a quarter, it seemed wiser than throwing a softball into a giant milk jug at a $1 a toss. mark gave me some advice on how to aim and throw: go at a high angle, so that the coin essentially drops directly on to the plate.

i attacked it with all the focus and determination of, well, a puma stalking its prize. i wasn't mindlessly wasting money, but had set aside a certain amount with which i was going to win makbule. i became friends with the lady working the counter, who affirmed that my strategy was the right one, and was soon saying she wanted me to win it as much as i did (probably not quite, but i don't doubt her intentions).

my friends were around me, watching and cheering, groaning with me on the few tosses that were so close. eventually, most of them left to go ride wicked one last time, expecting, as i was, for all of us to meet up afterwards, with me stuffing a giant plush animal into my honda.

the money i had set aside was spent. the lady behind the counter charitably handed me a few of my tossed quarters that had fallen short and landed on the floor. rocio gave me a dollar.

i didn't win makbule.

i was really disappointed. i was so sure i was going to win the puma. i imagined how cool it would be, to drive home with him shoved in my back seat, of people being able to curl up with him at movie night.

this was not the blog post i envisioned writing.

so i don't have a big ol' puma named makbule on my couch. as reality was starting to creep in during my tosses, as i started to wonder if maybe i didn't get a quarter on the plate, if maybe the lady would just give me one anyway, for trying so hard. i really didn't want that. just as much as i wanted the stuffed animal, i wanted the story that came with it. i wanted the achievement that won the prize.

i set my goal, i was determined to win, i gave it my all, and it still didn't work out.

but i'll try again next time. it will be mine.

reasons why "up" is awesome

flabbergasted editor's note: this morning i checked the recent headlines on the blog-o-tubes and was shocked. a writer for sparkplug in the sea had posted an article that left me looking at the title like a winded rhinoceros: 11 lessons learned from "UP". what was so incredulous about the situation was that we had a very similar article slated for publication today on sheep go to heaven. the improbability of the situation was so perplexing that i immediately contacted the doppelganger blog's editor, if for no other reason than to share the uncanny moment.

i have decided to continue with today's publication schedule as planned, as our writer has not yet read the other post; maybe it's about the glories of the spacial direction.

last night i was speculating that my life and actions may be, in fact, governed by the phases of the new moon. this is adding evidence to the theory...

last week, mark and i went to see up again. you have do that with pixar films; they're too rich to appreciate fully the first time over. i didn't realize the profundity of nemo, ratatouille, or wall-e until the second, third, or seventh viewings. so, when i saw up on opening day and wasn't completely astounded, i was ok with that and knew i'd be back again.

pete docter and co. do not disappoint.

why:

it's awesome before it even begins. partly cloudy is, perhaps, the best pixar short to date, second only to the sublime geri's game. in five minutes, you're touched, laughing, heart-breaking, then holding back tears of happiness. already worth your ticket price.

the opening montage of carl and ellie's life is lyrical storytelling at its best. in preparation for the first act of wall-e, the team said they watched every buster keaton movie on dvd (another reason why i love the film?) to learn how to tell stories without words. that cinematic skill has carried over into up, helping us empathize with why carl is a grumpy old man and to love him just the same. their entire married life in five minutes, and you know the whole story. darn near perfect.

sub-reason: look at all the other trailers for animated movies: cool, funny-looking, exciting hero characters. who stars in up? a curmudgeonly old man with a cane (and not a "cool" cane, but one of those with four legs) and an overweight asian kid (yet neither adjective is ever discussed, noted, or alluded to). i love those pixar guys....

instead of being shipped off to a retirement community some time after the passing of his dear wife, carl decides to live out his dreams.

on my desk is a 4x6 note card with the sharpied words, "it's not too late". no matter how old you are, no matter what's happened, it's not too late to follow your dreams, wishes, and hopes. even if it takes a lot of helium balloons.

at the core, that's why this movie is great.

if you never try, you'll never know...

talking about his father, russell laments that his dad isn't around much, not making time for him. maybe his dad buys him a new four-wheeler for Christmas to make up for it, who knows? but walking through south america, talking to carl, russell remembers how he and his dad would go out for ice cream after scouts.

"i know that sounds boring," he says, "but i guess it's the 'boring' stuff that i remember most."

best lesson in any movie this year.

another sub-reason: a standard movie would have resolved this sub-plot with russell's father appearing at the end, sealing the movie with sugar. bless pixar for being bold and wise.

squirrel!

finally, carl gets what he came for, to live in peace and quiet in his house next to the place he and ellie dreamed of. it's peaceful. it's quiet. it's boring. it's lonely.

he's sitting around doing nothing while the people whom he does care about are out doing (and chasing) things, and he decides to go after them. the balloons are losing buoyancy and his house is too heavy. so he starts throwing things out. everything. this was, perhaps, the most profound statement i noticed on the first time.

the story established how much these things mean to carl. they are his life, his remembrances of his time with his wife. but they're just things, and they're holding him back now. he is able to hold on to the memories without holding on to the actual things. he lets them go (without a second thought) and his life takes off again.

dang, i need to go see it again. anyone up for up?

(p.s. today is a tally hall day)

one small step for ghost armadillos...

...one giant leap for me!

this is the final shot of our movie, my first shot i've lit.

after this, the (forthcoming at some point) "teapot" post may seem rather underwhelming, but i'm pretty excited about this and wanted to show it off.

it was only thursday that i wandered into the weekly dailies meeting and said that i'd like to help with the lighting, and now i'm, well, i'm bonified.
and digging it.
seriously digging it.

if you believe....

it was only a few weeks ago that i realized i was born just ten years after the moon landing. i guess anything before your lifetime may as well have been forever ago.

today is the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing, and i'm happy to see that google had a commemoration graphic. i did my best to celebrate by wearing my r.e.m. shirt ("man on the moon": it was the closest thing i had), listening to the orb's adventures beyond the ultraworld (highly recommended), and watching the recently re-released for all mankind.

i've heard the movie frustrates some who are very familiar with the history of the space program because it combines all the apollo missions into one story (i'm curious what my dad will think). rather than being a historical look the progress of the program, it is lyrical look at the accomplishment and the wonder surrounding it all. it's marvelous.

a few days ago, i was skimming through mtv's schedule, looking to see if michael jackson's funeral would be rebroadcast. seeing the titles of the shows on mtv made me ashamed to be a human being. watching the poetry of the space program, of the work and dedication and devotion, the majesty of being on the moon, it made be proud of humanity.

like walt whitman's "the learn'd astronomer", looking up into the sky surpasses the mind and touches the heart.

when i heard the learn’d astronomer;
when the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
when i was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
when i, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
how soon, unaccountable, i became tired and sick;
till rising and gliding out, i wander’d off by myself,
in the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

i just realized, i should have worn my tmbg "apollo 18" shirt.

blast.

my dinner with dane

excluding my very first semester at byu, i was like a very high percentage of byu guys, rooming with a mission buddy. dane and i decorated our room with Christmas lights, went to a fireside where elder uchtdorf of the second quorum of the seventy told us that he was a harry potterfan, and we bore our testimonies to each other at a lamp post on 9th east coming home from school one night. dane was a computer science major who later switched to modern dance, attempted to live the life of a homeless person in salt lake during the olympics, and moved out of our apartment to hike across russia and asia, stopping in mongolia to spend some time with the nomadic yak herders.

since his eastern hemisphere trek, i haven't seen dane much. the last i saw him was in the ice cream aisle at macey's, where he and his new wife were soon moving to oregon, where he was going to open a dance studio. occasionally i've gotten e-mails from him, like the trivia contest asking which u.s. state has declared war on a foreign nation (it was maine).

last week he e-mailed me, saying he was in town to present a paper at a dance symposium at byu, in defense of how the dance department justifies the mission goals of the university, i believe.

we met up at the creamery on ninth. it was the most convenient place at the moment, but it was also where we would often go as exuberant freshmen. just walking back in there amidst long lines of parents and swarms of children in the ice cream line made it seem as if our past was only last year.

we laughed as we happily discovered were we still both dabbling with m:tg (if you don't know, i'm not telling), and briefly summed each other up on our hopes and dreams.

"do you still have anyone to have philosophical discussions with?" he asked.

i thought about it, and realized that i don't. from jon in high school, through dane, the chris, and even the dingus, i would have long discussions into the night, letting our minds sprawl as we talked. i remembered how, with dane and chris, my room-roommates, we would lie awake in our bunk beds, talking until one of us would fall asleep. i miss that dearly.

while i wasn't too concerned about it, i conscious of my car being in the creamery's "30 minute parking" and suggested we go to my place. he was very impressed, declaring it to have "good mojo", and we sat down with glasses of wheat tea (it's a japan-thing).

we talked of how we've changed since we knew each other, learning to apply gospel principles and understanding in a gray scale world. how we've tightened in some ways, relaxed in other matters of understanding. and he shared a thought-provoking story about learning what the prompting of the Spirit isn't.

the time came, and i dropped him off at campus. our visit was barely two hours, but as i drove home, i looked at the ever-changing byu campus (surrounded by cumbersome construction projects our freshman year, he noted that he was glad to be a school that could continually update itself). it was strange to remember so much that i had forgotten; some things were casual memories. others i wanted to hold onto, to see what i could do with them again.