Old, New, Borrowed & Blue

Spent the afternoon making new memories at Tannehill State Park. Many of the historical aspects of the park have been updated since I first visited the park when my missionary was four. A major part of the new memories involved roaming around the Trading Days area for the first time, I forgot my camera so I guess I'll have to go back.

It had stormed Friday night and Saturday morning so the sky was clear and almost as blue as the tarp in the picture. However, the blue of which I speak is a sad little corner of my heart. First, I was hoping to get a glimpse of the deer. Tim informed me that someone had taken the buck's head and entered it in a trophy contest. After that a decision was made to remove the enclosure and let the deer roam. I guess the good news is that since the buck was a local legend, the moron was caught. I wish I could say that there was no sadness for either of us from sharing memories of our kids from this place with each other than with our former spouses, but at least we can take a hint from one of the T-shirt designs to "Put on Your Big Girl/Boy Undies and Deal with IT!" Without commitment, love the feeling can never grow into love the verb.

When love meets no return the result is suffering, and the greater the love the greater the suffering. There can be no greater suffering than to love purely and perfectly one who is ben upon evil and self-destruction. That was what God endured at the hand of men.
Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, April 1997

At least our sadness comes no where near that of Heavenly Father. More importantly, with commitment, love the verb can overcome all things; so there is always hope.

Dangerous Cupcake

So would you eat a cupcake baked by a stranger? A couple of students gave one of my colleagues a homemade chocolate cupcake. She said she was afraid to eat it and gave it to me. I ate it, it was yummy. If there are no more posts you'll know why.

Fly Like a Beagle

I LOVE this little guy's attitude.

Resume Padding

Do you ever wonder why someone would falsify academic credentials? Then if one banks on being trusted rather than being trustworthy, I can see several short term advantages. However, the Internet has made it easy to check. For example, I ran a verification search on my graduate degrees and had the following in less than 5 minutes.



Why? Why? Why? Paraphrasing John Candy in Cool Runnings -- a graduate degree is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it -- it follows that you won't become enough by adding an illusion. Sad...sad...sad.

Spoon or Shovel

Some people eat frozen desserts in fancy stemmed crystal with petite spoons. Where I come from the size of the bowl is only limited by the trade-off between the speed of melting and the speed of eating. As for the utensil, the question is: Do you want a spoon or a shovel (aka soup spoon). We had a dusting of snow this morning, so Hila and I were good to go with big bowls and shovels!

In case you are wondering, we are eating Publix brand Black Jack Cherry Low Fat Frozen Yogurt. It's like Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia without the heart attack. While researching this post I discovered that they also make a Low Fat Frozen Yogurt version of Cherry Garcia. I've not seen it around here. That's ok, it would have to be pretty darn good to beat the value of the Publix brand.

I guess I could learn not to snack when I'm watching movies but where's the fun in that!

Four Things

Four things about me that you may, or may not have known.

A. Four jobs I have had in my lifetime.
1. Telephone operator
2. Shipbuilder
3. Aerospace pattern maker
4. Engineering Instructor

B. Four movies I would watch over and over (within reason)
1. LoTR
2. Star Wars
3. Matrix
4. Ong-Bak

C. Four TV shows that I watch. (when I get the chance)
1. SG-1
2. Myth Busters
3. Lost
4. Oprah

D. Four places I have been in the last year.
1. Mobile, AL
2. San Diego, CA
3. Salt Lake City, Utah
4. Atlanta, GA

E. Four people who email me regularly.
1. Elder Byrd
2. Hila
3. Joey
4. Lynn

F. Four of my favorite foods.
1. Tai
2. Chinese
3. Mexican
4. Italian

G. Four places I would rather be right now.
1. no where else - weird but true for the moment
2.
3.
4.
H. Four things I look forward to in 2008.
1. Mother's Day Phone Call from Elder Byrd
2. Christmas Phone Call from Elder Byrd
3. more personal discipline
4. moving on campus ROLL TIDE!