like a rolling stone

the album cover that proves mr. olson knew the meaning of those visions of johanna.

it's all over now, baby blue.

it turns out this web log has somehow found its way onto a list of blogs authored by my fellow 1999 graduates of spanish fork high school, which is weird. something else triggered my memory of high school last week. my junior year, i was privileged to be a part of the 'golden dawn,' a group headed by mr. michael olson, whose only aim, it seemed, was the downfall of tony johns (this was in retaliation to his constant assailing of Nathan Rees, or NR, in Mr. Clark's 7th (or was it sixth?) grade class). mr. olson was obsessed with the number 44. were he to ever encounter triple fours, it would be as if the oracle at delphi (a constant theme in his classroom) were calling down to give guidance and blessing. obviously then, it would make sense that almost all of mr. olson's essays were 444 words long. to be different, and to show my dedication to jesus, i would write essays 333 words in length. but, when a member of the g.d. showed me the fourth verse of this fourth chapter, i wrote all subsequent essays 444 words long. my high school email address quickly became landslide44@webtv.com. landslide in honor of the smashing pumpkins' cover of fleetwood mac, and the 44 in honor of the naturally-occurring portentousness of the golden number. i think the only person i ever emailed from that account was the pig steve forsey.

what does this all matter? i came to understand the deepness of the universe, and my small, electron-like nature within it, when i saw this sign on broome street last week. mind you, i walked by this place every day for the past year. but it wasn't until last week, until the class of sfhs1999 came back to haunt me, that i realized the address was the only thing that really mattered anymore. and what was $10 to know what the rest of my life would bring me? tell me please, oracle of broome street, am i a pair of ragged claws? do i have a bald spot in the middle of my hair?

it's funny. get over it.

a classy volume concerning class

required reading to further comment on this web log concerning healthcare, education, poverty, welfare reform, etc.

in other news, peter emily and i went to boston over the weekend. peter, the master blogger that he is, posted on his family's password-protected web log concerning our adventures. my favorite part was tea-bagging boston harbor. hope petey doesn't mind, but ima plagiarize his web-logging skills and include it here. enjoy:

what better place than the birth of a revolution than bean town (which nick told me is now referred to as title town) to memorialize our freedoms? emily hadn't been to Boston since she was little and stevey and i haven't been in awhile. so thanks to the meticulously organized fung wah bussing business, we made a weekend out of our freedoms.

we took the morning bus up there on friday and had most of the day left to explore a little bit. we walked through the boston common, where stephen spotted a pond that reminded him of ducks from some children’s book that landed there or something. i was chastised for being the son of a elementary school teacher and not know the name of the book.



after some putzing around newbury street for shopping and dinner, we followed the crowds to the charles river. we found a spot on mass. ave bridge and listened to the worst public program ever for a couple of hours before the fireworks started. it was pretty sweet, cause people could take their boats (motor, canoes, or row) right out to the barge from where they launched the fireworks. it was a pretty rad show.



the next day, we endulged emily and walked the freedom trail. stephen was jealous of the dude with the tights and the three-cornered hats everywhere. but we didn’t need them. with a few keystokes on the (almost obsolete) iPhone, we pulled up a wikipedia fountain of knowledge on any/every building or site that piqued our collective curiosities. along the way, we even commemorated our despision of king george III by throwing our own british tea bags in the boston harbor. all in all it a was a pretty good day, capped off with maybe the best ice cream i have ever had in my life at this place in cambridge that one of stevey’s photo friends took us.



if you look closely, those are actually english tea bags we're about to cast into the sea for taxation without representation...



this morning we went to church at Park Street Church right between the boston common and the cemetery that graves benjamin franklin, paul revere, samuel adams, and the more important john adams, where we sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” 177 years and 2 days after the public debut in the very chapel of said debut. on the program insert, it was written that 24 year old samuel F. smith, an Harvard (of course) alumnus, wrote this “unofficial national anthem” on a scrap of paper in less than 30 minutes and debuted on July 4, 1831 in Park Street Church.



the sermon was pretty interesting (at least for the first 25 or so minutes). he talked about how old testament prophets had to be counter-culture and against the grain to prevailing opinions that were contrary to their beliefs just like us today in an increasingly secularizing society. at the end he gave some “witnessing” (protestant talk for testifying or missionary work) take-home tips, not too unfamiliar to what you might hear in sacrament meeting or sunday school on missionary work.

1) keep a bible on your desk at work, as a symbol/reminder of God’s work and also as a conversation starter.

2) when you write cards (sympathy or whatever) to coworkers, add a verse of scripture and mention that this verse helped you during a hard time.

3) when people are having a difficult time, ask permission to pray for help for them with your friends at your church.

simple enough.


all in all in was a pretty good independent weekend.

oh yeah. and did i mention that i can hold emily in the palm of my hand... err. i mean, the top of my thumb.

revelations of officialdom

peter, emily, and i took a trip to boston this weekend to celebrate the birth of our now-imperialistic country. we found this:



a general hooker exit may be somewhat more advantageous?



it also turns out we make pretty good evangelical christians.

amazing

i really don't know what to say. see more here, where the subtitle is "Hillary Voters for McCain, not Hussein."

mormons. mormons. mormons.

um...haven't you ever heard of the mormons? apparently, a little organization called The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has. they just completed a little survey of the u.s. religious landscape and they have some tasty little delights about the mormons. so, with no further introuduction, ima give you my favorite sections.

the first section shows how ridiculously conservative mormons are. we aren't even close to any other religious group when it comes to how conservative we are.




the second section, i guess, also has to do with the mormons' conservative principles: views on homosexuality and abortion. the one thing that is troubling for me, is that the question had to do with society accepting homosexuality, not just gay marriage. only 24% of mormons think that we should accept homosexuality? i could (almost) understand that point of view when it comes to gay marriage, but just accepting homosexuality? not very tolerant of us, i think.




the next section shows that the mormons are, next to the JWs only, the most dogmatic about their religion. i was somewhat surprised that only 58% of mormons thought that their religion was not the only way to eternal life.



and lastly, we see that besides hindus, the mormons are the group with the highest percentage married. no wonder so many singles in the church feel marginalized.



so...your thoughts? surprised by anything? happy about anything? saddened by anything?

and, if you made it to the end of this post, then i leave you with a photograph of petey and me keeping it real at the pride parade in the village this past sunday....