Don't Tase Me Bro!

So the huge youtube sensation right now is the Utah UHP officer tasing a guy after he refused to sign a traffic ticket. My take? Tase him again! The officer probably overreacted a tad early but I certainly would have tased this guy by the end of the interaction. Right from the beginning you can hear the guy refusing to give up his license and registration and talking back to the officer repeatedly. Even after he's tased he's yelling at the officer repeatedly. I love the classic response of someone after they are tased/arrested, "What did I do? I don't understand!" etc. etc. etc. trying to make themselves out as a victim. The kid who screamed "Don't tase me bro!" in Florida who was tased during a forum with John Kerry said the same things right after he was tased. These people act like they were sitting queitly singing a hymn and some random thug came up and tased them! When you're dealing with a cop you might want to recognize that the cop has some authority so you should probably listen to what he says! If you think you're going to win the argument, especially by yelling at him, they'll just look for ways to screw you worse. Dealing with these types of jerks is the exact reason cops get a bad reputation. I'm sure from reading my posts anybody can tell that I get frustrated with people, so how do you think a cop reacts to dealing with these types of people daily? The times I've been pulled over I've been as respectful as possible and the cop has always been formal and respectful as well. I would fully expect a cop to tase me if I yelled at him and walked away from him when he was asking me to do something.

Anyways, there have been tons of articles about this issue in the papers the past few days so I finally checked out the video for myself. My only suggestion would be for him to pop the tase at the woman as well; you NEVER get out of the car unless directed to do so by the officer. Clearly the officer was looking to issue a simple speeding ticket but the "victim" decided it was worth his time and the pain of a tase to argue the issue with him. Next time you'd think he'll pay the ticket because I would dare say nearly all of us are indeed speeding; it's just a bummer getting caught.

Turkey Bowl

The Turkey Bowl turned out great this year even though a few guys dogged out at the last minute. We ended up having 12 people which made for a good game where everyone could spread the ball around and the teams were pretty even. Couple of fun things from turkey bowl.

I exerted my will as pleased as always! Actually, I guarded Brooks the whole time and he was already faster than me before and now that he's dropped 30+ pounds (and I've probably gained 10 or so) I was that much further behind so I had to either jam him hard at the line or get burned. On the offensive end though I did get in a couple of TDs of my own so not a terrible performance.

Marshall was the MVP for our team in the first game, ending it on a qb rush after the blitz in which he first shed a tackle, then lost his shoe in another tackle attempt, and then rumbled down the sideline for the winning TD. Crazy play. The second game ended with Curtis making a nice grab at the back of the endzone for the other team's victoy. It sucks ending 1-1 but we were out of time, oh well. Catch of the day goes to Gehrke who caught a deep ball one handed while Curtis was holding down his other arm. Run of the day goes to Stubler of all people who avoided Jacob's blitz and somehow toed the sideline to go the length of the field for the TD.

Love how many of the guys pined for flag football so Harrison and I bought 2 sets of real flags so that we weren't playing with socks only to end up playing tackle the whole time. You know, you just gotta play tackle on Thanksgiving. I'm not upset about the flags becuase I actually think they will facilitate playing football more frequently, but there's just something about playing tackle once a year and getting so super-sore that you can hardly move the next day. Nobody got hurt but I might as well count how sore my hips are as an injury because I'll be basically incapacitated tomorrow (and tonight as I write this!). I'm about as far from a pro athlete as they come but I don't see how pro football players can deal with the soreness week after week during the season. Good times at the turkey bowl.

Thanksgiving

So what am I grateful for this Thanksgiving? First and foremost, every year my utmost gratitude goes to God for living in this incredible country. Just like everybody else I get greedy and complain about all the things I want that I don't have, but I try my best to keep what I call my "Paraguay Perspective" meaning I don't need anything, and for that I should be grateful. Serving a mission helped put America in perspective more than anything else could possible have. For example, the things I have worry about on this day are balancing my meals since we're eating at a couple of places, deciding which movie I want to see this evening, and hoping I get a solid nap in some time today. These worries are obviously far from needs that are so common all over the world. The fact that I love in a sweet house with heat, air conditioning, carpet, electricity, and every other amenity I could dream of is pretty incredible. Life is good and living in this country is one of the principle reasons for it.

On to other things; obviously I'm pretty happy about having my wife and son in my life so shout out to Rachel and Cannon on being my favorite people and I get to see them everyday. I'm also happy about my health. I'm about to go play (read: dominate!) in the Turkey bowl with all the boys and other than my annual dislocating of my shoulder my health is pretty good. Before I left on the mission I had knee surgery and the doctor told me I had less than 5 years before my knee gave out and I would need a major reconstruction. Well that was 7 years ago and my knee still feels generally really good so I'm grateful for that too (knock on wood!).

I remember being a senior in high school thinking, "There is nothing I could even want right now. I have everything I want and life is going good." Well, I feel the exact same way right now. I'm finishing school, I have a great job lined up, I have a great wife and a stud baby and pretty much everything is going great. How can I not be grateful for all of that? I'll make sure to say an extra long prayer tonight full of thanks; however, being greedy as I am I will have to ask for one little thing to top off my perfect life-as-it-is-right-now. . . a victory this weekend for BYU baby!

BYU-Utah Preview

I want to get in my early BYU-Utah prediction after yesterday's games. I saw BYU entered the rankings this week (generally #23) after 6 straight wins. Interestingly enough I don't necessarily think we should be ranked even after all these wins. Is my BYU fandom slipping? Like I said in my earlier post I just don't have the enthusiasm for this year that I've had every other year of my life. My expectations going into the season were actually very low; the fact that we will win the conference (come on we are going to beat San Diego State regardless of the U outcome) is definitely a surprise and promising for the future considering our entire offense will be back next year. I figured this to be a building year but obviously we've had success anyways. Max Hall is a developing quarterback and luckily we've had a decent defense and a good running game with Unga to bail him out of his growing pains.

Here's my point: BYU has at most 1 quality win this entire year which I count as TCU. TCU isn't even very good this year but I feel they are better than their record reflects. We should've beat UCLA (I blame the entire loss on Bronco choosing to receive after winning the flip instead of kicking) and I blame Tulsa purely on hangover from the UCLA loss. Otherwise we've played arguably weak competition and they've played good enough to win but not dominate anyone. It's especially hard to deal with the losses this year considering if we had beat those two teams we'd probably be going to a BCS bowl considering the amount of upsets and shakeups in the rankings this year.

On to Utah: Utah in my mind has 1 quality loss this year which I count as Air Force. They were playing excellent against Oregon State before Asiata and Brian Johnson went down and I personally think if moron Whittingham had started Johnson at the beginning of the UNLV game instead of bringing him in at the half they would've taken care of that game as well. Air Force simply outplayed them in the loss and no excuses on the QB issue since Johnson wasn't available and the worthless Tommy Grady knew he was the man all week (if he can beat UCLA why can't he beat Air Force?).

BYU-Utah: So after reviewing the seasons I pretty much think BYU has by far the better coach (excepting his one mistake at UCLA) but actually less talent this year. Our talent is young and will become much better to the point I think we can make a BCS run in the next couple years with Hall, Unga, Pitta, Collie, et al; however, the U's talent this year especially Brian Johnson is better and they have been putting people away unlike BYU. BYU has "home" field advantage which is pretty much worthless in this game for either team since so many of both fans are at the game. I'm calling this game purely on who gets the ball first because I see it playing out like UCLA. If the U gets the ball first, BYU stops them and we get the ball with good field position and the ball at the half which equals a win for us. If we get the ball first and get stuffed 3 and out it's the U's game. Either way I predict the classic 34-31 victory. Let's pray the U loses the toss and BYU defers.

Post note: I know I questioned my BYU fandom above but any missionaries out there looking to convert me to the U (read: Brad Ball) can count the number of "we" references in this post and know that it just won't happen. :)

Book of Mormon Word Change

I read in every paper and saw on all newscasts over this past weekend stories on the "uproar" over a change in wording in the introduction page to the Book of Mormon. Instead of calling the Lamanites the principal ancestors of the American Indians it now reads that the Lamanites are among the ancestors of the American Indians. Supposedly this is a huge deal that proves the Book of Mormon is not true! One story said researchers have proved American Indians do not have a history of Hebrew blood which proves they are not descendants of Lehi. My reaction to all of this? A big So What?! We are talking about the introduction to the Book of Mormon written by Bruce R McConkie not anything in the actual scripture itself. In fact, even if it was in the actual scripture itself (correct me if I'm wrong somebody but I believe wording in the Book of Mormon itself has even been changed before) I don' t care. Two reasons 1) the whole purpose of the BoM is built on testimony of Jesus Christ and the veracity that he visited the American continent 2) I'm pretty sure that anybody who studies the Book of Mormon or reads Mormon Authors such as Hugh Nibley feel that the Lamanites/Nephites etc resided principally in Central and South America not the United States. I personally THINK (i emphasize think because it's just an opinion and has no bearing on anybody's salvation so it's really not that important) that the final stages of the battles between Mormon/Moroni's army and the Lamanites gradually reached a migration up to the New York area and the Hill Cumorah but I don't feel that was where they had lived their whole lives.

I was surprised at the attention this trivial story received over the weekend so I wanted to comment on it. Those who want it to be false will always have ammunition and those who know it to be true will remain unaffected by a 1 word change in a part that isn't even part of the actual scripture.

Adventures In Parenting

I was down at a buddy's house this afternoon playing video games and I had Cannon with me. About 10 minutes after I had fed him, I was holding him up on my lap while I was talking with my friend. I went to give Cannon a kiss on the cheek and right as I went in Cannon turned towards me and puked right in my mouth and all down my shirt. My friend saw the whole thing. NOT tasty to say the least. It was officially my first really nasty baby experience. Cannon pukes on my shirt nearly daily so that was no big deal I just wipe up what I can and change my shirt when I get home, but I sure hadn't had a taste of regurgitated baby formula. After my friend could see I wasn't upset he was half-disgusted, half-cracking up at me. Oh well, I actually think I'll take that over the stories I've heard of stuff coming out the other end all over you. I thought I'd log it here so that I can laugh about it sometime in the future. Hopefully I haven't jinxed myself for other undesireable tastes in the future.

Here's An Idea. . . Pay Your Bills!

I've touched on this before on my "we'll pay you" post below and at that time I said I could go on forever (and I can) but I would refrain at that time. Well, I can refrain no longer. Working this graveyard shift has certainly brought some interesting calls. At 4 AM each day the system kicks in to shut off people's equipment who are severely past due. Let me note that if you timed it right you could effectively go pretty much 90 days without making a single payment before your services are shut off, but alas I get angry calls each morning about interrupted services. A common call involves an angry person upset at us for cutting off their service because they use their phone/internet for work. Hmmm, you need your phone and/or internet for work yet you don't pay the bill? How about you make that a priority since you need it for work! Are you kidding me? How do people not understand that concept of paying their bills on time, especially those that pertain to continued employment. I certainly understand people who are living paycheck to paycheck and occasionally let the luxury cable bill slip to the point of getting turned off here and there, but those that use the services for work? Unreal. That's like normal commuting workers not paying their car paymentt and letting their car get repoed even though they know they need something to get to work in.

For some reason I'm reminded of my mission and I'll explain why. When I first got out into the mission field, for some reason I had this idea locked in my head that if I wasn' a stellar missionary I would get sent home so I was sickly worried about it. Finally a couple weeks in my buddy Elder Thayne explained to me that the Mission President's purpose is to keep you on a mission, not to send you home. As any RM knows you can actually get away with a TON before getting sent home. You can certainly break mission standard rules; it seems it pretty much comes down to committing a sin that would be a grave sin in normal life, not just a missionary level, to get sent home. Anyways, it was a relief to me at the time that I wasn't going to get sent home but also a disappointment once I saw the level of some of the missionaries in the field (To close out this thought I am obviously a big supporter of the church's "raise the bar" efforts).

Anyways, the mission example reminds me of how I felt about real life when I got home from my mission. For some reason I was terrified that if was ever a single day late on a payment for whatever bill, the company would shut off the service immediately, hammer my credit, charge an exhorbitant fee to start up again, etc. After these years at Comcast, that is clearly not the case, which I can obviously deduct that it is not the case for pretty much anything in life. Not only can you not pay your bill but once it's turned off you can just make a minimum payment and still get away with it. No wonder people are maxed out beyond belief because you can literally stretch yourself so far! I guess I'm happy to know if for some reason I ever need to be late it won't be the end of the world, but also disappointed to see the low standards we have in society.