Reading, reading, reading

As basically everyone knows, I read tons. People are usually pretty shocked to find out how much I read when they ask me. I've thought a lot about what has driven me to read so much. Probably 4 years ago now I may have read a total of 5 books all year so something lead/drove me to want to read. There are probably 3 major events that have driven me to where I am at now. One thing to note, I did read a bit when I was younger. Not a lot, but I grew up encouraged to read.

Reason #1 - Graduation

While I was studying at the University of Utah, I just didn't have a lot of time. I was studying full time and working in my spare time. Almost all reading that I did was purely for educational purposes. I did have one class where we read an incredible large amount (of Russian Literature from the USSR nonetheless) - at the time I felt overwhelmed but I think I would like that class a bit more now. Anyways, there just wasn't much time for outside reading. Once I graduated, I found I had a lot more spare/free time. Reading is definitely what fills it now.

Reason #2 - Kindle

My kindle was really what drove me to read the amount that I do now. I had already started visiting the library on a regular basis when I received my Kindle, but after that I began to read a ton. Probably the main reason is because I'm the type of person that likes to use the things that I have and find it hard to let things sit around unused. While I didn't purchase my Kindle, I wanted to put it to good use. Last year I read 130 books on my Kindle alone and I've read several already this year.

Reason #3 - Priority shift

This is the single biggest reason for reading so much. I used to be a huge sports fan. I would watch every sporting event (especially local teams) and get really into them. I was extremely competitive and got extremely emotionally involved. I noticed that this was effecting me and those around me in negative ways (my wife definitely helped bring this to my attention). It would be hard for me to get to sleep at night after a sporting event because I couldn't get over the win or loss. Also, I would have an extremely negative attitude after the team I was hoping would win, lost. I needed something that I could do to relax and not worry about sports as much. Reading was the big thing that took over for me.

Reading has really changed how I relate sports in general. I still cheer for teams, but I don't feel upset or mad when the team I'm cheering for loses. In fact, I can easily turn off the television if it's coming down to the last seconds of a game. I don't watch a lot of the big games because it doesn't matter as much to me anymore. A lot of times I don't just watch a sporting event on TV. I'll read during a game and only check the score every now and them. Reading has been something that has really calmed me as a person and helped me to relax from things that just really aren't that important...I still enjoy watching sports at times and enjoy going to games, but a lot of times I'd rather read.

For me, reading has been a good way to relax and also I've learned a lot of very interesting and fascinating facts as I've gotten into books about history. I definitely find reading far more interesting than tv series and it's a great way to increase my knowledge.

A classless note from a classless Ute fan

On my way home from "The Holy War" down in Provo, I heard Max Hall's comments live on the radio. I was pretty upset with what Max Hall had to say. I am a huge Ute fan and graduated from the University. I have lots of respect for BYU. I grew up in a home that was dominated by BYU fans. I have no hard feelings to the University. However, I must say that his comments were out of line and I wanted to sum a few points about the comments.

"I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them — I hate everything about them.

"I hate their program. I hate their fans. I hate everything. So, it feels good to send those guys home. They didn't deserve it. It was our time, and it was our time to win. We deserved it. We played as hard as we could tonight, and it felt really good to send them home and to get them out of here, so it is a game I'll always remember."

"Do you really want me to go into it? I think the whole university and their fans and organization is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them, and they deserve to lose."

1) I don't have a problem that Hall hates Utah. I think that many players on both sides have this same feeling. There really isn't anything here that fuels the fire for me any more than it was already fueled. I do believe the LDS beliefs and religion discourage this kind of hate; however, that doesn't offend me as a person.

2) This is fine if Hall feels they deserved it. Both sides also probably felt the same way. It was a close game to the end, it could have gone either way and BYU pulled it out. Congratulations there. I have no hard feelings about the game being given away or lost. Someone was going to win and someone lose. I wish the other side had won, but it was still a great game.

3) I completely disagree with that the entire Utah program and fan base is classless. First off, I know there are stupid and retarded fans. And yes, I disagree with drinking morally, but (gasp) people do that. Now, there is no reason anyone should throw their beer or any drink on fans from another schools. This is idiotic, classless, and shows complete lack of self-restraint. I understand why Hall has no respect for these types of people. I myself also have no respect for them. These fans truly are classless.

4) Hall should realize however that all Utah fans are not that way. And why the program is also "classless" sure beats me. If I were to use this same logic with BYU, then I could say that the BYU fan base and BYU program is a bunch of unforgiving cocky haters. However, I realize this isn't true. There are some people from BYU that are like this (Hall would be here based on his comments), but that doesn't mean every single person at BYU is this type of a person and that the entire program is this way. It just means that there are people like this. In my opinion, these comments don't reflect the belief of the BYU program or LDS religion, rather they reflect on the character of Max Hall. He has had a year to think about this, and the fact that he thinks that all Ute fans are classless clearly shows that he has some other problem whether emotional or logical. That is not for me to determine but I think that Hall needs to step back.

In conclusion, I think Hall has lost his head with these comments. However, in no way do I think these comments diminish BYU as a program or their win yesterday. Rather they diminish Hall himself as a player and as person. BYU still has a great program and a lot of great fans. They also have their classless crowd as well. Utah has their classless crowd but they also have their good outstanding fans and players like every University. I hope that Hall can realize that what he said is pretty classless itself, apologize, and that we can all move on. Both sides have great teams and classy fans. I hope my rant isn't too "classless" for Mr. Hall though.

P.S. It was a great game yesterday and I had a really fun time in the BYU student section. Too bad the Utes couldn't pull it out.

Yea!!!

Here it is! I am official!

13-0

Can't say much more than that. The Utes have earned the respect of the nation and are probably going to be the number 2 team when all is said and done (too bad they couldn't play for the National Championship because I think they could have won). Utah has been the best team through all their games this year. Thanks for making it such an awesome year Utah. This is the best Ute team ever (probably about equal to the 04-05 team but this year's team had a chance to prove it). I'll definitely be enjoying this one for the next 7 months. Thank you Utah!

Done and Done

Yes, I am officially done. The only thing not yet official is my diploma - I am still waiting on that to come in the mail. Other than that, I am working full time and not doing any more schooling for the time being. It is a nice and relaxing feeling right now and I am very much enjoying it. My brother's wife, Christie, and my wife planned a graduation surprise party for us on the 26th of December with several of my family and friends attending. I would say it was a great event, but unfortunately, I was down and out the whole day, with a lot of it spent in the bathroom :). I felt really bad, but I understood that everyone had a good time and BJ ate my share of food. Thanks to Christie and to my wife for the great time. Here is the video that my wife put together for the party!


Oh yeah, I have been enjoying lots of sports programming with my time off, specifically bowl games. Only another 5 days to the big Utah game. I am so excited.

Good to be a Utah Fan

It sure is a good time to be a Utah fan. I got a few more pictures from a coworker and thought they were pretty funny. Hope you enjoy them.








Just so you know, I am not a BYU hater. I enjoy watching them play, but I have to admit that the "Quest for Perfection" at the beginning of the season was pretty pathetic. These pictures are great for that.

And yes, that is the motab singing!

A Smart BYU Fan

There really are smart BYU fans out there. However, a large majority have gone overboard this year I think. I am referring to mainly younger fans. The older fans are a little more conservative in their cheering. Anyways, I got this e-mail from a friend. His brother wrote it.

I am a huge BYU fan. I have been a BYU fan all of my life and truly love to see them do well. I have defended them for years when my Utah friends and wife put them down. More difficult is defending the BYU fans when they do stupid things. They seem to be dumber this year than ever. It was bad enough to start the year with the quest for perfection shirts, however, we were not selling them to other schools or pushing them elsewhere. It was just for us. The fact that I have heard of so many BYU fans still arguing that we could go to a BCS game if we beat Utah is getting out of hand however, and encouraging everyone to realize BYU fans are dumb. We are starting to sound ridiculous. There is no way we are going to a BCS game.

I have followed this season closely, watching BYU and most of the other conferences big games. I think I have a pretty good grasp of the teams. The following is a best case scenario for the Y. This means the people who the Y needs to lose, lose a plausible game. I do not think that Florida will lose to the Citadel or Ohio State lose to MI. Here are the numbers.

1 Tech B12 Champ
2 Florida SEC Champ
3 / 11-1 Texas
4 / 11-1 USC
5 / 9-2 Ohio State (will not lose to MI)
6 / 11 -2 Bama (L-Florida)
7 / 10-2 Oklahoma (L-TTech)
8 / 10-2 Penn State (L-MichState)
9 / 11-1 Boise State (L-FresnoState)
10 / 11-1 BYU (W-Utah)
11 / 11-1 Utah (L-BYU)
12/ 9-3 Georgia (L-Georgia Tech)
13/ 9-3 OkState (L-Oklahoma)
14/ 9-2 MO (L-Kansas)


Champ Florida v T-Tech
Orange N-Carolina v. Cincinnati
Sugar Texas v. USC
Rose OregState v. Michigan State
Fiesta
Ohio State
Bama
Boise State
BYU

Penn State & Oklahoma would not go because the Big 10 and Big 12 would already be twice represented.

There is no reason to think that BYU would leapfrog Utah even if we beat them. Nor would Boise state losing ensure that we leapfroged them. There is a 5 rank difference between us and Boise State and we would both only have one loss. However, in the unlikely event that we somehow leapfrog both Boise State and Utah it is still difficult to see us beating out Bama or O-State when we did not even win our own conference outright.

I guess that really puts it in perspective. If Utah loses, they are going to a BCS game. You think I'm crazy now don't you. Well, that is what all the BYU fans sound like that say that BYU is making the BCS this year. If you want to make a BCS game then you better have an undefeated team (see the 2004 Utes as a good example).

GO UTES!!!!

Do you feel it?

Have you walked outside today? If so you have probably felt that feeling in the air, the breeze on your face, and the excitement that BYU and Utah are playing this week. The biggest game ever in the rivalries history. This week is already too long. To get things started off though, one of my coworkers passed this picture along to me. I thought it deserved to be put up.


This year is huge, but Utah will win if there offense comes to play. Defense has not been an issue in basically any game. The issue has always been whether not the Ute offense shows up. I wasn't around in 2004 when the team went undefeated (I was in Russia on my mission), so going undefeated would be like a first for me. Let's go Utah! Make this feeling even better!

Morning Snow

I just had to get on quickly write that I love to wake up to the snow in the morning. It is probably one of the best things. Especially when you aren't expecting it at all. I grabbed a couple of pictures of it this morning just to post on here.

I have some other posts coming soon as we have fall break this week, so I finally will have some time to write. Oh yeah, and nice win for the Utes. Big game this week against Colorado State, who almost beat TCU (of course TCU may have been looking ahead to a big Thursday game).

Bad Fan, Good Win

I have to say that I can't be considered a good Utah fan (I am admitting this right now). Last night, I was watching the game and when the Beavers scored with 2 minutes left, I thought the game was over - ok so I thought that maybe Utah could drive down and score a touchdown and get the 2-point conversion, but I wasn't up for watching the overtime. Utah played like crap most of the game, so I was a little upset. Now, if you know me I get way into these games, so I turned it off because I was worrying so much. So I had laid down to go to sleep - one of the main reasons I wasn't going to watch the last couple of minutes is because I was tired - and a couple minutes later I hear: YYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (kind of like thunder).

That's right, all of those Utah fans were cheering after Brian Johnson brought in the two-point conversion. I turned the TV back on and got worried again because there was still a lot of time. Of course, the defense finally stepped it up like it needed, and Louie Sakoda brought home another W for the Utes. Make it 6-0 for the Utes. Louie Sakoda will be the MWC special teams player of the week, and maybe the overall player of the week.

Just as a thought, Oregon State is coming off a good performance last week, so this team was very confident. Even though their record doesn't reflect that, playing a team that played well the previous week is always tough (especially on short rest). You can look at the NY Giants from last year to understand this concept. Record wasn't great, but a solid performance against the best team made them better the last week of the season. Same thing going on here for Oregon State. However, I don't think field rushing was justified. Whatever, glad for a big win this week.

Props to the U

Just as a quick update, the U made this decision:
"After consulting with Network Operations (NOC), Information Security Operation (ISO) and the Compliance Office, it has been decided to suspend the process of locking student's accounts for exceeding 2GB of data transferred in a 24 hour period, effective immediately."

Props to the University! This is great news and I am very happy. They are still monitoring the systems though and the limit could go back into place if things get out of hand. But for now, I am happy.

What the...??

I am not very happy with the University of Utah internet right now. In fact I am pissed off (sorry for my strong words). This is getting pretty ridiculous. So, if you ever see this screen, then you know you have uploaded too much.


So the problem started about a month ago when our computer just died and I could not recover anything from the hard drive. After that experience I decided to backup everything online. I started using a company called Carbonite. They gave me a two week trial period in which I uploaded about 60 GB in 10 days. I didn't have any issues with the internet during that time.

Well, this past week I have had my internet shut off twice. The first time I thought it was because we had downloaded over 2GB in one day. When I called to talk to the Help Desk and they said they couldn't do anything and it would turn on in 24 hours. I didn't realize it was the backup that was causing the issue.

The computer then shut off again on Thursday, and I figured out that it was the uploading that was causing the issue. I called them and asked why I didn't have my internet shut off a month ago when I was uploading about 6 GB a day, but now I had already entered a contract that I couldn't get out of. They said that because of some updates over the summer, the limit was not being enforced. What the? So now I was just SOL...They did say sorry though. How sweet of them. They told me the internet would work in 24 hours.

So, imagine my surprise this morning when the internet gave me the same error as above. I exceeded the limit yesterday - I'll leave it up to you to figure out how we were able to upload 2GB yesterday when our internet was turned off the entire day. I have called about 10 times and they keep sending me in a circle saying no one can help me. I am really upset. Twice now the University has basically screwed me (for lack of a better word). I finally talked to one guy who said he would see what he could do even though he wasn't the person who should be taking care of this. After 5 hours no resolution has been found. I'll update you once something gets taken care of. Who knows how long we'll be without internet though.

--I am at work typing this up.

*********EDIT*******************
They must have got sick of me calling. They finally fixed it. Thank goodness.