Quest for Perfection

Oh My!!!  With the hacks on ESPN ridiculing BYU as being the most overrated 2-0 team in the country, the entire nation thinking the only way BYU beat Washington last week was with the help of the refs, with football fans everywhere mocking BYU's quest for perfection, the Boys in Blue needed a big week.  The table was set perfectly - PAC 10 team blowing into town with a swagger having just beat another ranked SEC team, most of the world predicting an upset...

And the Cougs came out and gave the "mighty" Bruins the beatdown of the year!  They were AWESOME!!!  I can't overstate how huge a 59-0 win over a big-name program was for us.  It was the best.  As I was watching the game, the kids were laughing because, especially during the big 35-point 2nd quarter, I was repeatedly scaring them with my whoops and exclamations of joy.

The aftermath is nice - Max Hall earned National Player of the Week honors with his 7 touchdown passes; the Cougs are now ranked as high as 11th in the country, and even on the local sports radio station on my way into work this morning they were talking about how great BYU is ... and these guys are total PAC 10 honks.  And of course, I had to reward my UCLA alum coworker this morning with a huge Y logo taped to his computer screen to greet him as he arrived in to work.  It's a beautiful day!

On another note ... 

Brig has figured that ageless and classic thing that all little kids figure out - although I'm not sure they get it while still only 2 years old...  Brig has found the power of those three little words: "Mom said yes."  Over the weekend, multiple times I told him not to do something and he replied without breaking stride: "Mom said yes."  What a crack up.

Of Running and Google Food

Angela ran 18 miles this morning starting at about 4:30am.  This was the third week in a row that she and her girlfriends ran 18-20 miles, and the second week in a row that they ran at 4:30am on a Friday.  I'm really proud of her for being so dedicated to her training this year.  She's going to have a fabulous race and, and dare I say... Boston next spring?  Sorry to jinx you Ang!

And then there's me.  I've mentioned a little knee problem before, but it's becoming a bigger problem because we're getting so close to the marathon.  My training plan has been completely scrapped, I haven't been able to run more than 5 miles for almost a month now, and it doesn't appear likely that it's going to get better any time soon.  I've been a maddog in trying rehab the sucker - ice multiple times a day, every day; lots of stretching; some Ibuprofen in moderation; and taking multiple days off.  I thought I had the problem licked when I got a strap to theoretically hold your IT band in place, and I was ecstatic when it really worked the first two runs I used it.  But then, back to the same old pain.  I hit 3 miles and the knee decides, "yep, that's about enough of that!"  So all I can do at this point is rest, run very short runs every now and then, and hope that it feels better.  Either way, it's going to be a brutal marathon, if I get to run at all - I put the chances at 50-50 at least that I can't run...stinks!

So then there's the food thing.  Without being able to run, I realized I probably need to eat a little better or else I'll start looking like Hurley (Lost) before too long.  Let me tell you though, it's very, very, very hard to eat right when there is so much good food available at any given time throughout every day that I'm at work.  I have had good days and bad days - and last week I went the whole work week without eating any sweets.  I just need to work on my will power a little more.

To replace running, I have swam in the Google endless pool a few times.  That is pure torture. The guys in the Olympics made it look so easy and effortless - let me tell you that was false advertising!  I actually have a decent stroke from my Northcrest swimteam days, but I'm slower than slow, and I could barely pull myself out of the pool after 25 minutes of swimming.  Anyway, I'm shooting for a relay leg in 2012.

Have a great weekend.

The world of Blogs

Judging by the fact that you are reading this, it's apparent you're at least somewhat familiar with blogs.  I think a lot people don't realize, though, the enormity of the blog world out there.  You can find blogs for absolutely everything.  Many people, myself included, make a practice of checking in on a select group of blogs every day, or even multiple times a day.  A good way to find good blogs is to click on a few of the blog links on almost every other blog (look to your right and you'll see my Important Links pointing you to family and friends' blogs).

I thought I'd share with you a few of the blogs I really enjoy (I won't list the family and friends' blogs, because that goes without saying - JUST WISH THEY UPDATED MORE OFTEN!!!):

BYU FOOTBALL:

Quinn Gooch's BYU blog: Quinn was a starter on BYU's defense the last few years and he has some awesome things to say about the current team, opponents, and football and BYU in general.

DesNews BYU blog: Dick Harmon is one of my favorite newspaper guys who covers the Cougs.

SLTrib BYU blog: Jay Drew works hard to stay updated on developments and is usually good for a few posts a day.

KSL BYU blog: Greg Wrubell, the Voice of the Cougars, writes a pretty good blog as well.  He doesn't update as often as the others, and he relies a lot on podcasts and audio segments of interviews, which I'm not really interested in as much.

GOOGLE:

Official Google blog: I work here, so it stands to reason...

Official Gmail blog: I don't follow this all the time, but they have some great tips and tricks, and they're always throwing out new stuff here that makes my life easier.

I'm realizing now there are too many other blogs that I read occasionally, but not seriously enough to post here.  So just know that I read blogs about running, charity and philanthropy, technology, business, startups, and sports.  Go find some yourself...

Interesting question

I'm not a deep doctrine kind of guy.  I'm not one who tries to peel away the layers of the scriptures, or of modern revelation, to find all that alledgedly lurks beneath.  I'm content to just read the standard works and listen to conference.  So this question is merely curiousity, not trying to delve into any fringe conversations...

Last night I was reading 1 Nephi 11 and I came across verse 8, which I must have read a hundred times before:

8 And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me: Look! And I looked and beheld a tree; and it was like unto the tree which my father had seen; and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.

It struck me as I read that verse: how does Nephi know what driven snow looks like?  I may be wrong in my geography, but I'm pretty sure where he grew up it doesn't snow.  I'm also sure he handn't seen pictures of it in books, in skiing magazines, or on the Internet.  Is it possible that global warming has affected the earth so much that it's drastically changed the weather in that region of the earth?  Any thoughts?

A new week

OK, so I got a little lazy last week in not posting since Tuesday.  Maybe not so much lazy as just a bit too busy to spend time on a quality post, and I don't want to bore you with anything less than my best.  I'll see if things can go a little better this week, or at least set my sights a little lower.

We had a pretty good weekend.  Kennan did well in her soccer game, even though it was very hot and the games at her new Under-10 level are longer than she's used to.  She's one of the smallest players on the field, but she runs well and is particularly good at defense.  Kennan also had a fun trip to San Francisco in a stretch limo with her friend's family for a swanky work party that was going to include a bunch of fun kid activities.  You should have seen all the kids when the limo pulled up to our house...

Micah tried out for another PYT play, The Sound of Music, and got call backs for a couple of parts.  She's excited, and we're happy that she's doing well in something she loves.  The try-outs took hours, and Angela was nice to stay the whole time in support.

We have two neighborhood friends with swimming pools who have been kind in offering to have our kids come swim.  So we got in some good swim time on Friday and Saturday, which felt good in the heat.

Brig continues to potty train, and he's pretty much perfect now at not having accidents in his undies during the days.  We haven't tried the night-time undies yet because he's hit and miss with wet vs. dry diapers.  He loves to pee on the grass, and will stand there and swivel his hips as he goes with a big smile on his face.  

Ang and I met some close BYU friends up in SF for a fun evening and dinner on Saturday night.  It was really enjoyable to go up there and drive around, and then we ate at a nice Thai restaurant called Koh Samui and the Monkey.  Great food, and awesome to see our old friends.

I watched the BYU vs. Washington game.  I thought both teams played very well at times, and despite our outgaining them, our turnovers made it a closer game than it should have been.  You've probably seen the controversy at the end of the game splashed all over ESPN, but I don't care - a win's a good win, especially on the road to a PAC 10 team.  Texas also looked dominating against UTEP on Saturday night.

We also had some new/good friends over for a BBQ Sunday evening.  We've only recently gotten to know them better, and it's fun because the wife is someone I hung out with in Jr. High.  We had a great time with them, and we're now bummed because they're putting their house up for sale and moving back east for his job in NY.  Ang is particularly sad because Melissa is her marathon training buddy this year.

We've had a ton of BBQs at our house lately, which is fun.  I've also gotten quite good at marinating and cooking chicken and pork chops.  Because I've now done it time and time again, I know just how hot to make the grill, and how long to leave the meat on.  Maybe it's time to graduate to steaks, right Sam?  

Angela and I fasted for our Provo house yesterday, and we were both grateful for the opportunity to do so.  I'm not what you would call the world's greatest faster, but I stayed strong and focused the whole day.  It felt good to be doing something good that will surely help us fulfill our righteous desires.  Depending on how some things work out, I'll share more about this later.

Have a great week.

Finally, some Pictures!

Micah Ivanovic

Kennan Kournikova

Morgan Davenport

The fam at Jackson Lake

Brig did NOT want to kiss the fish!

Good fish from the river

The kids with Grandma LeBras and cousins

Phi Slamma Jamma, complete with grimace

Summer means a lot of pool time for the whole family

At the cabin on the new swings

Be the fish...

Just one more ... OK, just one more ... seriously, just one more ...

That cute smile was before the snake...

A boy and his dad

Oh yeah, I forgot...

Sometimes I forget there's a Higher Power that can be a guide and help for me.  I've been feeling quite a bit of stress lately for a lot of reasons, one of which was a project at work I spent basically all of last week on without getting the right answer.  I had a sincere prayer this morning, asking for specific help on that project, and wouldn't you know it, within an hour and a half I had found the right answer and was completely done.  It's awesome to have help like that - I just need to remember to have the faith to work, ask, and wait.

We had a really fun Labor Day weekend.  We had two BBQs at our house, a pool party at some friends', bike and scooter rides, new bikes for Kennan and Morgan (Kennan's old bike), Ang did a 22 mile run, I sat on my can (IT band - knee - injured and hurting), and ate a lot of good food.

Yeah, my knee's been hurting me the last three runs I've done.  I get out about 3 miles and it really starts killing.  It has all the characteristics of IT band syndrome, so I've been icing and resting as much as possible, and I'm trying to find an IT band strap to wear in the hopes that my training won't be utterly and completely derailed.  Did I mention I'm going to die during the marathon?  Yep, I'm gonna...

Some great college football over the weekend.  Of course the Cougs won, although I'd like to just forget that 3rd quarter.  Utah looked good against Michigan, although I have to admit there were times when I thought they weren't so much good as they were not as bad as Michigan.  Did anyone see the UCLA-Tennessee game? Wow, pretty exciting - they're going to be very tough for BYU in a couple weeks.

I'm also using Google's latest and greatest new product, Google Chrome.  It's Google's own internet browser, similar to Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.  The idea was for Google to combine the best of all of those browsers into one super browser, which is of course open sourced for all to use and build applications for.  I have to say I'm impressed - it seems faster and very easy to use.  They are careful to remind us it's a beta product, and will have many upgrades coming, so it's not perfect now, but not too bad so far.  You can download at google.com/chrome.

Ang and I get our DVDs in the mail through Blockbuster and we really like the service.  During the olympics we hardly watched anything else, so it's fun to get back into watching DVDs periodically.  We watched "21" over the weekend - I found it entertaining, Angela didn't like it because she was just waiting for something bad to happen the whole time.