The silentest conversation ever!

Had a new experience today. I went back to Sandy for a friend's farewell, and there were a bunch of other people there too, including one deaf guy. He and I left her house at about the same time, and as I'm walking to my car, I hear somebody clap behind me. Remembering the deaf guy, I turn around, and sure enough, it was him trying to get my attention. He starts doing his thing with his hands and I'm trying to think what the signs are for "I don't know sign language!" I almost said "No hablo espanol," but upon further thought, that wouldn't have helped much. But thank goodness that whoever wrote sign language made it sort of make sense! He pointed at the car, and me, and himself, and made like he was outlining a house, and put his hands together and bowed his head, so I'm thinking, "Okay, so... you- drive- me- house- please or something like that.... he wants a ride?" So I nod and motion to the car, he does it all again to check if I understood, which I wasn't sure I had, but I nodded again, he got in, and away we went. Then it hit me... he wasn't meaning "I pray thee good sir, my house!" but more "pray house! pray house!" Oh yeah. The church. So I drove to the church and he seemed pleased, and he pointed to his car in the parking lot and I let him out and we waved to each other and he signed 'thank-you' and I'm like Hey, I know that one! and then we both drove our seperate ways. I'm not sure what I learned from the experience, but it was pretty sublime, so I thought I'd blog about it. And that's the way the cookie crumbled. very quietly.

I saw them, I can prove it!

I'm sure you all heard about Acappellastock 2008. It was the party of the year. I went. My roomie and I both went. Don't regret it. I was doubtful at the beginning when the sun was blinding the show out of my eyes and I figured it'd all be over by the time the sun went down. But the sun went down pretty quick, and the show was about 3 hours long, so it worked out great. And it was an awesome show. Like fer serious.

Rockapella, familiar with them? When they started out, there were four guys, none of who[m] are currently involved. They're retired, you might say. But they reunited by popular demand, and performed a whole twice. Count 'em, one, twice. The twicent performance was Acappellastock. I was there. The bass was Barry Carl. He's my hero, as far as alive people go. See the video currently featured on this blog for further information. So I was real excited to meet him, cause, ya know, he's my hero. I even wrote ahead of time to ask him if it was plausible for me to expect to get a picture with him. He said yes. Huzzah! Then we got to the show. I've got the tickets, I've got four sets of extra batteries just in case my camera dies, but wait a minute... how can my camera die... if it's sitting at home in the kitchen? Which it was. I was pretty disgusted when I realized that. So after the show I got all their autographs on my ticket stub, and shook their hands, talked to them for a few seconds before the line moved along. That was grand. Then I got home and decided that rather than be discouraged, I'd take control of the situation. I took my own pictures anyway!
Me and the boys chillin'

Sean, Me, Barry, Elliot, Steve

Me and 'Bear' shaking hands. What a guy.

Yep. Just as good as the real thing. I'll be tellin' stories about these pictures for years.

Quroak!

I was driving home. I turned left onto a road with a 45 speed limit. But I saw the car ahead of me slowing down. I didn't want to hit him, so I slowed down too. Then he comes to a dead stop. Now, I've noticed that people generally drive really slow on 45s for some reason. But a dead stop? Turns out there were ducks. Three ducks. They looked like they had started to cross the road (why?) and noticed all the cars coming, so they froze in line. "No sudden movements guys, maybe they won't see us if we stand still!" Good intentions, but really not a well-educated plan. But they stayed stiff, so the car in front of me cranked the wheel around and made his way past. I made my way past too, revving my engine a bit in a "Hey dummies, yer gonna die, move!!!" sort of way. But they didn't. So I finished the drive home and supposed I'd never see the end of the episode.

But I did.

I had a movie to return. So I went and returned the movie. On the way back from the rental joint I found myself on that same road. The 45 speed had resumed nicely, cause I was the only car on the road. I remembered the ducks and wondered how they'd fared. I didn't see them from a distance and figured they'd left. Then I got closer, and noticed the duck-sized lump on the road, right where the leader had been standing before. I think we can all imagine how the episode ended. There's no 'to be continued' on that episode! Though... there might be sequel, a follow-up series about the other two ducks, and the things they learned from that experience. Maybe even a shocker season finale where the first duck returns, not dead!

I don't reckon this drama series will ever come to fruition. At least a few of us are aware of the pilot episode. Aren't you glad you read this?

Rockavideo

New video. I'm sure you're all excited. Especially since one apparently needs firefox to see a whole movie instead of just the left half and apparently none of my loyal readers use firefox apparently. It's apparent. But you can still click the link if you really want to see it. It's the original four Rockapella guys. Mostly I just get a big kick out of Barry's first two deals. If you don't know who Barry is... guess. You'll be right. If only he wasn't smoking... smoking is bad, you know.

Another one bites the dust

I knew a fellow in Sweden named Caldwell. His first name was Elder. He always wore a suit, and he said he was a Mormon. We had a lot in common, except his name was Caldwell. Mine was, and is, something else. This Elder Caldwell was a nice fellow. I liked him. Didn't run into him all that much, but we were in the same zone for a while, and he seemed like a swell guy.

One evening, my companion and I traveled down from our northern area to a less northern area so we could be closer to zone conference the next day. You know how it is, getting on a four hour train at four in the morning. We decided to skip that. So we went and slept over with some other like-minded guys. Elder C was one of them. We two got along, and our companions got along, so they talked all night and we talked all night. Well ya know, until 10:30 anyway. As the evening wore on, it comes to my attention that he has a younger sister who was my age (he was older, you see) and she was widely reputed, by him, to be the kind of girl that "most guys would give their right arm for." Man, I was sold. He even showed me a picture. Yep, she was a girl alright.

At this point in my mission, I wasn't getting too much lovin' from the girls back home. So I think to myself, "Hey, I should totally write her," and he thinks to myself, "Yeah you should." So he gives me his home address, and I write her a letter. Never got an answer. Dern it. Totally forgot about it months ago.

Then today I'm looking for old mission buddies on facebook, right? I figure ol' Elder C is back by now, I look him up. He doesn't seem to be there. But I see this girl with his same last name... and her name is the same as his sister's... and she's going to BYU... and she looks remarkably like the one picture I ever saw... and I'm thinkin', "Dude... it's that chick!"

Then I think, "Dude... why does she have another name after Caldwell, and why is she cuddling with that guy in her profile picture?" Then I think, "Dude, why do you think? She's hitched." So I guess that's the end of that particular venture.

Darn two-timer. I sure dodged that bullet, eh?

Faith, Hope and Charity

Earlier today, during church namely, namely during the Elders' Quorum lesson, we were discussing Christ-like Attributes, as they are presented in Preach My Gospel. The first one to come up was charity. Oh, charity. For part of the discussion I ended up pondering to myself that the greatest of faith, hope and charity is the latter, and compared that to how they're all so intertwined. I suddenly found myself wondering what they'd become without each other, and realizing why we need all three. I pulled out a scrap of paper and came up with the following:

Faith w/o hope = despair. We know the existence and justice of God, but have no hope of salvation, leaving only the expectation of damnation.

Faith w/o charity = hypocrisy. We know God and declare His teachings to be true, but fail to live the greatest commandments.

Hope w/o faith = unfounded optimism. We feel sure of a future, a bright one, but have no sure reason for that belief. This makes for a golden investigator.

Hope w/o charity = selfishness. We desire and expect salvation, but have no concern for the rest of the race, and any service given is hollow, given only to display one's own obedience to the law.

Charity w/o faith = Incomplete charity. A spiritual gift.

Charity w/o hope = Can lead to either an "carpe diem" attitude, motivating us to make the most of the time given, and help others as much as we can before whatever end comes, or it could lead to a doomsday attitude, in that we love everybody, but have no hope of their happiness, believing we're all doomed together to some unhappy fate. Either way, such charity is indubitably sincere, showing love without expecting pending retribution.


That's what I got so far. I am, though, not a prophet. No, really, I'm not. So this is sort of a rough draft on something I think will really boost my understanding of a lot of things. So I was thinking I'd post it on here and see what y'all had for insights. For myself I was surprised that, even though it's the basis of pretty much everything in existence, faith without the other virtues was decidedly negative in both cases, while the other virtues without faith seemed relatively okay, producing Doctrine & Covenants 123:12 sorts of people. Hope shows both sides, being able to both gladden or sour a life. Charity, though, is apparently a universally positive virtue, a great blessing even alone, and a great enhancement when combined with other virtues. Anybody with anything to add, comment away. Anybody who thinks I'm mistaken on any point, really comment away, cause I'd hate to have false doctrine running through my head, ya know?

And.... that's that. Bedtime.