'So in the world of today: 3 June 2015' by Sam Orr

So in the world of today:
-Obama’s approval sunk to 52% disapproval.
-The pentagon goofed and sent anthrax to 17 states and 3 countries.
-Afghanistan pro government militias have been abusing power.
-Iran has more nuclear materials than they’re currently supposed to.
-Russia has been paying hundreds of people to post pro-Russia propaganda on various website comment sections.
-The white house said the supreme court ruling against Obamacare in the current case would result in ‘utter chaos’.

'So in the world of today: 2 June 2015' by Sam Orr

So in the world of today:
- A Muslim was killed in Boston by an anti-terror task force.
- The FBI was found to have been conducting airplane surveillance of many American cities.
- A study found that teens are less religious today than any in the past 6 decades.
- The death toll in the Indian heat wave is at 2330.
- Crime across the country is on the rise.
- El Salvador had 635 murders this last month.
- Obama said that congress needs to be more transparent.
- A poll found 84% of Americans believe that big money has too much control in elections.
- Obama signed the ‘Freedom Act.’

'So in the world of today: 1 June 2015' by Sam Orr

So in the world of today:
- Apostle L Tom Perry passed away.
- The federal government can no longer collect phone data or preform unauthorized wiretaps.
- In a test of TSA effectiveness the TSA failed 95% of the time.
- Iran is hosting a worldwide anti Isis competition.
- Isis killed 41 in Iraq.
- In Honduras thousands protested social security embezzlement.
- A passenger ship with 444 people on it sunk in southern China.

My Contribution to the Construction to the Provo City Center Temple

     My contribution to the Provo City Center Temple is very small, but a small contribution is big in my life. When I was working in the office of Delta Stone Products, I was given the job to estimate and design the stone for the stairs up to an entrance to the temple, but it turned out that the blue prints were not accurate to the dimensions and the size of the stairs. I told my leaders that the dimensions didn’t work, and the management had to consult the church on redesigning the stairs. The stairs is not a completely different, but the lengths of the stone had to be reconsidered. I was also able to sand a beehive that is also part of the hardscape of the temple. I learned that landscape and hardscape is similar. Landscape has to do with plants mostly, but hardscape is the stone work of a building. It took me like 12 hours straight of sanding by hand to complete one.

John Robert Works for Fun

     John Robert Hicken is a person that has the biggest testimony of work that I have ever seen. A story was told that rumors say that the Hicken family work for fun. John Robert asked me about what I do with my spare time, when I was growing up. I grew up in a condominium complex, and I never had to clean my own yard. Work seemed to be all he knows. He said that he would work 3 job his entire career, working life insurance before he worked in school as a teacher, waking up at like 4 or 5 in the morning; then, he worked in the farm after until 7. My main job was the clean out manure from the irrigation system. John cleaned it effortlessly, and that puzzled him, since he is probably older than 80 and I struggled with it. He worked on the farm since he was a child. The clean irrigation system let the pasture have double or triple the amount of water than without the day or maintenance and work. Most of John Robert’s family came to work, and it was nice to meet them. At this time I was able to meet the cousins that were about Eve’s age.

My Contribution to the Construction to the Provo City Center Temple

     My contribution to the Provo City Center Temple is very small, but a small contribution is big in my life. When I was working in the office of Delta Stone Products, I was given the job to estimate and design the stone for the stairs up to an entrance to the temple, but it turned out that the blue prints were not accurate to the dimensions and the size of the stairs. I told my leaders that the dimensions didn’t work, and the management had to consult the church on redesigning the stairs. The stairs is not a completely different, but the lengths of the stone had to be reconsidered. I was also able to sand a beehive that is also part of the hardscape of the temple. I learned that landscape and hardscape is similar. Landscape has to do with plants mostly, but hardscape is the stone work of a building. It took me like 12 hours straight of sanding by hand to complete one.

My BYUI Track and Field Experience

Track and Field Tryouts started last Monday, and we currently have 90 athletes. On the tryout days, we asked the people signing up on imLeagues to come back to give their contact information to make things more simple for us to retain their activity. Only 55 came back to give their information. We are planning to do an All Comers Invitational, and I think that we can double check their information there.

     It took us way too long to contact our athletes to see who was in the program. I wanted them to contact the list of people for a long time, but they did not understand me. We finally contacted them last minute. It turned out that we barely have 40 athletes. I asked Brother Stutz, if my stats were average, and he said yes. I have innovated idea, but the implementation always failed. It has been almost disappointing. I am optomistic and flexible.

     Today is now the last day of May. I think that I should just summarize what has happened and finish this entry. The track program is preparing for its second official meet this week. I am trying to adapt, implementing the things that will make it successful. It is interesting because after the first meet I was inspired to have another all comers invitational type meet for June 12th; then, the top athlete that are not in the official program will be invited to the championship meet. Brother Stutz seemed to think that it is a good idea, and the word got around in the activities office. They invited me to a meeting to discuss the benefit of my idea. I could not attend the meeting because I had a class at that time. When I was in the office, I asked around about the meeting. They said that it was cancelled. Upon further inquiry it turns out that Track and Field will most likely not be a competitive sport next year, and they will make all comer invitations be the focus of the sport.

     My opinion on being Track and Field coordinator is that I need to focus on my academic learning of Design and Construction Management. The skills learned in sports is good, but I am not giving enough time to my classes. I don't plan to be a leader in the things that I do not need to pursue. I always talk about this to my friends. I was planning to pursue being a director, but the effort is a distraction from my real life's pursuit in innovating design and construction management. My academic grades are suffering because the effort to make Track and Field productive.

Adventures with Eve (March 1, 2015)

     Early in a recent week, I was asked if I was going to the company Snow Day Party. I said that I was, but I only wanted to go if Eve and Ezra was coming with me. There was no time designated for dinner on Friday night, which confused and baffled my grandparents, but Eve and Ezra was able to come. We arrived about 6:30, and we had a good amount of time to enjoy the snow. We found a modest hill, and went down it a few times. After the kids got over it, we went to the barn before it got dark to wait for other members of the company to arrive. I found games to play like dominoes and scramble. The lights were dim. People were barely arriving at 8 o' clock.

 I have a bunch of adventures with Eve to write about. The following list has most: scrabble on the night of the Snow Day Party, a run with a friend and her, making videos, a belated Valentine, reading a book, Cooking with Eve, a rock collection, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, playing video games, and more. I have some new coworkers that I befriended because they can actually speak English. Carlos is gone. And the track and field season is coming well together. I started a new Facebook page called Latter-day Saint YSA Blogs Daily because I am testing the fruitfulness of sharing only one article a day versus one every two hours. I registered for classes a while ago. Working on the temple. Making masks with Eve and Ezra and teaching her Piano

     I think that I should begin/continue with adventures with Eve. I have been hanging out with Ezra more recently, but all he wants to do is play video games. I gave in to them the past couple weeks, but I deleted all the games. For a long time every time that I see him, he would ask me, if he could play games. Once he asked me if we can play games, and I got excited because I thought that he wanted to play with me. He wanted to watch videos on Facebook though. This paragraph seems to be about Ezra. This week, today being Saturday the 11th of April 2015, is Spring Break. Eve has gone to visit family without Ezra. It has been two days without Eve, but he has been here. My relationship with Ezra is weaker because he seems to persist in his wants more. Dividing from us when he doesn't get his way. I want to have a closer relationship with him especially as I have this last weekend before I go back to school. I question the fruitfulness on my focus. I have had personal responsibilities to take care of before I go back to school. They were begging me download the games again the day that Eve and Ezra realized that I deleted all the games. I waited until they would listen, and I said that I only have a couple weekends with them before I go; I don't want to spend them not interacting, just playing video games. We don't even talk. Eve humbled herself, and Ezra persisted in his wants as I said before. We went to make masks with paper plates as Eve and I spontaneously enjoyed each other's presence. I drew my face on a plate, and she marveled at my skill. After dinner she wanted me to draw her face, and I did. One game that she downloaded is a makeup and hair dressing in nature, and she drew her own makeup and hair on my drawing of her.

     After this circumstance, I believe that Eve was inspired by my knowledge of art, and she asked me to teach her music. She has come to like my teaching skill, and she was able to learn how to read music. I like teaching the necessary theory, so they have a complete understanding in a simple way. I thinking of teaching Ezra piano, but it will only be one time most likely, since I am leaving next Friday. I tried to teach Ezra piano yesterday, but he was distracted by the metronome. The problem was that I wanted to start new, teaching him, without the influence of the way that I taught Eve. I was looking for a clean sheet of music in the primary song book, but I couldn't find a song as simple as 'I am a Child of God'. I was able to practice personally which was nice.

     Eve left to visit family, since it is their spring break. I have many adventures to write. I will follow this list: scrabble on the night of the Snow Day Party, a run with a friend and her, making videos, a belated Valentine, reading a book, Cooking with Eve, a rock collection, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, playing video games, and more.

     The Snow Day Party of RJ Enterprises was interesting because they said that people would come to enjoy the snow and facilities of the cabin about 6 or 7; however, everyone didn't come until about 8 or 9, and my grandparents were wondering if dinner will served. They were  complained a little about having dinner so late, but they endured. During this time, we played dominoes and scrabble. The dominoes play was not actually a game in my opinion, but scrabble was interesting. The lighting was not good in the cabin, so grandma could not see the letters well. It took me a while to warm up. I believe that we played a warm up round. Eve would be impatient, and have grandma skip her turn. She was also impatient with herself and her limited vocabulary. We switched letters couple times because she couldn't find any words; however, I could. I was not exceptional, but the competition was easy.

     The food was finally prepared, and it was good. One dish was interesting. It was green onions cooked in butter or oil. I enjoy one serving, but the second didn't feel good. There some barbecued meat, which was amazing, chips and tortillas. I was eating with Eve, Ezra, and my grandparents as usual, Robert Hicken, the CEO of RJ Enterprises, joined us. I always encourage Eve to be friendly, and, Robert's daughter, Camille came up to her, asking to be her friend. Eve was a little leery, but she went with my prompting, saying that Camille is her cousin. They went out to play in the snow, and it was fun. Camille and her exchanged phone numbers, so they could hang out again. John Robert Hicken is Robert Hicken's father, and John Robert has a lot of granddaughters Eve's age. I wish that they could meet and hang out. I met them at a work day a couple weekends ago that I will write about.

     One Saturday, I was planning to go on a run just as Eve and Ezra arrived for the afternoon. Eve said that she wanted to go with me on her bicycle. When we were about to leave, Eve's friend Danica was riding her bike passed the house with her family, and she joined us. Danica has a cool little sister, but she is a little too young to go out with us. We almost ran all the way to the end of Red Ledges. Danica was exhausted quickly, ending up walking before we reached the turn back point. Eve acted as though she was faster than me, but I just wanted to keep Danica in my sight between Danica and Eve. We decided to turn back at the top of a hill to enjoy the ride down, and Danica was satisfied with the decision, enjoying the ride down. Eve was dressed as a pirate for an odd reason. I think that it was a costume for a school performance. On her first ride down the hill, her bandana fell off her head, and it got stuck in the chain. After we got it out, she wanted to go down again, so Danica had to wait a little as we were figuring out how to get the bandana out of the bicycle chain and her second ride down. We made it home save. My first time visiting my grandparents. I lacked skills to take care of the children when I went out with them, but things went much smoothly this past winter with them.

     This journal entry is a little choppy because I have not been able to finish an entry. It has been more than two months. Today is May third. Grandma knows that Eve and Ezra love me, so she hoped that they would visit before I left the week before I left. On the last weekend that I had with them, Eve visited her relatives, since it was Spring break. My relationship with Ezra is kind of weak. I felt bad because I came down from see how everyone is doing, and grandpa and Ezra was watching television. Ezra asked "What I have been up to?" I didn't even answer. I don't like television because it distracted me from that moment. Jessica and I agreed to not have television. For the last week in Heber, Eve and Ezra were able to visit me before I left Friday morning. On Tuesday grandma and grandpa took me to see the Provo City Center temple, and we went to the outback, since Doug Nielson gave them a gift card. We went to visit Doug, the brother of my grandma. He wanted to show us pictures that he had taken on a trip to Patagonia. It is not the first time that I visited his house to learn of his travels. I was surprised on the Tuesday that Robert John Hicken wanted me to work for him for the remaining time that I had there, which was only a couple days. He wanted to take me out on some job sites, but we did not have time too. I bought a bread maker machine because Jessica and I decided that purchasing groceries is more affordable than eating out most meals. This has been working out. Eve and I made the first loaf that I had the machine together. Grandpa had a bread making machine, so we got everyone involved. Even Carl my uncle stopped to enjoy a slice, when he picked up Eve and Ezra. 

Critic on Temporary Pianist

     My grandparents and I went to a piano recital, which was part of a local convention, and I was hoping to enjoy it as much as I do listening to my older brother. The girl from Taiwan is named Eun Lee or something like that. When I went to China, I would here piano music played proudly on the radio, but it sounded soulless. Taiwan is under the same philosophy and government somewhat of China, so I blame that the pride of the nation limits this 21 year old girls expression. I expressed this to Thomas, my older brother, but he said that the most expressive pianist that he knows is Chinese. His name is Lang Lang. He played just like Eun Lee. They can play the song, but it is not refined. They are expressive in their face and gestures, but it is not heard in the piano. There was a question and answer session, and I wanted to ask "What piano skills are you learning currently?" or "How do you seek to inspire the audience when you play?"; however, we were at a middle school and the audience was young, and my questions would most likely go over their heads.

Big Hero 6: Review

     Big Hero 6 was an excellent movie, but I thought that the professor was dumb to go on a rampage of revenge after his college building was destroyed, and she lost her daughter in a stargate teleportation mishaps. His integrity was too fragile. I liked the endorsement of education and technological advances and how there are no overly powerful superhumans.

Finding Friends in a New YSA Ward in a Long Distance Relationship

     In a past journal entry, I wrote that friends in Heber were hard to come by; however, I found a good group at the Heber YSA Ward. It may have begun by joining the choir. Jeremy Jex has invited me to join his group. Rachel Saxton has been friendly. The choir is a good core group of friends. I used to be super friendly, but I feel like I can't be too friendly with everyone, since I am dating Jessica.