Our Boys

World Cup.
Two words that are ominous, dramatic, heartbreaking.
For the USA Men's National Team, the 2010 World Cup will ultimately be remembered more tenderly than most. More tenderly than 1998 when they went home ranked the worst of the tournament. More tenderly than 2006 when, after the best run in modern history (2002) we went home from the tournament early after tying the eventual champions. But ultimately, I think, in the end, this year will be remembered as a disappointment.
Stay with me here.
I realize that 2010 brought us our first win out of group play, even over England. Yeah, I get that. I understand that 2010 showed us how resilient our boys were, coming back and beating (yes, I said it) Slovenia, overcoming Algeria in the final minutes, and fighting back to force Ghana into extra time. Point taken. I can see how US Soccer will be forever changed with immense support from the homeland. These are all amazing feats, and they are really something we have to recognize and applaud.
But, when it comes down to it, this 2010 World Cup showed how much the USMNT has to grow.
England and USA. The favorites of the group. We overcame adversity, sure, but that adversity was self-afflicted. It does show a strong team psyche when you did what we did, that's a plus, but it shows weak character when the mistakes are committed over and over again.
You see, we can compete with any country in the world. Don't believe me? Look around! We beat the world number ones 2-0 last year (Spain), we fought down to the wire for a draw against the inventors of the game (England), and we held a 2-0 advantage to the men who perfected the game in our first international final last year (Brasil).
So what the hell is the problem?
After Our Boys ruined my weekend (the result seemingly had no effect on other fans watching the game), I think I've realized one of the issues. In all of our (U.S. soccer supporters) efforts to bring the joy of the game to more and more people around us, I think we've become soft towards the 'Nats results. Nowhere in the country will you read a newspaper tomorrow with interviews criticizing the poor performance out of the gates. You will read of how the U.S. has played "dramatically" and with "resilience." There will be no talk or rumor of a manager change (if there is, it will be soft), and overall, I believe the supporters will pat the boys on the back and say, "Well, done, men, you made it past group play, it was exciting, and maybe you'll have a better go at it in four years!"
(And no, MSNBC/Lovgren, this should NOT be considered a success.)
It's repulsive.
I'm not saying that we should all react like the French or the Italians after their (in my eyes, fitting) early departures. But maybe a little bite would help. We should be questioning Bradley's choice of Ricardo Clark after a fantastic performance by Maurice Edu. We should be asking ourselves why Edson Buddle, arguably the hottest American player on the team at the moment, saw 20 minutes of playing time out of the entire tournament. We should be wondering out loud why Carlos Bocanegra didn't electrify and fortify our back four. Why did Jozy Altidore perform so poorly? Why didn't he finish any of his chances? Why is Salt Lake's beloved Findley missing a 1v1 with the keeper? This is the world stage, and while we had a dramatic run, it was rather embarrassing the way Ghana was passing around us while we all stood around today. It was embarrassing that we finished and played with aggression only when we were cornered into it. It was embarrassing that we are going home today.
Look. Landon, Tim, Clint...every single one of you: I loved watching your enthusiasm. I loved seeing your heart when it came out on the field. I loved watching every game you all played. I love our boys. But it's the hardest love there is, and the fact that we're out at 16 makes it that much harder.
U.S. supporters: we have a job to do. No more cheering at results that were great 4, or even 8 years ago. We must come to expect solid play. We must expect precision finishes. We must expect glory. Each and every game we play, we must expect to win. There's no reason for losing anymore.
We have become the force of CONCACAF. People laugh at the weakness of our conference. They should laugh no more, because we should give them reason to be quiet.

June

Part of my struggle with maintaining my blog was a personal debate between myself and...me. I couldn't adequately determine how much this "blog" would be a window into my own life—into my soul, if you will.
I still don't know if I've answered that question. I revel in mystery. I have made myself enigmatic. It's really been a goal of mine to shroud myself in the unknown. Usually I mention this as a joke, but we all know that jokes like this are born from reality.
If you ask my close friends, they may or may not agree with me (especially as of late, but that's a different matter). But I'm fairly certain that after an honest assessment, each one could say that I try.
I suppose I do it for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I think we all have a too strong a propensity to immediately judge other people. We judge their intentions, we judge their beliefs, we judge their looks—all of it. I can honestly say this just makes me want people to misjudge me, so one day I can show just how skewed our prejudices were, and maybe, through embarrassment perhaps, encourage us all to think twice before judging people.
Secondly, it's sexy.
For my third reason, I will point to privacy. When you are not forthright with everyone, you hold "secrets." Whether they're really secret or not, it's something that you have that others don't. It's a very powerful feeling.
I'm sure there are other reasons, but lately—and this is what has led to my personal debate—I've wondered if I haven't become a mystery unto myself. I'm trying to be more open about what I feel. I have protected my feelings for a long time, refusing to let anybody know them, but I feel now, that it's time for me to learn how to describe them—even if it's to myself. It's difficult.
My desire to be an enigma has caused me to have cultivated some amazing skills, one of which is empathy. I've learned to truly put myself in others situations, because I can project those situations onto me, a blank canvas.
But ultimately where does that put me, the canvas?

Hello out there?!

Wow. This may have been my longest leave of absence. I don't feel like it's quite time to re-enter the blogosphere. I think I'll take my Conan-break. Actually, for those of you who care about social networking, I've decided to reinvigorate my twitter account, zoti_soli. For those of you who don't understand twitter, try it for a few days, and it'll make sense.
Anyway, I figure that I could at least give you a partial update on things in my life. I'm floating under the radar for a bit...I think...until school is out. I've had an incredible difficult time as of late focusing on things, and it really bothers me, so I'm figuring out what the best way is to go about recovering from that. Maybe meditation, maybe some holistic approach...maybe a trip to the beach. I thought Honduras would help clear my mind, but I discovered that my tendency to always find something to be too busy with follows me even to the most remote places on this earth.
In the past two weeks I've begun to care about my networking presence on the web (perhaps/hence the twitter resurrection?). Part of this is becoming extremely active in the CouchSurfing community. If you don't know what that is, you should. And to answer your question, you don't understand. It's much more frightening to be in their shoes than mine (as a host), and you can be quite discriminating while still helping people out. Anyway, I hosted a Scot last week. Bernie was a great surfer and was very independent. He walked all over Salt Lake. I picked him up at the Greyhound station on Easter night, and he left that Thursday. It didn't seem very long at all, which is to say we enjoyed having him around. Yesterday, I picked up Roman from the Flying J his cousin dropped him off at on their cross-country big-rig ride. Roman is from the Czech Republic, and we had a lot to talk about, since we've both lived in Eastern Europe. I really enjoyed Roman, and was heart-broken that while he was in Boston, he was mugged twice within 10 minutes. Great hospitality. He was nervous when he got here, but after he explained why, I decided that I would do whatever I could to help him. I helped him get his rental car this morning as he was determined to make it to beautiful Southern Utah and all of the national parks. He had a pure heart, and I'm truly grateful that we are good friends. To think that within 15 hours, two people could have such a bond...amazing.
Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. My absence will probably resume until I feel adequate to manage my blog again.
Until then.

Honduras

For those of you who thought I couldn't go a day without being connected: I went 12. Haha.
I'm back, and I have many stories to tell. Perhaps over the next few days I will write about my experiences. Check back.

Results of the Oscar Ballots!

Man, I wish I had bet on Sunday's awards. As you know, I created a ballot and posted it on facebook, Google Buzz, as well as e-mailed it to a group of people. I sent it out quite late Saturday night, so I wasn't sure how many responses I'd get. I ended up having 24 people fill it out (I had to twist some arms here and there, but mostly, I think people wanted a shot at the prize). Oh yeah, the prize. I am picking it up in Honduras next week. So....yeah. Good prize for no entry fee, right?
There were some interesting trends I saw in the ballot results. First, EVERYONE knew Avatar would win for Visual Effects. Also, Avatar and Inglourious Basterds tied for everyone's favorite movie of the year.
So, the results. Scores were weighted based on how easy I thought the category was. For example, Visual Effects had only three nominees, and the other two were fighting Avatar: 1 point. Documentary Feature: 5 points. There was a logical method to the scoring, but I won't go into that.
Oh, and I also filled out two ballots. I filled one out according to what I figured the Academy would vote, and then I filled one out based on who I thought should win. Good thing my ballots don't count, because they did pretty well. On my first--the what WOULD win ballot--I scored a 62 (out of 73 possible), which means I guessed the Academy's vote on 21 of the 24 categories! On my second, I scored a 27, or got 9/24 right. Haha, I don't know what that means.
But, onto the winner! First place overall was my sister Shawnee. She got a cool 50% right, for 38 points, so hip-hip for her!
Her are the rest of the results:

1. Shawnee, 38 points
   
2. Aunt Karen, 31
   
3. Brad, 28
   
4. Brady, 26
   
5. Meghan, 25
   
6. Leremy, 24
   
7. Abby, 22 (Tied, even after tiebreaker with Austin F)
   
8. Austin F, 22
   
9. Lance, 22
   
10. Josh and Krissey, 21
    
11. Chad P, 20
    
12. Rufus Sputtlenuck (Matt), 20
    
13. Casey D, 19 (Tied, even after tiebreaker with Andrea)
    
14. Andrea, 19
    
15. Chase, 18 (And, no, Chase, only 5 speeches were cut short, not all of them)
    
16. Max, 17
    
17. Stephanie M, 15
    
18. Michael L, 14
    
19. Lejdja, 14
    
20. Kelby S, 13
    
21. Jeff Dove, 9
    
22. Ken T, 7
    

OK Go Makes Me Happy Once More

60 tries, 40 volunteers, 20 bowling balls, 10 broken tvs, 5 sledgehammers, 4 paint guns , 3 completed shots, 2 days, 1 take and no cuts. Brilliant.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

As a senior in High School, they asked, "who's your hero?"
I thought on the spot, but the names numbered zero!
I thought a bit more, alas! one I adore:
Dr. Seuss! Dr. Seuss! He was never a bore!
Odd choice, at the time, but the reason's quite clear:
Dr. Seuss understood! Hence I hold him so dear.

And my favorite quote, especially as of late:

"Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter,
and those who matter don't mind."

-Dr. Seuss

The Sun is Shining

Wow. I don't usually wear my emotions on my sleeve, and I definitely don't usually use my blog as a place to share them. I try to make my blog about things: politics, art, life--things we can all talk about. But I take advantage of the fact that anyone who reads it is voluntarily here. I try my hardest to post things that are honest. I put a lot of effort in verifying anything I put on here. I encourage people to discuss and show me my weaknesses and my mistakes. But if you don't like what you read, you're welcome to ignore it and leave. You won't hurt my feelings, and I hope in the short time we shared I didn't hurt yours.
Recently, I've had to make a lot of difficult decisions. I've been placed in situations where before I would have avoided. I realized, however, that if I continually refused to respond to these situations, I would simply continue to be placed in them. They're uncomfortable, they're life-changing, but they're important.
Not all of these situations are bad. In fact, I would argue that most are good experiences, and I'm sure many of you have been in the same position before. True, some were more difficult than others, but as soon as I decided to go headfirst into a few, I knew I had to go headfirst into them all or I would never have felt as though I conquered my fears of them.
For all the difficulty I've endured, I've been offered great opportunity for happiness in return. My mom e-mailed me today with a story I felt I could share with everyone. It's a story that's very dear to me, although I'm sure the people involved have no idea of its impact--just as I was unaware of the impact I had on them before.
She shares:
"Talked to V M this morning.  She was telling me about a New Beginnings for Young Women [a program for teenage girls that teaches about the purpose of the LDS Young Women's program] that she attended last night  in which a girl who is 13 talked to the girls about her trials with cancer when she was 7.

She went on and said that the moment things started to look up for her was when the Fremont [High School] Boy's Soccer team all shaved their heads for her that day, when she was at her worse. Her mom then talked and said that, that moment was the best time for her. And when V heard that you were part of that, she wanted me to share that with you."

This is so cliché, but I don't know how to describe the feeling I had when I read that. I'm relatively young, but I've been granted so many opportunities to serve people and help them be happy. The pain I feel when I see people focusing on the negative in life and in others to the point that they cannot posses an honest happiness for themselves and others is so visceral that I physically shake. I don't know how else to explain it, and I'm not sure I understand why this is so. 

It's funny, this morning was dreary and on the drive to work I though to myself, "Wow, the weather is acting just how I feel." And I'm looking out the window and now the sun is shining.

Human Chain - Brian Beletic

Here's an awesome short, featuring the Jazz's very own Deron Williams. Word has it, it took Director Brian Beletic over two years to complete, and his thoroughness and attention to detail surely show through. Awesome!

Why are you so terribly disappointing?

I've noticed for a few years now that even as the world is becoming closer, even as peace and technology make huge strides in our everyday lives, there are people who encourage all of us to think that our world is on a death spiral into chaos and oblivion. What sucks, is, it's working. I can't even number the people who in the last week have told me in one way or another that because ONE thing is happening, we can expect destruction of our society tomorrow.
Now, I'm not naive. There are legitimate concerns. But compare what we're doing today from 50 years ago? It's not even a fair comparison!
Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle writes such a compelling article, I'd thought I'd share it:

What happened to my bonus? What happened to my job? What happened to my country? Why can't it all go the way it's supposed to go? You mean having a kid won't solve my marriage problems? Why don't these drugs make me feel better? Where's that goddamn waiter with my salad? Have you seen the stupid weather today? Is this really all there is?

These are, from what I can glean, the most important questions of the day, of the month, of modern life itself. Hell, what with the economy and job situation, the housing market and the overall feel and texture of the nation right now, it's no wonder Americans are, by and large, a goddamn miserable bunch. We don't like anything right now. No politician, no decision, no situation, no inhale, no exhale. We are sick to death of all of it, including ourselves.

Can you blame us? Have you seen how many things there to be disappointed about these days? Love. Sex. Marriage. Stock market. God. Gas mileage. Death. Air travel. 5/9ths of the Supreme Court. It's all just a big goddamn letdown. The list is endless. And getting endlesser.

The evidence is everywhere. I calculate it took about seven minutes, give or take, after Steve Jobs finished introducing the shinypretty iPad before the whiny attacks on the wondergizmo began flooding in, how it didn't have this or that expected feature, how it can't do live video chat, doesn't have Flash, the bezel is too big and it won't double as a meat thermometer, how it doesn't really revolutionize much of anything despite how it's, you know, this gorgeous 1.5-pound slab of aluminum and glass that works flawlessly and can perform roughly one thousand tasks in a more fluid and astonishing way than any device of its kind in history.

Read the rest of it here.