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.

Nuit Blanche

Absolutely fantastic short film, Nuit Blanche, plus, an awesome howdtheydothat making-of video to go with it!

Jon Stewart on Bill O'Reilly

One hour of Jon Stewart, one on one, with Bill O'Reilly. I personally think Stewart handled O'Reilly quite well with his mixture of seriousness and satire. It's hilarious to me that O'Reilly really has become the level-headed mouth of Fox News. Haha.