Deep Thoughts From The Course

For those who check this, I haven't blogged because I have been so friggin' busy that I haven't had time to blog. If you would like to see what Ann and I have been up to, please check out her blog... www.brodyandann.blogspot.com.

Thank you,

Brody

Okay, so this morning I got an e-mail from a guy in my ward and I just had to post the video it linked to. I hope you all enjoy it!

-Brody

Here is a video of Yes on Prop 8 sign stealers. Some members of my elders quorum have set up traps to catch the sign stealers. Please watch and vote YES on Prop 8.

I was already frustrated about this issue because earlier that day I heard on the radio (KSL radio, for those familiar with the station) that a local Mormon leader from Nebraska was coming to Salt Lake to meet with someone from the Church to talk to them about OUR stance on gay marriage. Not was this local leader coming to talk to them about it, but he was also bringing 300, yes that is right 300 letter to give to the church about OUR stance about gay marriage and how they disagree with OUR stance.

If anyone has an idea of what they think they meant by, "Live and let live," please leave your comments by clicking on the comments link below this post.

Thank you!

So school started again, and my first class took place on Tuesday. So I got to school early to puy my books and I got a book that was not needed. So yesterday I had to return that book at school, so I got in line and then got the cash register and explained that I wanted to return a book that I accidentally bought. When the cashier looked at the receipt she said that she couldn't. I then asked, "Why not? (politely)" She then stated that the book was never really purchased, she explained that the person who rang me up was in a mode that would let people return things. So the receipt showed everything as a negative. So to return the book, the cashier had to charge me for the books and the other supplies that I bought with my books, thus zeroing out the original return. From there she did the return for the book that I originally wanted to return, thus crediting my card back for the amount of the book. Then I told the cashier that I thought that the person in front of me was rung up as a return instead of a charge. So the cashier had me talk to the Book Store Manager about it and mentioned it, so for my trouble I got a $5 gift card from him. From I took the gift card and used it to help a handicapped in a convenience store pay for his drink, it really made him happy and he offered to pay me back and I told him that it was not needed. So it was a good day for me and I passed it on to others. I hope that the story makes sense.

Update:

So I checked my e-mail for school today and found an e-mail from the bookstore manager that stating what I stated above. So he asked me to come in and get it worked out so that their books are correct. So I will actually not get my books for free, unfortunately! But it was fun to think that while it lasted.

Okay, so every year for the past 5 years since I since I have been home from my mission my family has always gotten excited at this time of year. Why? Because the biggest cycling race takes place during this time of year, the Tour De France. It is the biggest Grand Tour that takes place in the cycling world. A lot of cycling fans get ready for this and all they can talk about is this when ever they see their friends that are cyclists. But still you might think, why is Brody so into cycling? Let's just say that growing up with parents that have been involved with cycling, so it kind of rubbed off on me, like golf has. I may not ride a lot, but I love to follow it because of the intenseness of each stage and the possibility of the major crash that may or may not happen. I was really excited during the time that Lance Armstrong won 7 straight, something that was never done before and probably won't be done again. I was really stoked when Alberto Contador won last years Tour, I was extremely disappointed that the ASO (the organizing group of the Tour) did not invite Team Astana (the team that Alberto Contador belongs to currently) to ride in the Tour. For those who would like to follow the Tour and like to read this blog below is a daily update of what happened in that day's stage. You can also follow in on www.versus.com or www.velonews.com.

Well after a few thousand miles of driving (see my wife's blog for the reason why) and a couple of weeks in Europe, I am now reacclimated to California time. I kind of liked it when I got back, because I would go to bed at 9 p.m. (I know that is early, but I liked it) and then I would wake up at 5:30 a.m. I like it because I was up and at'em and ready to take on the day! Ann and I got so much done the first day we got back because we were both up so early in the day, that we got almost everything we needed to get done before 12 (noon). I plan on being more diligent on blogging from now on, and I know that everyone says that and they don't; but I am going to try hard.

But anyways, if you would like to know how our trip went please my wife's blog (www.brodyandann.blogspot.com) and look at all the pictures she has posted, also our website (www.brodyandann.com).

For those who don't know how to sync your IPod with your computer as well as add new music to ITunes and then add it to your IPod, here is how you do it...

First syncing your IPod to ITunes...

1. Connect your IPod to your computer using the USB cable (PC), firewire cable (MAC) then connect your IPod that cable.
   
2. Then open ITunes, when the IPod is recognized by your computer it will show up on the left hand side of the your ITunes window below the Library "tab" and the "Store" tab.
   
3. If you would like to choose what music you would like to put on your IPod, select your IPod and then along the top of the window there will be tabs that show up saying; Summary, Music, Podcasts, Photos, and Contacts.
4. On the Summary tab there is an area called Options with check boxes where you can select "Manually manage music." By selecting that it allows you to choose what music you want on your IPod.
   
5. Select the Music tab. You then need to click the "Sync Music" box, thus selecting that option, and then click the "Selected playlists" option.
   
6. From there the box below will not be grayed out and you can then select the playlist you want on your IPod.
   

Adding Music to ITunes...

1. First open ITunes and then put the CD you want in ITunes in your CD-Rom Drive of your computer.
   
2. When a prompt comes up to import the music you can either say "yes" or "no". By selecting "no" you can pick and choose which songs you want to import by either placing or removing the check marks in the the box next to the song you want to import. When you select which songs you want, select them and drag them into the playlists you want the songs to go into.
   
3. From there follow the instruction on adding the music onto your IPod.
   

Adding Playlists...

1. While importing the music you can select the "90's Music" link under the "Playlist" tab and then go to File, then select "New Playlist". You can also use hot keys, Control+N and then name the new playlist.
   
2. Then select the "music" link under the "Library" tab and select the music from that window into the newly named playlist.
   
3. Then follow the instructions on adding music onto your IPod. This allows that music to be put into the playlist so that you can select that "CD" or playlist on your IPod.
   

Man it's been almost a month since my last post! Here is a little update...

• School's out! Some of you may have read my earlier post saying that I was excited for school, well that changed about half way through the semester, last semester. That is when things started to get tough, because I ended up doing most of a 30 pages paper for one of my classes and most of the project that went along with it.
  
• Once school got out it was time for Christmas and New Years! They both were fun and very exciting. For Christmas Ann and I went to Arizona to be with my family for Christmas. We both got very exciting things for me it was a new golf club (driver) from Ann, which came in very useful the day after Christmas, because my Dad, Brooks, Nikki (who drove Brooks' golf cart and played a couple of wholes), Ann (who drove my golf cart) and I went a played the golf course near my parents house. We played scramble, you take the best shot and score of the group and that is the group score, and we shot 1 or 2 under par (I really don't remember). When we got home from Arizona; Ann and I went to her parents house where the biggest surprise of Christmas came (for me that is). When we started to open our presents from them they (Ann, her mom and her sister) gave me these gifts that were very cool (I think to through me off about the big gift we were going to give me). Then Lauren (Ann's sister) handed me a box and I opened it and freaked out! I freaked out for two, one because it was something that I really wasn't expecting because Ann's mom and dad gave me something similar the year before, and I totally thought that they got a new laptop (because I have been talking about getting a new one for months) or a Sector Nine long board (skateboard) for the same reason as the laptop. So when I saw that the box was a Nintendo Wii I was totally excited. So like I said, Christmas was awesome!

Well that is basically the update. Now the big thing that is coming up, is my biannual business trip to Dallas, TX. This is because the industry I work in has a show there to show off the new product and to allow my customers to buy new items for their display and get some discounts or dating terms, etc. So that is the next big thing for me.

I hope that everyone has a Happy and Prosperous New Year this coming year.

Well here is an update since my last post...

• Since Thanksgiving my perspective on how much I like school has changed big time! I have has a project for school and it has appeared that I am going to have to do everything, which in the last couple of months has become true. This project has been a semester long thing that I could have done by myself or with someone else, I choose to do it with someone else and right now I am feeling the effects of that choice. However, I know that this is just one stumbling block in this thing called college with is a part of life. I also know that once I am done with college it will pay off.
• For those who might have read Ann's blog, on Friday our fridge blew. Here is the story from my perspective. I went out to eat lunch and ran a couple of errands, when I returned the apartment smelled like someone had shot a cap gun in our apartment and I could also smell smoke lingering around my desk. So my first instinct was oh crap, find the source of the fire. So with it being the Christmas season, I looked at the first place that would come to anyone's mind, the Christmas tree. Which was not the source of the smell nor the smoke, so I checked Ann's Christmas Village; that wasn't it either. From there I proceeded to head back to our bedroom and smelled by the fridge and at first I didn't that was the source. So I opened the front door, the sliding door and a couple of windows to air out the place. As I kept going back to the bedroom and to the bathroom I would smell the aforementioned smell over and over, so I went and smelt by the fridge and I could sense that that was the source. Due to that I called the leasing office and asked them to send someone to look at the fridge, so when the maintenance guy got here we pulled out the fridge and he looked at the back by the motor and found that something blew. Luckily for us a fire didn't start and we didn't loose anything. Up until today we had to use the fridge in the apartment across the hall from us so that our stuff that needed to be refrigerated would not spoil; which was fun, because last night I went across the hall to get some egg nog in my PJ's.

Well that is about everything. I hope to be able to blog more often.

Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Today was the first Thanksgiving after my Grandma Foy died. So today after I got home from playing football with other members of our ward I turned on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, in memory of Grandma. While watching the parade I heard Matt Lauer start talking about a high school marching from a town that is nestled at the bottom of the Wasatch Mountains, this town is called American Fork; and I was excited for them that they could be there is that legendary parade. After that I turned on one of the THREE NFL games today, The Packer's vs. The Lions, which turned out to be a better game than it was when I first turned it on. Then before noon we went to Ann's parents house and had Thanksgiving Lunch with them. After eating and taking a small nap we went to the LA Auto Show. While there I got to see the new body style for the 2009 Nissan Murano, which will be released in February of 2008.

Well, I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving! I know I sure did and I know that there is a lot of things for me to be thankful for, so much so that I can't even begin to to list them. I hope that everyone continues to have a good weekend.

This is my wonderful Grandma Foy. She lived a wonderful life and seemed to enjoy every minute of it, even though she spent last part of it in pain. Although my brother, sister and I were the youngest of all the grandchildren (second generation) we were loved by her just the same as all the other, older grandchildren. I do have to say that it seemed like Grandpa Foy and her spoiled us more than the other grandchildren. I know that she enjoyed seeing and hearing from all of the grandchildren.

The other night, before she died, my aunt started to plan my Grandmother's funeral (the writing was on the wall this point) and asked my dad if I would like to speak at her funeral. Well when my dad called me and asked I said yes without even thinking about it. Yesterday I spoke with the aunt that was planning the funeral and she said that I was allowed 2-3 minutes, and I had to speak about the good and fun times with Grandma Foy. So tonight while thinking about those moments I found that there were way to many of those moments.

Here are a few of those moments:

1. Ann's and mine wedding. She was so paranoid about what was going to happen in the recommend interview that she called an uncle of mine that was a bishop to talk about what was going to happen in the interview.
   
2. The many times my family stayed there and the many times her and my grandpa woke us kids up while fighting of the breakfast responsibilities, meaning who was going to cook what.
   
3. The many times visiting her after grandpa had died and hearing her tell the same story over and over again as if she didn't know that we had heard that story before.
   

I know that funerals are supposed to be sad, but this one is going to be a happy funeral because she is no longer going to be in pain and she is not going to be alone anymore. She is going to be with my grandpa again, which is the best part!

Well since the last time that I made a post there has been somethings take place. So here is the biggest news that might affect me the most. The crystal company, Schonbek, that I represent was bought last Monday, the Monday before Halloween. The company that bought us is one of the largest crystal companies in the world. They have tried to make crystal chandeliers before, but with no luck. They have been around for a long time, since 1895 to be exact. Okay, Okay, for those who don't know Schonbek Worldwide Lighting was bought by the Swarovski Crystal company, actually Swarovski US Holding Company (in other words, the American operation of Swarovski). It scared Ann, her dad, another worker from the factory that was here and I. We were scared because we didn't really expect what was going to happen, but then we thought about it a realized that they are not going to change things right away. Also if you are one of the best in the company there is really nothing to worry about, because most of the time when companies by other companies they don't get rid of the best of the acquired company. For those who was to read more about the acquisition here is a link to a news report regarding the acquisition...

http://www.pressrepublican.com/0100_news/local_story_304233200.html

The other news that took place was last Sunday, not two days ago, but the Sunday before that our Stake Presidency got reorganized. This doesn't happen that much, but now they have to reorganize our bishopric because they called our bishop to be the first councilor.

Well Saturday night we had the adult session of Stake Conference and Elder Cook was there as the presiding authority, due to the fact that our Stake Presidency was being reorganized. However, when the session first started, Elder Cook was not there. The conducting member of the stake presidency said that he (Elder Cook) was down on San Diego with those members of the church who house has burned down. After meeting with them, he returned and gave us the number of house that burned down the belonged to members of the church. He said that there were about 45 houses that burned down that were owned by members of the church. That is 45 of the 2100 structures that burned that were owned by members of the church, which is awesome. I honestly thought that there were more that burned down.

From there he began to talk about how he felt when he was called to be a member of the 12 and the impressions that he felt. After listening to him I really feel that even though they might have this awesome calling and responsibility as an apostle of the Lord, but I came to the conclusion that they are just like us and they have to same feelings that we do when we get huge responsibilities assigned to us. I was really impressed with Elder Cook and the love that he has for the saints as well as his love for the Lord. I wish that when I have a responsibility as huge as something like he has that I can be as strong as he is and just move forward and not be afraid of being left alone to fend for myself. But I know that if we are faithful we will never be alone and the Lord will protect us and guide through everything.

Twelve firefighters are trapped atop a ridge off Santiago Canyon Road in Orange County after flames jumped the road. The blaze roared up the hillside and prompted the crew members to deploy their fire shelters. They were surrounded by burning brush, but they made it out alive. "We just remained calm, everyone did," one firefighter said after he was checked out by paramedics. All of the firefighters were treated at the scene and did not want to go to the hospital.

The picture above is courtesy of www.latimes.com who got the picture from a lady named Karen Tapia-Anderson. This is of the Santiago Fire which is burning due east of Irvine; Foothill Ranch; and Lake Forest, California. This fire as many of you know by now has been burning since Sunday as well as most of the other fires that are currently burning in California. I have to honestly say that these 12 firefighters are my heroes because of the guts they showed to go into that area and fight the fire, get trapped, and then not want to go to the hospital. To see more about what is going on with the fires go to cnn.com; foxnews.com, or any of those major news sources' websites to track the firefighting and to see more pictures.

Ann and I are sighing with relief right now, because we could be those people who are now spending the night either with family members in their houses or in hotels, or sleeping in the El Toro High School gym tonight. We almost renting an apartment in a new development by the Irvine Company called Portola Springs, which is right down the 241 toll road from where the fire originated and right below where it has burned. This area was one of the first areas evacuated once the fire started. Thank goodness for the promptings of the Spirit. I hope that we all can keep in mind those who have lost their house, loved ones, or who don't even know if they have lost their house or loved ones in our prayers tonight and for the next little while. Because who knows, that could be you or someone you know that has been evacuated from their house and has lost it. Good luck to all those who are fighting the fires and to those who are stranded not knowing what is going on with your house, you are in my prayers.

Well the other day I was sitting at my desk at home thinking that I was having a hard and it was never going to end. Then I looked next to my computer at the Beta Fish and thought, man do they have it easy or what! The only thing that they have to worry about is when am I going to be fed and when is my water going to be changed. So I thought that they really do have it easy, but I also thought that I have it easier than others do, because I don't have to worry about whether my house is going to be bombed, of where my next meal is going to come from, whether I am going to make it to the next day. So basically what I am saying is that things are better for me than I actually thought and that I really shouldn't stress the small things and I know that there are worse things out there for me to be worrying about what I am going through right now.

Now to refer this to an earlier post, when I was talking about being excited for school to start, now I can say that I have officially changed my mind! I am now no longer excited for school and can't wait for it to be over.

After eating a great brunch with Ann's parents at their house I got to work on my homework that is due tomorrow. After working on that during the whole time the afternoon session of General Conference I got to relax for a little bit watching the San Diego Football Chargers beat the Denver Broncos BIG TIME, much like Notre Dame beat UCLA (which is for another post)! We went with Ann's Mom and her sister to Big Corona Beach to see the sand castles that were built during a contest that was held today. When we got there all the sand castles had been destroyed, trampled back into the ground that they had come from, so we went back the Ann's parents house.

While relaxing some more, watching older episodes Iron Chef America and other shows on the Food Network, Ann's mom asked me to help her find the spray from a cat that had been inside their house and was stinking up the area were it was. Now I have to say that I could not smell a single thing outside of the food what was being cooked. So we turned off all the lights in the area where we were searching and used a black light that would make the pee show up. so after having turned off the lights and taking the black light from Ann's mom I started to wave it in front of me lighting up the ground, with all the dust specs appearing in the way that white items appear under black lights. After I looking for a few minutes I found one area where the cat sprayed the wall by their kitchen, and other areas on the carpet that was on a small step into their kitchen and on the floor by a chase lounge in a little sitting area just off of their family room. While looking some more around the house Ann's mom said, "This is like CSI!" I thought, "For sure it is," as I waved the black light in front of me trying to illuminate any other that might have been sprayed while the marking of territories too place, but I didn't find anymore (luckily). I actually enjoyed waving a black light around looking for stuff, I actually thought about what else I would find and then decided not to search anymore because I could see all the lint on the clean shirt that I was wearing.

I know that out of everything that happened today; this was the thing that I was posting about and how completely weird this is, but I just had to share this story with everyone! I also hope that no one else has to go through this, not that it was a bad experience or anything, but it was something that I hope to not have to repeat. I also hope that everyone enjoyed the great General Conference weekend.