Monday, January 28, 2008

Beloved Prophet Continues Work on the Other Side


I was at a fireside about the Dead Sea Scrolls when a friend whispered to me that President Hinckley had passed away. I went to cnn.com on my phone but they didn't have anything about it. I checked wikipedia and it showed his life as June 23, 1910 – January 27, 2008, which confirmed it. I tried to get onto deseretnews.com and ksl.com, but they were slammed. I eventually was able to get a page to load enough to at least see the headline.

What a great man and great leader he was! I will miss his tireless efforts, his eternal optimism, and his jokes in the priesthood sessions of General Conference.

We will miss you President Hinckley, but your work lives on!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Google Betrayal

I have always been a huge fan of Google and their services. Until now.

I had an account on google's picasaweb where I posted the pictures of my real estate projects. All of a sudden I went there today and it says "This content has been removed because it violates our Terms of Service". All the pictures are gone. Hundreds of them. Many hours of work that I'll have to redo.

I combed through the terms of service, and there is nothing in there that I'm violating. All the pictures were taken by me, so there are no copyright issues. And there was no obscenity, unless you consider houses without sheet rock to be pornographic.

I will never love again.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

In Layman's Terms

BYU was kind enough to send me an email called "My BYU News", letting me know (among other things), what the Chemistry Department is up to. Apparently they are "dedicated to the investigation of the supersonic expansion into the first vacuum stage of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer..."

Isn't that what the scarecrow said when he got his brain?

Monday, January 07, 2008

Sonhos

Caetano Veloso has amazingly poetic and beautiful lyrics... in Portuguese. I tried translating some to English but it didn't quite have the same feel.

Sonhos (Dreams)

Tudo era apenas uma brincadeira
Everything used to be just a joke

E foi crescendo, crescendo, me absorvendo
But it started growing, growing, absorbing me

E de repente eu me vi assim completamente seu
And all of a sudden I realized that I was completely yours

Vi a minha força amarrada no seu passo
I saw my strength tied to your step

Vi que sem você não há caminho, eu não me acho
I saw that without you there is no way to find myself

Vi um grande amor gritar dentro de mim como eu sonhei um dia
I saw a great love yell inside me as I dreamed one day

Quando o meu mundo era mais mundo
When my world was greater (??)

E todo mundo admitia
And everyone admitted

Uma mudança muito estranha
A very strange change

Mais pureza, mais carinho, mais calma, mais alegria
More purity, more caring, more calm, More joy

No meu jeito de me dar
In my way of being

Quando a canção se fez mais clara e mais sentida
When the song became more clear and more intense

Quando a poesia realmente fez folia em minha vida
When poetry really caused a wild party in my life

Você veio me falar dessa paixão inesperada por outra pessoa
You came to talk to me about this unexpected passion for someone else

Mas não tem revolta não
But don't be bothered

Eu só quero que você se encontre
I only want you to find yourself

Saudade até que é bom
Nostalgia can actually be good

É melhor que caminhar vazio
It is better than being empty

A esperança é um dom
Hope is a gift

Que eu tenho em mim
that I have in me

Eu tenho sim
Yes I do

Não tem desespero não
Do not lose hope

Você me ensinou milhões de coisas
You taught me millions of things

Tenho um sonho em minhas mãos
I have a dream in my hands

Amanhã será um novo dia
Tomorrow will be a new day

Certamente eu vou ser mais feliz
I will definitely be happier