A Moderate's View of an different style of a State of the Union Address

Good Morning Family! You didn't really want it! You don't really even need it! You barely like the guy and have no idea what he's saying outside of Fox news and radio, but here it is Lady's and Gentlemen: President Obama's State of the Union Address!!!! *Crowds cheering*

Now, I know most of you didn't watch it, and by now most of the nation has forgotten about it because of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, but I took 7 yellow-notepads worth of notes and by golly you are going to read them whether or not you really care nor understand any of the issues!

A quick side-note about the revolutions in Egypt. First, I think this is long overdue for the middle east and North Africa, where totalitarian regimes have suppressed human rights, weakened instead of strengthening their countries, and who's single iron-fist rule have only added to the poor and have weakened the overall state of the region. The thing that I am concerned about is the fact that these revolutions have the ability to spring strong extremist movements. I have nothing against Islam and quite frankly I think an Islam-based nation would be wonderful (it would be just like our christian-backed nation we live in today), the thing to worry about is the possibility of extremism to spring out of the chaos. In Egypt's case, it's more dangerous because these protests aren't unified by a particular leader, they are just hundreds of thousands of angry citizens taking to the streets, but with the "Brotherhood" emerging from the shadows and gaining more and more support (From what I can tell, the "Brotherhood" is an underground Islamic network that spans many countries and is more extreme than normal Islamic priests are) it could be a very bad thing. As History shows in the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Caribbean Crisis, and 1930's Germany and Italy, Extremists have tremendous support during times of crisis but rarely do they ever help the state become better than what it was. So even if an Islam based government arises, that's still better than an extremist one or one under another dictator. So hope and pray that peace-- or at the very least rationality and civility-- will come upon the regions of these revolts and that they will turn out for the better, not worse...

Alright, side note over. It's time now for:

STATE OF THE UNION SUMMARY TIME!!!!!!!!!!

His main message was to "out educate, out produce, and out do the world". Here's his steps on how to get there:

1. Research and Innovation

• Renewable energy (solar and Bio-energy)

• We need to re-invent ourselves and our energy by gathering the great minds of renewable energy like we did during the "Apollo" missions and the government will help fund these projects like we did for NASA
  
• Stop giving subsidies to Big Oil
• In 2035, 80% of America's energy will be from clean energy (including solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, etc.)

2. Education

• 1/2 the jobs today require education past a college degree, but 1/4 of all students aren't even graduating High School
• Families instill the love of learning and parents need to do more to enforce and encourage. "The Science Fair should be just as celebrated as the Super Bowl"
• Schools aren't doing what they can. "Race to the Top" made people enhance our school system and this will replace "No Child Left Behind".
• Principals and Teachers need to do more. We need to treat our teachers better (In Korea and Japan, teachers are called "nation-builders") by rewarding good behavior and not excusing the bad. We need more nation builders, so America wants 100,000 new teachers-- America wants you to be a teacher
• Making College more affordable. Will extend the Tuition Tax Credit. A same goal from last year, by 2020, America will have the highest % of College graduates in the world.
• Foreigners (both Illegal and Legal) need to be stop being sent away from our country after they get their education, but stay here. Says he'll work on fixing Illegal Immigration

3. Rebuilding America

• Infrastructure needs to be improved. We're falling behind other nations (and the world gave us a D on infrastructure). Redouble the construction effort on roads and bridges (and it'll be fully paid for). In 5 years, 80% of Americans will have access to High Speed Rail.
• We need to knock down barriers to help corporations compete. He wants to change the Corporate Tax codes by simplifying them and getting rid of loopholes--use the savings to get rid of corp. taxes without adding to the deficit.
• Exports will double by 2014. America will only do trade that'll benefit American workers
• Re-evaluation of Government Regulations-- but we'll be implement common sense laws
• Health Care. Essentially, he's willing to work with Republicans to fix and mend the bill, but he's not going back to the "pre-existing conditions" days. "Lets fix what needs fixing and keep moving forward

4. Debt Free...r

• The worse of it is over, and while some spending was needed, we can't keep spending more than we earn. Families are budgeting, so should the federal government. Proposal: freeze domestic economic spending for 5 years. (Wants to eliminate what we can do without)
• Can't just cut domestic spending (it's only 12% of the budget) but we need to cut all excess spending-- Health Care (medicare and Medicaid), defense, and domestic. (one thing he said we can fix is the Medical Malpractice reform).
• Find a Bipartisan way to fix social security. Can't be privatized so that it's based on the whims of the Stock Market.
• Can't keep giving the top 2% super high tax breaks. We need to simplify the individual tax code

5. Make Government more efficient

• We're reorganizing and combining agencies to make it more efficient
  
• The White House and Congress are going to let the public know what they're doing by providing information 3 days before it happens
• Obama will veto any bill with Earmarks

6. Foreign Policy

• Build Coalitions across political, moral, and religious lines. We need to defeat threats wherever they are.
• We've improved Iraq. Combat missions are over, new government is in place, and our civilians are working with Iraqi civilians. American Muslims ARE a part of the American Family.
  
• We're taking the Fight to the Taliban. We're training Afghan police and getting rid of their strong holds. But the Afghan government needs to do more. Will start bringing troops home in July.
• Nuclear Weapons are locking down on every continent (staying strong against Iran and North Korea)
• New South American Alliances
• Our purpose is more powerful than our "power". We helped the people of South Sudan end a genocide and have peaceful elections to separate into a separate state. We support the people of Tunisia and all democratic aspirations of all people
• The U.S. Supports it's troops. We will make sure our soldiers have their benefits and equipment. Gays will serve openly in the Military and all U.S. campuses will be open to military recruiters and ROTC's.

7. In conclusion...

• Democracy can be messy, but it's the best one of earth
• lets be civil in our debates, but never lose focus of the dream (The American Dream and "Winning the Future")!
• It's because of this dream and the big things that we do that THE STATE OF OUR UNION IS STRONG.

Alright, so that was his hour and a half speech in a summary. Now, the unique thing about this speech was that unlike most State of the Union addresses, it wasn't a laundry list of all the things they accomplished and all the policies they want to do this year. It was more of a "big picture" idea with less actual policy suggestions so that it could be more of a "feel good" speech. The other unusual thing (but really good) is that Republicans and Democrats actually sat next to each other during the address instead of being split down the Isle like normal. This lead to a more civil tone (no "You Lie!" hackles) and it felt more like an adult speech than the usual "Middle School Pep Rally".

So, looking over my notes, I really liked what President Obama said. I agree with the High Speed Rail system, I loved how he asked parents and teachers to do more for education, fix government regulations on corporations, being willing to actually confront the debt and do something about it other than ignore it, reorganizing government agencies and supporting Gays serving openly in the military. I agreed with a lot of the stuff said in the speech because this time it was more centralist and bi-partisan than in years prior.

Now, there were things that I didn't like.

First off, I didn't like Michelle Bockman's "Tea Party" address after the State of the Union. I don't like the Tea Party because they're too radical and hot headed. They don't listen to reason most of the time and they'd vote against some thing beneficial if it didn't follow party doctrine.

2nd, While I did like his stance on renewable energy, I think the technology is still far off. And while research will help speed it up and we need it, we should also make sure not to forget that oil is our life right now and we need to keep it coming till we have enough sustainable and profitable renewable energy sources to sustain our needs. I'd love to see a lot more research into nuclear power plants, because that's the best renewable source we got!

3rd, I wanted to hear more about the deficit reduction. Right now our national deficit is $14 trillion and our "total" debt (including total personal debt, interest, overspending, etc.) is $55 Trillion. The U.S. has a GDP of $14.5 Trillion and the U.S. Government collects $2.2 Trillion in taxes every year, but spends $3.5 Trillion. (to look at real time figures, go to http://www.usdebtclock.org/ it's an eye-opener). While Obama said he wants to cut spending and lower the deficit, little has been said or done about what to do about it. Obama's not the only guilty one, Congress hasn't been saying what it wants to cut other than "we want to cut spending".

I think that's really it. I liked a lot of things about it (including the repeal of "Don't ask, Don't Tell". If you want to know why, ask and I'll explain on the next blog post) but I do want the government to be more responsible and responsive for it's actions. So I'm all for cutting the debt, just where do you want to cut it (and I know you haven't looked at the budget yet, but you should have some ideas, and if you don't, admit it instead of hiding behind legal jargon that we can all see through).

Hope you enjoyed the show! Good night everyone!!!!

What a week!

HELLO FAMILY!!!!! How's everyone doing back there in freezing cold Nebraska? Can you believe that the east coast has gotten over 6 feet or more of snow and over here on the top of the mountain we can't even get more than 2 in. at a time??? That's not very sustainable for ski resorts...

Hey, I'm also pretty sure I updated the blog last week too. Hmph. Well, what can you do?

Alright, so between the 16th and the 23rd there wasn't alot of interesting things going on, just normal school and work stuff. This past week though has been really, really hard and fun, so I'll try and walk you through it all...

Alright, well, the first major development happened on Monday. In my Poli Sci 170 (that's International Relations), I had my first exam and geography quiz. I'm pretty sure I aced the exam but I didn't do so hot on the geography quiz. I had spent about an hour or so on an online map quiz game putting the correct countries in the right places, and by the end I knew where all the countries went. I wasn't prepared though when they handed me an outlined map and told me to start labeling the 20 states, regions, and waterways in under 5 minutes. Maybe I was thinking there was going to be a word bank or something, but I couldn't answer about 3-5 of the 20 questions because I was used to hearing the name of the country and then putting it in, not naming the country off of a blank map. So I learned my lesson in that regard.

Air Force is just as tough as normal, actually, it's much tougher now because our new PFO (Physical Fitness Officer) goal is to have everyone get a 96 on the PFA and to make out Det. the #1 in the region and nation (apparentaly our region [the NW] is the top in the nation, and our average PT score was like 90 something, and the #1 Det. was in Washington with something like 95-96 or something. So if you're #1 in the region, you're #1 in the nation), so we've been doing alot more running, pushups, and general nastyness. Thursdays are what I like to call "pain-days" becuase we're too tired and sore to think of anything more clever. Most thursdays we have to do 200 Push-ups, Sit-ups, flutter kicks, jumping jacks (2 jumping jacks = 1). We also try and run 17 laps (Most don't even run) and other body breaking stuff. And we're supposed to get this all done in 49.5 minutes (or as most as we can) as a flight, so it's pretty tough, but it's a good work out all the same.

Well, more detail than I wanted to go into for Air Force, I was up really late tuesday night working on the next geography quiz and a 1.5 page reading question about why democracies don't fight each other. I am happy to say that I did much, much better on the Geo. quiz (I think I got 100%) due to changing the dificulty where they show me the outline of the state and I have to type the first 3 letters (It was Europe, then Middle East, now Asia and Oceania). Then thursday night was heck (essentially in a nut shell, after my 6 am PT, I have classes from 9-3 with only a 1 hour break at 2 for lunch, and then I have band from 7-9, so I only have about 2 hours to do Friday night's homework) because I was up till like 1:30 working on a 5 page current events paper about the role of State Power and Influence between China and the United States. But I pulled off a really good paper, so it was all worth it!

Saturday was Ice-skating with the ward along with my usual 6 hours or so of homework. Ice skating was a blast! We ice-skated for an hour and then did broom hockey for an hour. I had a lot of fun! I was pretty decent (I only fell once because I was trying to whip someone) and a couple people were commenting on how I made it look “natural”. Of course, it didn’t feel natural to me (The skates were pretty good, but they killed my arches, plus the ice was rough (no Zamboni) so it was hard to skate without feeling like you were tripping over cuts), but hey, I’ll take that complement! The broom hockey was fun (you don’t wear skates, just your shoes) and there was about 30 people all with sticks, slipping and sliding on the ice going after a single ball trying to get it in a goal. Because there was so many people though, it made shooting hard because everyone would bunch up in front and just push and whack. But it was fun because since the ice was rough you could run on the ice without slipping, and then you could slide! It was a lot of fun! Plus, I had a bunch of people tell me how involved and intense I was! (It’s called broom hockey, so I wasn’t afraid to push a few people around!) But it was a lot of fun!

The other really cool thing that happened on Thursday (yes, my heck day) was that I got to go and play Laser Tag at this really cool place called Laser Assault. I'll try and describe it the best I can for you. Now the outside of the place was next to a bunch of semi-run downed Mexican Shops, so at first it seemed like it was going to be a really cheap and lame place. But first we got these awesome laser guns-- instead of shooting just a dot, it shot a really bright and strong red beam so you could see exactly where you were shooting and who was shooting back at you! Now, try and picture this, you walk in like you would at any other laser tag place (kinda curves around a bit) and it's pretty dark in there with glow in the dark paint. The room is huge! with about 100-200 feet across and two stories that wrap around the entire room (width was about 50-100 ft). There are fog machines in random places to make the room more intense, there are discarded oil drums, platforms, and random walls placed all around for super intense hiding behind, running, and dodging. They have cool music playing the background (my favorite was Through the Fire and the Flames) and they had ramps, mirrors, ledges, islands, and wooden slits and railings to shoot through. And like I said, because they beams were straight lines, you could see exactly where you were shooting and where other people were shooting at you! Oh it was alot of fun! I almost ran into the Colonel a couple of times, but it was a blast! And for groups of 10 or more it's only $6 for an hour! It was super fun!

So that's about it for the week. I normally won't write this much, but this last week was the most hard and most fun week of the month, so it needed some extra room for an exposition dump. I'm going to update this every week and I encourage the family to do the same. This could probably count as a Duty to God journal, plus keeping this for family records would be super beneficial for all of us! Now, as promised, the next post will be a full detailed account of President Obama's State of the Union address, his main points and promises, and what I felt about it. I do this because as a politically active family, it's only fair to judge a person based on what they said they were going to do and not on any pre-existing judgments or views. So I hope you enjoy it and I'll talk to you guys soon!

It's a Do Nothin Week

Hello Gang! Glad to see that things are still going well for you guys in Omaha! Sorry I wasn't able to skype much tonight, but I'm home all day tomorrow so feel free to give me a call.

Well, this week wasn't too exciting. I had your basic daily mundane things to do (like homework and classes) while tying to figure out how to get the Band class in, find music books, make some deposits, etc. etc. etc. The typical junk that you have to go through throughout the week. I am on First Part in the University Band, but I'm not too excited about the music. It seems to me like it's inbetween Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble. So I'm buying the books that the auditions always come from and I'm going to start practicing my trumpet as soon as I get them (there hasn't been much reason to practice till now).

Having my own room is still great, but my room is at 71 degrees right now (despite that I'm trying to cool it to 68 and heat it up to 40), so I brought out my fan for the past few nights and it's white-noise inducing coolness has help keep the area around my bed relatively cool at night. Speaking of cool, it hasn't really snowed at all this year in Utah! I mean, what the crap, N.Y. and Boston get like 2-3 feet in one day and keep getting hammered by snow storms and for crying out loud, even Georgia has snow! But all we've been getting is either little fluries or drizzle!!! GAH!!! How hard is it to snow super hard in the mountains??? I've been wanting to build a snow fort or a tunnel system for weeks now! *sigh* well, can't get everything I suppose... The Weather Channel says we might get snow on Tuesday, Wendsday, Sunday and Tuesday, but who knows if that'll happen or how much we get...

Well, that's about it. Only two things left to say.
1: Mark your calendars because on Jan. 28th Phineas and Ferb will be doing "Rollercoaster-The Musical" as a musical parody of their first episode and on Feb. 11th the 2nd season will officially be over with "Make Play" and "Candance gets Busted". It should be exciting!!!!
2: FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, UPDATE THE BLOG OR ALL THIS WILL BE IS A PLACE FOR ME TO UPDATE DURING COLLEGE AND FOR YOU TO POST MISSIONARY LETTERS I SEND BACK!!!! Come on!!!

With love,

-Steven

Beginning Semester Recap

Alright Gang! It's been way too long since I last updated this blog. Nothing short of my own lack of motivation, but something I plan on fixing this semester!

So I am going to try really hard not to make these post a month long exposition dump. Cause that's not fair to anybody to have to read that. Plus, my life isn't that riveting that you demand a second by second account of my day like you were a follower of Sarah Palin on Twitter.

So what to talk about then? Hmmmmmmmmmph... Well, not much use of going over the break. I mean you were all there yourself to see me relax and unleash a semester's worth of pent up emotion. So first off, Thanks for making that a wonderful break! Loved spending time with you guys! Can't wait to come home in April!!!

So we got that out of the way, now what.... Hmph... Kinda tricky to do this now that I can't really exposition dump on you guys...

SUMMARY TIME!!!! Basically, the first week of classes is going fairly well. Good teachers, not too hard homework yet, and NO ROOMMATE!!!!!! Nothing against Ben, but it's nice to have your own room (as Sami will attest). Other than that, I've been sleeping alot during my homework time (because I stayed up too late playing with you guys during the break instead of going to bed at 9! Why'd did you guys make me stay up????) so while my homework isn't behind, it's not done before hand like I usually try to do.

Other than that, I've actually increased my social life by 300%!!! So far I found a breakfast table that meets at a regular time (Yes, I'm eating breakfast now), I've been talking more with people outside of my room, and last night Frank and I had a "homework party" for about 3 hours (The problem with Homework parties is that it's either all homework or all party. It was all homework for about a half hour and then it was all goofing off for another 2 and a half hours. You can't do both at the same time!!!). And this week I started going to the Gym and spent 3 hours there this week running on the treads but mainly spending a few hours on the weight lifting machines (they're more fun than running in place!!!), so results are expected to follow in the coming months.

I think that's about it. I'll either start doing this ranging anywhere from daily to weekly. But they'll be short, I promise! Hope the rest of you guys update this at some point! Love you all!

October in a large Nut-shell

Hello Family! I can not believe it's been almost a month since I have last updated my blog. (*hint hint)
Anyway, it's been a pretty decent month. Classes went very well. I got all A's on my tests and papers, so take that all you nay-Sayers from home and the Ward! (*standing kick!) I've been social, went on a date or two, and been the best Elder's Quorum Secretary this side of Building 9 has ever known! (I pride myself in same-day returns on assignments, whether it be creating an entire hometeaching spreadsheet or ward percentages).

Anyway, I don't have pictures this time, but I think my month is best described in my journal entry.  Here it is:

"I’ve just been so busy with my Elder’s Quorum Secretary assignments, classes, Air Force and Band.

Speaking of Band, I just got done with a marching band performance at Half-time in the BYU vs. Wyoming game. Through 9 hours of rain. Yeah….. It wasn’t fun. The game was a disappointment- we scored 16 points to nothing in the first quarter, but then the rest of the game we were trying to prevent Wyoming from scoring, ending the game with 25-20. Wyoming had the ball up till the last 30 sec of the 4^th Quarter and were on our 30 yd. line. So if we didn’t block that last pass, we would have loosed and our record would have been 2-5. Yeah…

Anyway, the marching band practiced in the rain, did pregame in the rain, but then the rain stopped till after the game. Our last halftime show with Old Man River was decent. I think we did better last Tuesday on Rocky Mountain Invitational, but what can you do? The only other thing was that I was at the stadium from 9:00 till 6:00. The Band was there from 6 hours, but afterwards I had to clean up half the stadium with the Air Force ROTC program. Normally it isn’t that bad, but it rained the entire time. So normally I only get a little wet from the fire hoses (we rinse and collect trash), but I was drenched and shivering the entire time. I shouldn’t complain. Things weren’t that bad. It was just long and hard. I suppose it’s better than easy and dull.

Other things… I’ve finished my second round of tests. I got A’s on all 3 tests and my Civ. Paper. I’m not that busy right now, so I can watch it after I get my hour or two of homework done. Speaking of busy, I wish I was busier with the Elder’s Quorum. All the assignments I get I get done by the same day or in the next day or two . Already I’ve organized the entire ward Home Teaching by companionship, name, phone number, email, and address. I’ve also set up a Home Teaching percentage spreadsheet so that the other 3 people in the presidency only has to put in who each companionship taught that month, the overall companionship percentage for that month, and the formula I created averages the entire quorum home teaching for the month. So I’ve really run out of stuff to do. I get stuff done so quickly and efficiently I wish I had more to do.

Oh! When my Dad visited me during General Conference, I got Spencer’s old Ipod Nano, so I’ve been listening to music more than I usually do. I got some new songs so I’m listening to more music than I usually do. Air Force ROTC is less scary; I’m not scared of the POC and the leaders. I still make a lot of mistakes, but I don’t feel as self-conscious. And I think I’m getting some good press with the Cadre and POC (Cadre= Air Force Officers here teaching the students. POC= Student Leadership (Juniors and Seniors)). Just this past week, we had a ‘leadership training’ exercise and my teacher, Capt. Millet was handing out little packets with slips of papers in them to “leaders”. He started to walk towards me-looking at me with full eye contact and chuckling- but then he stopped and asked for volunteers. Since he was looking at me, I raised my hand (even though my class has a few POC members. I’m not sure why, but we do.) and he gave it to me, along with this phrase “Good. I was hoping you’d raise your hand”. HeyHey!! During the 30 min. exercise, they had 3 people be observers to try and figure out who was the leader of the group. They weren’t able to guess the leaders of the other groups, but in my group they were successful in pointing me out with 2 other people who were helping me. I was the only one they got right! And Capt. Millet was very happy and seemed pleased that they got me. He even commented on it, though I don’t quite remember what he said. Either way, even as a 100 (freshman) it seems like I’m getting some good word among the leaders. Heck yeah! Got to keep up the good work!

I really miss my family, but not the “I can only lie in bed and feel sorry for myself” type. Just your basic, “I miss them, but I got stuff to do, so you just keep doing what you do”. I like college life. It’s not too chaotic and hard, and it’s a nice transition. I feel like I’m more responsible and self-sufficient that I was back at home. I think on my feet more and much better than before. I suspect working for the entire summer as an Exterminator taught me a lot of responsibility and thinking for myself, since I spent much of the day all by myself making my own calls on situations."

Anyway, that's the extent of October. I wish I knew what was going on in your guys life. (*HINT HINT). I love you all and I can't wait to see you guys at some point! Love you!

College Life moves on!

Well, this has sure been an exciting couple of weeks! Can't say the same about BYU Football, but what are you going to do?

Oh well, moving on! Lets see... I really don't have much to say. Classes have been going on as usual. I wake up at 6:30 on MWF and I go to class. PS100 is a repeat of AP Physics right now, so I'm kinda bored. Stats 121 has 700 people in it, so it's really crowded and hot, so if it's been a late night, I try not to doze off! BOM and Civ are really good. My BOM is really spiritual and has a ton of good insights in the gospel. Civ isn't bad. My teacher is good, but he teaches lecture style, which makes it kinda hard to take good notes-especially if you don't have the text book. Luckily I just got it on Friday!

Speaking of these classes, I've gotten my first taste at testing here at BYU. I really don't like it that much. For me, it feels like I know all the answers and I don't have any questions at all, but I take the test and I get a 77%!!! What's up with that? Guess that means more studying. And study I must for my Stat 121 exam. I am sooooo screwed on that test. See, I understand what they're saying during class, and on the homework I have my notes (they're the exact slides from the lecture) so I do fine. But take away those notes, and I have no idea what they're saying. I'm getting better, but my test is in 2 days, so I better start studying now!

I would love it if I had something to study right now- other than Stats, of course. You see, I have somewhere between 2-10 hours of free time on any given day. So for me, if I don't have a lot of homework (which I don't. My classes are super easy right now) I end up wishing for something to do. I guess I need to balance my priories and find something constructive. (Speaking of Constructive, I think I finally got rid of Farmville fever that I had the past 2 weeks!)

However, being the Elders Quorum Secretary does keep me occupied on Sunday, so that helps offset some of the boredom. It's a lot of work, but I like it. The presidency is really good, and I always learn some new leadership skills from our weekly meetings.

Air Force is going very well. I think I'm really hitting it off with some of the Cadre (Cadets who are in charge of the detachment), and I'm trying to do the most I can. I make a lot of mistakes, but I'm trying to think ahead and I'm trying to do better, which they seem to appreciate. Oooh! I almost forgot: I talked to a Cadet Major (that means he's really high up in the Cadre) and he has never been on Drill Team or Color Guard. He's done Arnold Air Society for 3 years. So that means that there's hope for me (since being in Marching Band is a 6 hour commitment anyway)!!!

Roommate? Huh, I think it's going ok. We talk and chat about stuff and remain friendly. Ben's friends are nice, but they're not my type. Which is totally ok. I'm not really into music, especially international music, and he's not into band and Air Force ROTC- So it balances out! The only real "problem" we have is with the Temperature. I like the room to be 60 degrees. It's cold so when I come back from a long day of school or band or Air Force, I like a cool room to cool down in. Ben hates it cold, and would prefer it to be more like 70 something. I've told him that he can turn it up-which he does- and then when he leaves and I come in, I turn it back down. We have really different schedules during the day, so I thought it was working fine, till he said that he was tired of having it so cold. So I told him then to turn it up and I would leave it alone. If he was uncomfortable then he should turn it up. So right now I have it set to 67. I would like it more like 63 or 60, but life's full of compromises. Other than that, I've been pretty much ok!

I've gotten to know some really good friends. My two best friends are Spencer Davis and Brandon Bishop. Both are from the Trumpet Section and both are really funny to be around. They like to make fun of each other (actually, more like Spencer making fun of Brandon) and they tell really good situational jokes (the kind where you say something to someone at just the right moment and only then is it funny because of the previous dialogue and back story.). I get a few good ones in there, but I really just let them duke it out. The funny thing is that Brandon will constantly ditch us for people he just saw from his old stake/ward or someone else he might know. Even when they're sitting with us, half of the conversations at the table are between Brandon and someone he knows. So Spencer and I either just sit back and laugh on the inside, or occassionaly we'll make small talk or make a joke about what Brandon just said. Brandon is so entertaining to listen to that we don't mind that much listening to him talk about life in Kansas. All the relationships, the high school full of D-bags (his words not mine!), the weird party-type stories, all the good stuff. So right now I'm pretty good friend wise. They're usually pretty good at inviting me to go and watch T.V. or do something with them. The problem is that they always ask me on a night I have Air Force, which is Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So apperantly I have missed out on a lot of Community and the Office, but you do what you can do. I just wish I had my Hertz Car-swap card so I could actually go see a real movie for a change. That would be very nice to take the 2-6 of us and go see a movie or just do something fun. Everything is too far to walk.

Really, everything here is pretty peachy! I miss all the folks back in Omaha, but I'm kinda in flux right now if I really want to go back. I'm sure I will come the end of October, but I realize things haven't changed that much, and for the most part life is easier out here, so I'm pretty good right now! Hope everyone's life continues to go well. Hope the Band does Awesome this year- win State for us! Keep your grades up and I will post again soon. Sooner than 20 days. Busy busy busy!!! Love you all and thanks for the support! Love ya!!!!

Ok, pictures from Top to bottom: The Scoreboard for BYU, BYU Field, Brandon (on left) and Shane. (Shane is a good acquaintance of mine. See a lot of us during Band, but not much else.), Matt (on left) and Spencer (Matt is another good acquaintance of mine. He hangs out with Spencer, Brandon and I occasionally), and my section leader Tyler. Always on the nose with things.

The first few weeks of BYU

Hello friends and family! Seriously, more people need to check this out. And the family needs to update this more, it's been like over a month and no one back in Omaha has updated this at all.

Anyway; regardless of that, I am going to talk to you about all the fun and hard work I've been having at BYU. I would have updated this last week, but my internet was down to a filter system and essentially I had no internet access for 36 hours.

Lets start off from the beginning: BAND CAMP! (buh-buh-buh-bummmmmmmm)

College marching band is almost the exact opposite of everything high school marching band is. To start, everyone there cares about the program, so you don't have people slacking off or pulling bs at you or the director. Next, almost everyone there is good (I mean almost because apparently on average, only 300 people try out each year, so there's a possibility to have people there who are mediocre. And I mean that in the kindest of ways!) so there's not much power struggle. Everyone accepts their own spot and does the best they can with it. Third, people are married here, so you see out of section and out of band relationships. Fourth, the sections that are usually the best at High school (Trombones, Tubas, woodwinds) tend to be the worst in college. Our band director Bro. McInnis (we call him Mac for short) has only told the trumpets to tongue shorter, so I say it's pretty good here!

The other difference is that my section doesn't believe in Section bonding. For those who understand "band types", the Trumpets think they are God-sent and we are the best thing around since Sliced Bread and iPods. Well, it's true. We are. What, do you ever see the angel Moroni playing a Sax? Or Guitar? How about a Tuba? Think not. It's a trumpet! (Technically, it's a valveless trumpet used in antiquity, but it still counts!) However, because of that, the upper-classmen in out section do not care much for underclassmen. They don't verbally abuse us, but they just don't really care. They still talk and joke with us but freshmen are left to cut and dry by ourselves. This is why the first 3 days of band camp stunk, since we freshmen were to scared to talk amongst ourselves.

Our Band directors are Bro. Mac and Bro. Fuller. Bro. Mac has a nice southern accent, and he looks and sounds more like a high school football coach (Remember the Titans anyone? Sounds like the white coach). But he is so spiritual in the gospel and he knows what needs to be done for the band and how to do it. He gives us spiritual references at every rehearsal. One of the ones I remember was when we weren't moving as quickly as we could, he told us the story of how President Kimball would run to every appointment and when asked why he ran despite his health, he replied "If you knew the lord's timetable, you would run too.". Then Bro. Mac said, "I don't know much about the lord's timetable, but I know ours. And if you knew as much as I did, you would run too." That's the inspiration I get to work with every day. He also says stuff like "two squirrels fighting in a laundry basket".

Anyway, Band Camp was long. It went from 0800-2200 everyday. We marched and played the entire time. The sun was beating down on us all day without cloud cover, and even though there's not humidity up here (so it's not as hot), the less atmosphere-so the sun rays burns through your skin. You can literally feel your skin roast on your arms and legs because of the sun. And no matter what SPF sunscreen you have on, you're going to get burned. I had 30 and 50 on and I still got burned on my right arm, my nose, and my mouthpiece got so hot I think I burnt my lips for about a week after camp was over. (There were lots of us who had sunburned lips. The worst part was that one day we all woke up with our bottom lip super purple and puffy. So puffy in fact that we couldn't even drink water because the water would run out the lip. Thankfully it went away like around noon, so we could still play!). The cool thing about being in college marching band is that we set up the entire pre-game performance on the second day of Band Camp-which was our first day marching- our entire first show by the 4th day of band camp- and had about 30 min of show music memorized by the end of the week. After that 3rd day you start talking to more people and you have more fun because you have friends to hang out with and talk. I have some really good friends in the band now-Spencer, Brandon, Matt, Wayde, and Steven.

All in all, Band Camp was hard, but it payed off in the long run. I'm glad that I did it!

Alright, lets see... I covered Band Camp, now what... Oh School!

Ah yes, that wonderful institution payed through the military in return for my soul and unquestioning obedience and mindless service. *sigh* Democracy. Anyway- my classes are going ok. I really have pretty easy classes. I don't have much reading or homework (most of my homework is due once a week on Friday between 1700-2300) so I've been spending a lot of my free time hanging out with friends or watching Phineas and Ferb on Youtube. Best. Show. Ever.
Anyway, the hardest class I have is my ROTC classes because I get up at 0600 and I do the hardest workouts I ever done and the leaders are really strict. Which is to be expected, but I wasn't prepared for the real paradigm shift. Oh, and now I have to fill out a 40 page contract to get my scholarship, so I have till Wednesday to get it done. So tomorrow (Labor Day) I'm going to work on it because I don't have school on holidays and on Tuesdays I only have 0600 PT and Marching Band at 1600. So I have about 10 hours of free-time to do homework and laundry.

My roommate is really nice. His name is Ben and he is from Oregon. He's very outdoorsy and loves China. He speaks the language almost fluently and he loves the people and the heritage. He hangs out late, but he's a nice guy. He's trying to become an architect and live in China. He's a really nice roommate.
As for my dorm, it's the best dorm I could ask for. I have the newest building on Campus and everything actually works and doesn't look and feel like 3 decade old buildings. The way my dorm is set up is awesome! Mom and dad did a really good job organizing, so I haven't done much in terms of rearranging. Hope you guys can come and see this, it's really neat!

I have so many cool experiences to talk about I don't know where to start. Good thing I'm keeping an audio journal for prosperity!

I love you all and miss you so much! Call me and keep in touch!

-Steven