Random Giggles | Page 193

I’m a groupie

28 November 2007, 12:11 pm by Giggles

Categories: Family, Happy Things, Learn Something, Life, Relationships, Science & Tech

I’m a groupie. But I’m not your normal groupie. I’m a news groupie. More particularly, KSL news in Salt Lake City. And I have a source for my addiction too. A friend works there, and I really like having that inside contact. Last year he helped me meet Mark Eubank when he retired.

That was so neat. I’ve watched him do the weather for as long as I can remember. He’s the best weatherman. Now I watch his son on the same station.

Last year for Christmas I even got autographed photos of Mark Eubank, Dick Nourse, Bruce Lindsay, Nadine Wimmer, Carole Mikita, and Len Randolph. I have them framed in my living room. There was happy clapping when I saw them.

This year Dick Nourse is retiring. Tonight will be his last broadcast. Last night they had an open house where people could come and greet him and thank him for 43 years of doing the news. I wasn’t going to miss this. And I didn’t.

One reason I like that news station so much is because it’s the one my parents watched when we lived in Utah. We moved just before I turned nine. And it was real comforting to come back to BYU almost ten years later and be able to watch the same people doing the news. And I’ve watched them for the last 11 years now.

After talking with Dick Nourse and getting that picture, my friend had to rush to be on set for the 6:00 news. He said I could watch if I wanted to. I’m sure if he knew how that idea made my heart speed up just a little, he’d laugh at me. I got to sit on a chair back behind the cameras. They even got me a headset so I could hear what the director was saying. It was so COOL!! The news will always seem just a little different now that I’ve seen it from that perspective.

The view from where I was sitting.

The news hour goes a lot faster when you are there with them. I had a lot of fun watching everything that goes on. The weathermen still amaze me. He’s standing in front of a big green screen, and yet he can point at the exact spot on the weather map that he is talking about. That’s some amazing coordination there.

The big green screen.

That was the bestest news cast ever. Yeah me!

2 Shared thoughts

What happened?

27 November 2007, 10:15 am by Giggles

Categories: Health, Work

Lately people have been asking me what happened to my arm. This might seem like a strange question to you, but you’d need to see my arm to know that it really isn’t all that out of place. There is a huge ugly bruise on my arm that prompts the question. And being the weird person that I am, I’ve taken a picture of the bruise each day so that I could see how it changed. It’s been quite interesting. I’ve even tried to pick shirts to wear each day that would coordinate with my bruise. I have a lot of shirts that match bruises in various stages.

First, the story. In short, two weeks ago today there was an accident at work. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I got hit. It didn’t seem like anything to me, but a short time later I went to fold my arms and right where I would put my hand on my bicep hurt, a lot. That’s when I noticed the huge lump and the changing colors. It still hurts now if it gets touched just enough. And because of where it is at, when I flex my arms while doing my hair in the morning, the entire muscle looks purple and green.

Some of the pictures have been my daily picture for project 365 this year. But I thought I’d put all of them here as well. The links will open up the picture.

Yes, I’m weird. I know it.

2 Shared thoughts

What must the neighbors think?

26 November 2007, 8:56 pm by Giggles

Categories: Random

The mail came while I was out getting an oil change and a tire rotation today. As I entered the door near my apartment, I could see that there was a box at my door and I let out an excited “oooo” that the neighbors could have heard. I laughed to myself thinking that they must be wondering what was going on in the hall. But it was my Christmas music box. Of course I’m excited.

That got me thinking about all the weird things my neighbors could possibly think of me. I have left my apartment at odd hours dressed very strangely many times. No one has ever said anything, but it is interesting to think about all the same.

This thought was originally much longer, but spending 2+ hours trying to find an apartment that has washer/drier hook-ups has really drained my brain and motivation.

1 Shared thought

Perception

25 November 2007, 5:59 pm by Giggles

Categories: Musings, Relationships

Perception is an interesting thing. It means that two people can be in the same place at the same time and have completely different experiences. We all bring our own lives and our own perceptions to everything, and that determines what we then take away. We might be looking at the same thing or hearing the same words, but what we see and what we understand is completely colored by our own individual lives. It is even possible to see the same thing or read the same thing at different times in your own life and have a completely different experience with it because you are in a completely different place in your own life and more aware of things you might not have noticed before.

One place I have really noticed this lately is with General Conference. There was a talk in April that when I heard it live I heard one thing. When I read it in the Ensign a few months later, I read a completely different message. And when I heard it on DVD after a few more months, it was something completely different again. At each of those three times I was in a different place in my life, and so I got something different out of it. With the October session there was a talk that I got one thing out of, but someone else I talked to got almost the exact opposite from it. We are different people bringing different lives to the same experience and we both walked away from it with what we needed.

I’ve also noticed it recently with life in general. Two people can be talking together, and yet be talking on completely different levels or about completely different things simply because of what they have personally brought with them to the experience. What you bring to the experience is called slot filling and it’s part of schema theory. When we are faced with a situation, we take the given information and then we fill in the blanks with things of our own invention that make the situation make sense to us. The trouble comes when two people are filling the slots with very different things. It makes communication difficult. It’s what makes us jump to conclusions and make assumptions about what is happening because that is what makes sense to us.

But the more we know a person, the more we are aware of where they are in life and what they are bringing to the experience, the better we can understand their perception. It takes time. And it takes effort. But I think that the effort can offer a great reward. When we can understand how someone else might perceive something, than we are that much closer to truly understanding the person.

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4th and 18

24 November 2007, 6:15 pm by Giggles

Categories: Happy Things, Life

Can a game be any more nerve wracking? No. I don’t think so. I didn’t breathe easy the whole game. It was a beautiful day for a game though. The weather was clear and sunny with very little breeze. It was still real cold, but with a sold-out stadium, there were enough people around that it didn’t get too cold. There were moments when I honestly couldn’t tell if I was shaking from cold or nerves.

It was a tough fought game on both sides. The defense on both teams were amazing. For a long time I thought it was going to be a game of field goals only, which was fine because we had three and they only had one.

The crowd was great. The last minute or so of the third quarter, which of course lasted a good five minutes, I don’t think I heard a single thing because the crowd was making so much noise. I did my own fair share of yelling as well and my throat feels just a tad scratchy right now. It was all worth it though.

With a little more than a minute left we were down by one clear back on the wrong side of the field. It was 4th and 18 and BYU did something they rarely do, they went for it! And they got it! It was the most beautiful catch all day! There was much yelling and jumping up and down and hugging of strangers. And then a touch down! And BYU did something they rarely do, again, they went for the two point conversion. And they got it! Again with the much yelling and jumping up and down.

A few incompletes later and BYU had won!! Even more yelling and jumping up and down. It most definitely was a good day for a football game. Despite the signs that say entering the field is prohibited, I joined the crowd on the field, something I’d never done before. I just wanted to stand on that field before leaving Utah. The season tickets this year were the best $100 I’ve spent in a long time. This game alone was worth it.

I just counted, and this is only the second BYU vs. Utah football game I’ve attended. I had season tickets for the 1996, 1997, and 1998 seasons. The game was only in Provo in 1997 those years. For the 1999-2000 seasons I was on my mission. In 2001 I was in Mexico and Kentucky, so I didn’t have season tickets that year. After graduating I went to only two or three games until I bought season tickets this year. That is far too many games for me to miss.

2 Shared thoughts

A Day in My Head

23 November 2007, 11:12 pm by Giggles

Categories: Random

Today I thought I’d share several of the random thoughts that ran through my head at various points during the day. This way you can get a small glimpse of what it is like to have my brain.

Where did that wiggly eye come from? There’s nothing around that has wiggly eyes is there? How did it fall out of my bed?
That was a weird dream. I hope I can remember it.
I’m going to have to make sure my laundry gets put away as soon as it’s done. I really don’t want them showing my apartment when I’m drying my laundry.
Where do I even start packing?
I need to remember to take pictures of my tires.
It’s interesting that there are some people who probably think I like them when in reality I just tolerate them for various reasons. I wonder how many people just tolerate me.
Ooo, now that’s pretty.
Seems like there are certain things that you just have to keep telling certain people over and over again because for some reason they never quite hear you.
What possesses people to honk at runners? It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing, someone will honk at me. I can understand it a bit when it’s summer and I’m wearing running shorts. But I had one 3-5 layers tonight. Why do they honk?
I move my head a LOT more than I thought when I ran. I didn’t realize my head moved back and forth like that. My eyes stay still. I didn’t realize my eyes were moving like that so that I’m always looking forward while my head goes side to side like that. I wonder what it’s like to watch my eyes while I run.
My shoulder does better when I run.
I just had the remote. Where’s the remote?
Wow. That’s been there a whole year. Doesn’t seem like it. Time is weird.
I can’t remember that dream.
I have a LOT of fabric.
Doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to find an apartment that has washer/drier hook-ups, does it?
I need to paint my fingernails for tomorrow.
It doesn’t hurt where it’s the darkest. It hurts right above that.
My feet are COLD!

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Mais Bençãos

22 November 2007, 12:17 pm by Giggles

Categories: Education, Family, Gospel, Happy Things, Health, Life, Musings, Relationships, Remembers, Work

There are so many things I have to be thankful for in my life. There is no possible way I could begin to list them all. I am thankful for my family; my faith; a place to live; the most wonderful, amazing people I work with; my incredible friends; my talents, including all of the ones I am still discovering; my health; my education and the chance to continue with it; this beautiful world; life.

My second area on my mission was in Matinhos. It was hot. It rained every day. There were giant slugs, giant cockroaches, frogs, lots of sand, and my feet started to fall apart. But every time something happened, my companion and I would turn to each other and say “mais bençãos,” or “more blessings.” And it was true. For everything that happened, that seemed to go wrong, there was always a small blessing that followed. Some times the blessing came immediately, some times much later. Some times the blessing was large, other times you would miss it if you weren’t looking for it. But the more we said that to each other, the more blessings we began to see. It was a wonderful way to live. I need to remember to do that even now.

So on this day of thanks, remember all the bençãos in your life, be they large or small, good or even seemingly bad. And remember to be grateful for them all.