http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&e=6&u=/ap/france_apple_expo

On Sunday I went to the singles ward in Vista. It was kind of different, I’m still not sure what to think. I know it isn’t going to be anything like the ward back at byu-i, but I guess I’ll just have to see how things go. I could always just go to the 5th ward in Fallbrook if I don’t feel like going to the singles ward anymore.

After church Larilyn and I were talking about Taugher when we drove by Vista High School, so I decided to give her a call and then we went over there for a couple hours just to see what was going on. It was good to get to spend some time with her and catch up, although we’re going to do it again on Saturday, but this way we can just talk more…

I went down to the school for the first day of school yesterday. Things went fairly smoothly. We had some long lines and some little problems, but it worked out fairly well. It was still weird not doing the assembly on Monday. I spent most of the day just taking care of things that needed to be done in and around ASB: Check requests, copies, ordering things, etc. Travis and I went to lunch at the Garden Center. I tried the pastrami sandwich – it was alright, but nothing wonderful.

After school I came home and rested for a while before Ryan and I headed out to Best Buy to get a palm pilot for Nancy, the ASB president. While we were there we did some other looking around and then we ended up going to Friday’s to see if Donna was there. She wasn’t – what else is new? – but Jeremy was. He just had another kid. Left there came home and went to bed! Now I think I’m going to add all the kids contact info into my computer so that I can sync it to my palm and then send it to Nancy’s palm later today.

While I was at the high school on Friday I spent most of the time dealing with getting my keys back. It just seemed like a constant battle to find all the keys that I had as Nan had taken some of the keys off of the ring and had then given the ring to Chad because she didn’t know what the keys were and figured they were PAC keys. Travis and I went out to lunch at the Firehouse which was good. I got a chance to talk with Chad for a while, manly just about people and their experience, availability, etc. I was happy to see that the kids were editing their videos on a Mac. Granted, they weren’t using the dual processor quicksilver or final cut pro, but it was still a Mac (an iBook running iMovie in Panther).

Being back at Grand Tradition Friday night was kind of weird. It was nice to see some of the people that I haven’t talked to at all in the past couple months – Kristin, Justin, etc. The wedding went well, although it was quite a bit for my first wedding back! Singers to deal with, new overhead mics, all sorts of stuff. Richie dragged me out to the Cheesecake Factory last night, which was good other than the fact that I didn’t get to bed until almost 2. Going to Cheesecake reminded me of Ashley, I’m going to have to try to track that girl down.

Speaking of tracking people down… What is this with the new 951 area code for Riverside???? Come on people, I leave for two months and you have to do an area code split? Idaho keeps looking better every day. One area code for the ENTIRE state. One calling package for the state – FREE! The whole state is one area code and is all local calling. Why can’t we have that in CA? We can’t even call more than 15 miles away! Looks like I’ll be changing come phone numbers in my phone over the next couple weeks/months!

The wedding this morning was more normal. I was tired, everyone was tired and since Richie wasn’t there I got to be lazy! The wedding was small, only 50 people or so and they all showed up late so it was just a great wedding all around. I did get to spent a while talking with Amanda while we were waiting for people to show up, so that was nice. Reminds me that I still need to find out what is going on with Aims, but she still hasn’t called me back from last night when I tried to call her. Desoree was there to do seating which is always a plus, cause I haven’t been able to pick on her for so long! I think I was doing pretty good today between Desoree and Kristin.

After the wedding, I went to lunch with Loyd & Leah at El Jardin. I can’t remember the last time I actually had the time to go to lunch with them. It was nice, I wish I had more time to do it more often. Actually, I guess I do have the time, which now is a problem. I think I really need to try to find a “regular” job to help me get some money accrued to go back to Idaho. Any ideas, let me know people!

When I came home after lunch I watched U-571 and then fell asleep for a couple hours. I woke up to find out that it was after 8. After not finding anything “fun” to do, I went to Savon to get new shoelaces and then went to the grocery store for milk & cheese. Now I guess it is off to bed. I think I’m going to try and find my way to the singles ward in Vista tomorrow, so wish me luck with that. I miss Idaho. It was so nice to walk down the street and find tons of great people to hang out with. I wonder if I shouldn’t have just stayed up there and tried to find work in Rexburg. I discovered yesterday that we order invitations at GT from a place in Rexburg – Stylart/Chase. I just thought that was funny. Amanda goes back to Idaho tomorrow, a big part of me wishes that I was going back with her, but I’m going to try and make the best of the four months I’ve got left in CA before I leave for good – maybe never to return. CA really is driving me crazy – I can’t understand why anyone would actually move here. Why would you put up with all these people and all the traffic and all the noise and all the this and the that. I can’t stand it.

I think I need to stop my rambling now and get to bed…

Tell me what I have to do tonight
Cause I’d do anything to make it right
Let’s be us again
I’m sorry for the way I lost my head
I dont why I said the things I said
Lets be us again

Here I stand with everything to lose
All I know is I dont wanna ever see the end
Baby please, I’m reachin out for you
Won’t you open up your heart and let me come back in
Lets be us again
Us again

Look at me Im way past pride
Isn’t there some way that we can try
To be us again
Even if it takes a while
I’ll wait right here until I see that smile
That says we’re us again

Here I stand with everything to lose
All I know is I dont wanna ever see the end
Baby please, I’m reachin out for you
Won’t you open up your heart and let me come back in
Lets be us
Ohhh

Baby baby, what would I do
Can’t imagine life without you

Here I stand with everything to lose
All I know is I dont wanna ever see the end
Baby please I’m reachin out for you
Won’t you open up your heart and let me come back in
Oh here I am I’m reachin out for you
Won’t you open up your heart and let me come back in
Lets be us again
Oh, lets be us again

I spent most of the day dealing with my winbloze computer. The hard drive died in it while I was in Idaho so I found a suitable hard drive for it (60 GB) lying around, got the data off of it and then started the process of putting it in the computer and getting things going over there. I think I finally have the computer back up and running, and wow does it feel fast. I love how just starting with a clean OS can make the computer run so much faster. I thought about just getting a whole new computer – I figured that for $377 or $399 I could get one from Compaq or HP to replace it, but since I didn’t have to go buy a hard drive, this option didn’t involve any money.

I went to Boomers tonight with Lauren, Batch & Pyro. We also met Amanda and a bunch of her friends there. We played a round of golf and then went on the go karts twice before they closed and we went to In & Out. While we were going through the drive through I finally remembered to call Allison to see if she made it home. Well, actually I remembered plenty of other times to call her, but none of them were convenient, but I figured it was now or never tonight. Anyways, she did make it home safely and has just been lounging around – sounds like someone I know.

Tomorrow I get to go to the high school and to GT. I tried to make contact with Bishop Parker as I need to do a new Part 3 of the application, but he has not yet returned my phone call. I really hope that everything will work out for Idaho, from getting accepted to finding the money to make it happen. Oh! The marquee was working today for the first time in about a month or so! I was so proud of it! Now I just need to figure out how to make it continue to run without problems, but that will be for another day!

Well, here I am, back in Fallbrook, bored, tired and restless. I miss Rexburg.

The drive home on Friday was long, but it was nice having people along for the ride so that it wasn’t nearly as boring as it was on the way up. The trip was pretty uneventful which is normally a good thing – we didn’t get pulled over like some other person I know (Amanda). Grace had never had a fresh Krispy Kreme so I stopped in Ontario to get her one, forgetting about the new store in Temecula. Unfortunately they weren’t hot off the press so I told her that she was going to have to go back sometime and get one fresh from the belt. We also stopped at In & Out in Vegas which was wonderful. Man I’ve missed that place! I was debating about meeting some of the guys for Friday’s on the way home, but I was way too tired so just went straight home and went to bed after getting the things I needed out of the truck.

I spent most of Saturday unpacking, making a bigger mess than I already had. Ryan came over to bring some stuff back and we started talking business and made up some new pricing schedules for duplication work. We (Ryan, Aimee, Doug & I) went out that night to Friday’s to see Donna, but once again she wasn’t there. I was bummed. They also aren’t serving salads with any of their meals which I thought was stupid… I think the place is starting to go down hill, which maybe is a good thing – I won’t go there as often. Of course, not working at the Bob will probably help that situation quite a bit too! After Friday’s we went to Edward’s with Amanda & Lauren to see Without a Paddle which was OK, but nothing special. I would advise you to save your money and rent it from Netflix when it comes out to DVD. < http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60034562&trkid=-1 > After the movie we got some more doughnuts from the new Krispy Kreme and sat in the parking lot for a while.

I spent Sunday unpacking so that I could pack to leave that afternoon and then it was off to the airport. The flights went ok, nothing too special there. I watched most of Dance with Me on the 2nd leg of the flight, but didn’t quite finish it before we started our decent into Kansas City. It was nice to spend some time in Kansas this year as it has been so long. Tom did a lot of cleaning out of old stuff, going through old books & papers. We also came across a lot of pictures which I’ve now taken digital pictures of in case something happens to the originals. I’ll have to post some of the funnier ones when I get a chance to go through them. We went out to breakfast Monday at Cracker Barrel, how I love that place! I found out that the reason they are never going to have one in CA is the property values. They don’t feel that they could put a restaurant in CA without having to raise prices, and they have prices that are pretty much fixed across the country so they don’t want to do that. I just thought it was an interesting explanation. It’s probably for the best that we don’t have one anyway. I got to see Sarah K which was good. She doesn’t seem to have changed too much. We all went out to dinner Monday night at the Golden Corral which was alright, but the best part was the entertainment! We got to sit through an absolutely awesome thunder & lighting show! As we were driving home we noticed the sirens going off indicating a tornado warning. After checking the news we found that there was one about 15 miles southeast of Topeka, which we figured was a safe distance so we headed home and spend the rest of the evening watching the news & the lighting outside. That’s about it from Kansas.

I’ve just been going through the mail and trying to organize stuff around here, nothing fun. I’ve gone down to mess with the marquee now twice. Stupid Virtual PC is driving me crazy – I hope that Microsoft is able to help it along with a new version here shortly. Not too much else to report. I’m probably going to watch a movie and get ready for bed. I miss being in Rexburg – I miss all the people, and haven’t talked to any of them. I still have to post the pictures from my last night there…

Someone needs to explain to this dude that Word & Excel were written for the Mac long before Windows even existed! (And we also get more frequent updates.)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=711&ncid=738&e=12&u=/usatoday/20040823/tc_usatoday/studentscrazyaboutipodfollowthemusictoapplelaptops

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=569&ncid=738&e=2&u=/nm/20040823/tc_nm/tech_japan_sharp_dc

I need to get to bed, so let’s make this quick. I didn’t get to see Tara & Shelly tonight, but I did get to hang out with Becky, Janae and Kim for a while. Then Amanda finally got home from work and I got to talk with her for a little bit before the other girls left and I decided to take off too. I then went to say my goodbyes at Birch. At first they were going really easy, cause I couldn’t find anyone. Ashley had already left for CA, but I talked with Haley for a while before moving on. Said goodbye to Elizabeth, told her I was going to miss the stories and that I’d be looking forward to hearing more when I come back. Then I went downstairs and found the party in 208. Allison was down there with her sister and roommates. It turned out that it was Monette’s 19th Birthday. We hung out there for a while and then went to Milhallow for dinner. After that we came back and hung out for a while and then had cupcakes & ice cream. I took Ashley (also from CA, but Martinez, not LA, and moving into 208) the rest of my baked ruffles as she had never had them. (She was having the original Baked Lays at dinner.)

So much else to say, but I need to get to sleep! I’ll have to try and get the rest in some other night this weekend (which means it’s never going to happen).

Oh, it looks like we’re not going to leave until after 9 now as Grace is waiting for a bracelet that is at the jewelers. I’m cool with that cause it will give me more time to get ready in the morning and possibly some more sleep. I’m not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow night, I may just want to go straight home, or maybe I will want to go out once I get home and unload the car or something. I think that we do need to go out Saturday night though if anyone is interested…

I got to see Tara, Shelly & Ben tonight for the first time in what seems like ages. It’s “only” been a month, but that has been way too long. I missed all of them. I figured that we had to get together before Shelly left since it has been so long. I asked them what they wanted to do and gave them a list of suggestions. Shelly said she was hungry, so Tara and I finally decided on the Texas Roadhouse. It was nice to get to go back there and give the play another try. It was good, but I think that for a steak I would rather go to Outback as I love the flavor of the Outback Special. Shelly is going home tomorrow around 4, and I plan on going back to see her again before she leaves so I can say goodbye… Tara is going home for a couple days on Friday, but she’ll be back up Wednesday to go back to work, but I won’t be here. :’( She is still hoping to come to CA in September, so I’ll be looking forward to that. I guess it is all going to depend on if she can get out of her classes. We considered going to see The Princess Diaries tonight, but it wasn’t playing until 9:30, and that is past Tara’s bedtime. It was also going to be past my bedtime and I had a commitment to keep with Allison, so we skipped out on it for tonight. Maybe Tara, I and whoever else can go see it tomorrow night since Shelly is going to go see it with her mom anyway.

I got home and then made pasta for Allison, as planned earlier… (too many conflicting schedules). I tried to have her over last night, but when that didn’t happen I invited her over tonight, half forgetting about Tara & Shelly. After dinner we sat and talked for a while and then went outside (as it was past 11:30) to eat some ice cream for the last time. (We finally just finished the mint choc. chip from weeks ago.) We talked until about 12:30 about how we’re going to miss this place and life in general and all that. She has decided that she can’t afford to stay here for the fall, so she is going home and then is going to think about applying and coming back for a track and then returning to CA to work.

I really am going to miss this place and all the people. Hilarye gave me a hug today when I was over there earlier and told me that she was going to miss me… I love that girl… I’m going to miss her! Tomorrow is going to be so emotional… I need to go around and say goodbye to everyone, but I’m afraid that it’s going to be hard to do. I know it’s only been 8-10 weeks, and even less for some, but it feels like so much longer. I love this place and I love these people. I am so grateful that Amanda brought me here.

It is going to be so interesting to see how things will be when I go back to Fallbrook on Friday. I honestly hope that things don’t return to “normal,” as they were before. I like my life out here and am concerned about what I’m going to fall into when I go back home.

Speaking of missing things, we had our last book of Mormon class this morning. I am really going to miss Brother Allison and his class. I hope that I can return here in January and I hope that I can continue to take his classes for the rest of my religion credits. I think he will be teaching 122 in the winter, but we’ll just have to see how things work out. I’ve learned so much in that class this semester and I really hope that I can continue to take what I have learned with me throughout my life. I know I’ve already forgotten half of what I’ve been taught, let’s just hope that it stays where it is.

Well, I really need to get to bed seeing as how it is after 1, so let me just wrap this up. I spent most of the day going through mail and paying bills. I’m glad I got that done as that has been a big headache for me. I hope that I can stay on top of things now and not let them pile up like they have. I’m hoping to take my letter of appeal into admissions tomorrow morning before my econ final. I’ve got my econ final at 11 and then I’m done. I probably need to sell back some books and then I need to come home and pack & clean. I’m also going to have to make the rounds and start the goodbyes, I just wonder how many I’ve already missed. I’m also hoping to spend some more time with Tara & Shelly before they/I leave…

It’s not even my bedtime yet and I’m already getting ready for bed! Can you believe it??? This is the earliest I have been home for weeks! Brother Allison told us this morning that he is canceling class on Thursday, which I’m kind of mixed about. I’m going to miss that class. We had our last psych class today and I took the last test and final. I got a combined score of 76% or so. I think I can make it out of the class with a B, but we’ll just have to see on Thursday. I left Econ after turning in my paper because it didn’t look like we were actually going to do anything other than review, and I may not go to class tomorrow because I know we’re doing review then. I figure that way I can work on eating more of the food around here and work on packing. I’m going to check out at 3:15 on Thursday now even though I’m not going to leave until Friday morning. I would like to go down to SLC on Thursday to check out Temple Square, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’ll have to plan on doing that on another trip, which is probably best anyways.

Sam happened to come over as I was making pasta tonight, so I talked him into having dinner with me. Then we went and home taught Allison tonight which was fun. She had some really good responses to my questions, it sounded like she has already put a lot of thought into many of the questions. I’m going to miss her along with Sarah, Christine and Hilarye [and no I didn't draw the eyeball!], and all the rest of the girls and guys too! Thursday is going to be a sad day.

It was so weird today to walk out of the library for what will most likely be the last time, at least from studying. It was such a great feeling thought to close my phil book this afternoon for the last time. I’m not going to know what to do with myself tomorrow and Thursday without having classes all day and homework to do. I do have some packing and cleaning to start doing though, so I will probably be able to keep myself busy, along with finding people to help eat all my food.

I think that’s about it for today. I didn’t get any fun stories from Elizabeth, Jenn or Steve today and didn’t see Ashley playing in the rain… I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself!

24:18 … They never would use weapons again for the shedding of man’s blood; and this they did, vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives; and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him; and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands.

I think we can learn a lot from this passage. We need to run our anger towards people into charity. It is easy to ignore someone, but it can be hard for us to attempt to befriend our enemies, but this is exactly what we need to do. If we can show our enemies the charity that we have for them, we can hope that they will learn from our example and want to learn why we have this great charity. It is clearly proven that people learn from example and I think that people learn even more when they are astonished. In order to show charity, you may have to undergo some persecution, but that is all part of the price we must pay. As long as you have fully repented and have faith in God, you will be protected, one way or the other.

Newsday’s Stephen Williams reports on seeing Sony’s NW-HD1 audio player in a store: “‘How’s it compare to the iPod?’ I asked a salesman. ‘Battery life is a lot longer, up to 30 hours,’ he said. ‘The LCD readout is kind of dim,’ I said. ’Battery life is a lot longer,’ he said. ‘I understand it can’t play MP3 files,’ I said. ‘Battery life is a lot longer,’ he said.”

http://www.newsday.com/business/local/newyork/ny-txwilliams3930244aug15,0,979827.column

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=509&e=15&u=/ap/costco_caskets

And I need to be snoring!

Slept in again this morning, but I got to see Shelly on the way to class! I haven’t seen her for so long, it was about the best start to the last week I could ask for! She didn’t have too much to say, but she is getting 4 roommates when she comes back from home after the break.

I got my 16 topics done for my Econ paper today. I started around 1:30 and finished at 5:30 with a one hour break to do some reading in Alma. I thought that was pretty good. It came out to 18 pages. The slideshow tonight was ok, but I didn’t recognize half of the activities that they had pictures of, but that’s probably because I was only here for half of the semester and didn’t go to all of the activities even then. They didn’t use any of my pictures, but I didn’t get them the CD until the day after they asked for them by, so that’s my fault and I don’t think that my pics would have really added anything much more to the mix, although I think some of the pics from Big Jud’s would have been good to toss in there.

After FHE I went straight back to the library to finish up my econ numbers, then FINISH MY PSYCH BOOK! That felt so great to read the last two pages of the book and close it! I can’t wait to do that to my Phil book. Speaking of Phil, I got 15/23 on the exam today, not great, but not horrible. I also didn’t study for it today so I can’t really complain. I’m hoping that I can do really well on the last test because it will only be over one lesson, but we’ll have to see.

As I was getting ready to leave, Allison walked in so I stopped to talk with her for a while and then after she finished up her stuff we left the library at 9. We stopped at her apartment for a second and then she talked me into walking to Broulim’s with her — emphasis on the WALK. Yes, we walked to Broulim’s when both of us have perfectly good working cars! Al got some sugar free candy for Christine, as she was just diagnosed as diabetic. I’m dreading the day that I hear that news for me… I don’t think I’ll be able to live without my high sugar intake! After that she decided she wanted a pizza, so we went to Little Caesar’s, but they were closed, so then we walked back past Broulim’s to Domino’s and waited for them to make her a pizza. Then we walked home in the rain, well it wasn’t really raining at this point, but it was spitting on and off. As soon as we got back to her apartment it started POURING! It was awesome. I left shortly thereafter so that I could get home and print out all my stuff and get ready for tomorrow. I stopped by to check on Liz & Jenn, but it looked like Liz was sleeping and I didn’t see Jenn, so that was nice & quick. Ashley was out playing in the rain so I said hi and then jumped in my truck to drive home.

I thought I was doing good on time, but then I went to try to find Sam and talked with Steve for a while and then finally found Sam and talked to him for even longer. Then I finally got home to eat another bowl of Crispix and print out my stuff. Now I think it is time for bed so that I can face another fun filled day. Wish me luck on my psychology test & final, which I’m hoping to take Tuesday afternoon, but I might push back to Wednesday if I don’t feel I’m ready.

I’m not ready to leave… Oh, I talked to Steve today about his storage unit.. He’s paying $28/month for a 4′x8′, which while that would be much more room that I would need, is pretty darn expensive. That would be $100+ for the four months I’d be gone, so I think I’ll be taking stuff home with me. I just hope that it isn’t raining on Friday or the trip could get really fun! Speaking of rain, I love the thunder and lighting… I miss it doing this almost every night when I was first here. I hope it keeps up for the night and for all I care, it can rain straight through till Friday as long as I get a dry ride home, I don’t care! I really need to get a cover of some type for the bed, either a shell or a flat top cover of some type, but I just don’t want to spend the money on it as it’s like $800 or more I think.

So let’s see what else I can think of writing instead of going to bed… Al is thinking about coming back for the Fall . . . I’m looking forward to some relaxation with no school, but I’m not looking forward to leaving here. I think it could be good for me though to go back to CA so I can really make a decision as to what I want to do, but I really really hope they will let me in here in January. Speaking of which, I need to get that letter up to Josh. I’m going to bed now before I think of more things I need to do to depress me!