Monday, March 16, 2009

They Knock You out for a Reason

There's a reason that you don't watch your own surgeries.  You don't know what's going on. Though you might be able to see everything, you don't have the background knowledge required to actually add anything of value.  It's the same way with Jack Bauer or a classified material, or, funny, a friend's social dynamics with others.  In each situation, if you only see alittle part of it, you're liable to freak out (probably most of all with the surgery if you wake up in the middle) and make things worse.  However rare, occasionally we judge alittle early.  Not me, I mean, I judge right off from the start, but I'm always right... OK maybe not always. Yet it doesn't stop us from making life difficult for others.
  I'm sure that Jack Bauer wouldn't appreciate being told he shouldn't carve out the terrorist's eye, or threaten a life, or speak in the loudest whisper ever. Well it's quite possible that that Jack knows people look at him funny for what he does, (when they do, they don't happen to last long) , or the doctor knows it's a risky procedure, or that the classified material is classified for a reason, or that the people in the friendship actually talk openly with another.  Though we like to bail friends out, sometimes it's just not necessary, and those doctors have weighed out the cost/benefit of the operation and decided they'd try it anyways.  Sometimes we just have to keep our focuses on things that are relevant to ourselves.
  Now, occasion will see that doctor go to his peers for advice on a difficult case, Jack call into CTU for backup or Tony to interrogate, that classified document opened up to new eyes, or that friend might want to know how to best proceed in order to not hurt anyone.  But that request for advice is not a lifetime pass to take over and inundate with personal opinions only loosely based on fact.  Warnings are helpful, but when warnings are listened to, they don't need to be repeated over and over again, talking of the doctors of course....
 I love you guys, but I can live my own life, I'll be OK, I've made it this far and survived, I can probably make it another 38 days.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

People Watching / The Wonders of Campaigning

I think that people are amazing! Like, I think that instead of just putting ‘Computer skills’, ‘video games’ and ‘hanging out’ the hobbies section of random questionnaires, I should start adding People Watching.  Let me give you a perfect example.  On Monday, I was helping out with James and Leo’s Campaigning for BYUSA.  My glorious role was to stop and talk to people walking around the JFSB.  Classic! It was like being right back on the mission.  People are by nature curious, but are afraid of getting hounded or annoyed, so in my case they would look over and try to figure out what I was doing, without making eye contact.  Lets just say it didn’t work. 

You’d have a cool looking girl squint at the sign, realize I saw  her, and immediately pretend she saw nothing. HA, well I’d ½ jog over to her and with a smile that said ‘busted’ would give her a flyer along with some brief information.  Or you’d have the double header scenario, where you’d have one person about 8 feet ahead of another. I’d run over to the person in the front to talk to them, while the person in back smirks because they think they dodged a bullet. I don’t think so chief!  I’d turn and hand out that second flyer, and actually focus my comments on that back person.   There would also be those really determined people that walked about a minute out of their way just to avoid a piece of paper.  What I found interesting especially were the people that by noon, after walking past 4 other groups of crazed campaigners, had no idea what was going on, and were totally willing to stop and talk to me.  I’ll admit they were wearing headphones, but seriously, how out of it can you be with all of this going on! 

Another classic people watching moment is the bus.  Let me illustrate for those not experienced with mass-transit.   I’m not even going to comment on the rank and file crazies that ride the bus, but instead, I’m going to focus on the infamous front seat.  See, I’m sure driving a bus 40 hours a week is about as interesting as the business law section of the library.  The reason why I guess this is because bus drivers will talk about the most ridiculously boring and mundane things to kill time.  The only reason there aren’t more sleeping bus drivers is the horrible seats they sit in, as described to me in exquisite detail by one such bus driver last night.  I’ve even tried to sit farther back in the bus when I’m the only one, as to avoid those conversations, but the bus driver will yell to you about things over the whine of the engine, until you give up on thought, and move to that front seat.  Don’t assume that my feelings are universal however, because there are people who jockey for the position, excited to tell that bus driver about the quarter they found, or the solution to the nation’s most complex economic problems.  Hmm, this is alittle long, so I’ll stop here for today….

I Guess There's a First for Everything

Let me just start off by saying I love babies, Jesus and Cake.  I mean, it makes sense right? How could you like one but not the other? Well because of these feelings and others I've decided to throw my writtings on the tackboard of the Blogosphere.  Except for the involvement of closest friends, I think of that tack board being placed in some random ghost town in Nevada, (0r if you live in Nevada, a ghost town in Utah).   See, there is definitely a possibility that random strangers will read the deep thoughts, be profoundly inspired and have a paradigm shift, but it's about as likely as me finding  the town that "The Pump" was filmed at.  And just like "The Pump", any good tid-bits are usually read and then ignored.  So instead of trying to shift the thoughts of others, I'll just add my random tid-bits of life, and hope others find them amusing.  Just trying to 'prime the pump!'