So I came back from Christmas Break and one of the hugest trees outside had been cut down. Unfortunately, I loved that tree! Why do people have to cut down innocent trees. We should have carved the stump into a statue of Lincoln or Michael Jordan or something.
Okay, see the big tree behind the snowman? Alas, it is no more. They are ruining the aesthetic appeal of Heritage halls by destroying these wonderful specimens of nature.
Actually, I think it fell over in the snowstorm, so they kind of had to get rid of it. Still!
I have been enlightened as to what the feelings connected with having a pet cheetah would be like in a recent dream I had two nights ago. Laugh if you will, but this dream I had last night was so awesome, I can't even express it clearly. But I will try.
So my family likes to all amass on my parents bed, or at least we used to and still do whenever everyone is around. This could be on a Sunday night, after church, or when my Dad came home and we would just all be hanging out. Anyways, we are sitting on my parents bed and talking and my favorite cat ever Victory is with us and all of the sudden old, tired looking Cheetah (just like the lion named Jasmine in Secondhand Lions) comes running in and jumps and just perches on top of me. I greet him normally with, "Hey buddy!" scratching behind his ears and his fur was just majestic. Victory always meows for attention really loudly, high pitched, and obnoxiously, but in my dream this cheetah did the same thing except it was all low pitched and funny sounding! I thought it was hilarious. Anyhow, having this pet cheetah was so awesome! He was so big so you could pull him over you like a big blanket. And he was real!
I have experienced this from my youth too. You see, when I was little I had a huge stuffed animal Simba from the Lion King. My memory leads me to think that this Simba was as large as I was at that time, but looking back maybe it was much smaller, but I was just much smaller. Simba took naps with me, and I brought him everywhere. Eventually his plastic eye chipped and Simba had one good eye and some bad vision in his chipped eye. But I loved that Simba stuffed animal. Maybe this is where my love for cats stems from.
But a Cheetah in my eyes is like the king of the beasts. I have a fascination with speed. Whenever I think about driving back home on Old Evergreen Highway right by my house, right next to the train tracks, and then a train goes by I can envision a cheetah matching the speed of that train and my mind spins.
I really want a pet cheetah.
Dreams are really weird. The last week I have had dreams pop up so vividly it is crazy. Each one is weirder then the next. Even if it is me going to sleep for a hour (like I did when I got back from the temple this morning), I had a dream about Brenton and Jacob, my two roomates who were eating breakfast in the kitchen. I dreamed that I woke up and the kitchen was an absolute PIGSTY (which is weird because it has been spotless the last week and a half), and there were old couches with floral designs pulled into the kitchen. Jacob had set up the N64 on some pedestal and there was some random old guy sitting on one of the couches saying, "nice set up dude!" I was like...where did you get all these old floral couches? He said, "Dude they are all outside! You can just take them!" I was more upset because of all the dishes on the countertops and the hot chocolate stains and jelly stains on the countertop so I went and climbed back into bed in my dream. But then I looked at my clock in my dream and my alarm was turned off. I thought, that is fishy, so I checked when my alarm was set and it said 10:00. It turns out that Brenton tried pulling a prank on me (in my dream, not in real life!) and I punched him in the arm and then slapped him reallll hard in the face. Then he goes, whatever! and starts pulling his desk on top of his bed and putting fish tank plants all over our room for "decoration". I say, "why are you doing that to your desk" and Brenton says, "for a bunk bed!" Jacob yells from the kitchen and goes, "hey, we could use some plants in here, i'm gonna put the seaweed up on the walls." I just about had it and clambered into bed, and in my dream fell asleep. When I woke up for real, Brenton and Jacob had left, the kitchen was spotless, and our room was normal. I admit, I was happy.
Ah! I think this is the type of life sized Simba stuffed animal I had! So many good memories.
Sitting at a BYU basketball game against Air Force, (which we won), and my buddy Robbie goes, "hey there is a general authority over the B on BYUBASKETBALL at half court!" I zoomed in with my camera and boom, there he was, Russell M. Nelson!
You never know who you are going to see on BYU campus! We had a CES fireside last night and D. Todd Christofferson was the main speaker! He gave a great fireside. I love going to BYU. We are edified spiritually by so many different important people. I am so happy I got in here.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Found an awesome filter in the drawing software I use that makes it look like the sun is coming up and poking through. Just messing with light.
For some reason I love reading Machiavelli's masterpiece, The Prince. He is ruthless, and yet so deceptively smart that everything he says makes sense. He uses the most perfect historical examples of people that have done things the right way and the wrong way.
"Let no one be surprised if, in speaking of entirely new principalities as I shall do, I adduce the highest examples both of prince and of
state; because men, walking almost always in paths beaten by others,
and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep
entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they
imitate. A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great
men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his
ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. Let him
act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet
appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength
of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach
by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with
the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach."
This passage really made me think about goals I have set. I have seen my whole life, that in this world there are leaders and followers. Sometimes I wonder why I try and impress and befriend people that ultimately aren't going to help me be the best person I can be. Be a leader to those around you, and never stoop to a level or a point where you are uncomfortable with yourself. I feel sorry for those people who let others walk all over them. I love history. It is always right.
Okay. I am going to divide this post into 4 short sections.
First, I got a little baby video camera for Christmas that I love having to capture special moments. Thanks Mom and Dad! That will be great to have on my mission. Anyways, I used it a little over break and a little last night. Here are the results. Also, I think it is awesome because the software it comes with makes it easy to make your own little videos. I'm not an elite producer like my roomate Hunter Stewart or anything, but I make do :)
This was last night. This fly has been living in our room for weeks now. He hides out behind my blinds at night, and I just got fed up with it. Sorry for the needless destruction of innocent life, but they only live like a day anyways, right?
Alright, next off, the weather here is about almost always hovering around 20 degrees farenheit. I know, I know, "That is so cold, Carson!" Yeah, it is! But you see, I have this philosophy on life that if the sun is out, how cold can it be? So here's what I do. I wear shorts to school today. I always wear shorts. Alright, flashback.
Imagine a much smaller me with a bowl-cut or a combover, I can't remember which, the first day of kindergarten. As I am going throughout my young school life, I realize one thing. I hate pants. I think this happened mostly in 1st grade, but I absolutely did not like them. The only pants I could bear were sweats that sound like people are shaking a tube of beans whenever you walk. Because they were so comfortable! But alas, I didn't wear a pair of jeans until like 2nd or 3rd grade. Internally, maybe it was just easier for me to play soccer or kickball at recess in shorts or sweats. Smart, right?
Flash forward to high school at Mountain View High School at Vancouver, Washington. Where it rains all the time! My calling card was that I would wear shorts all the time! In the Winter, I wore shorts because I got tired of always wearing jeans when it rained. I didn't care what the temperature was, because I would just overcompensate by wearing a big ski jacket or something. See, still logical. And hey, maybe I played so much soccer that I was kicked so many times in the legs some of the nerve endings died, but my legs don't really care what temperature it is outside. Unless there is a cold wind. But that is another theory.
Anyways, shorts are my favorite. I love soccer shorts, because they are so comfortable and do not inhibit any movement. Jeans always ride up and feel so tight when you are sitting down. But I wore shorts today because it was B.E.A-UTIFUL outside and I wanted to. And I got about 10 comments about how dumb I was for doing that. "WHY AREN'T YOU WEARING PANTS!" I just shrug. Because explaining that I can just overcompensate by wearing more layers in places that actually lose body heat or explaining that the nerve endings that respond to temperature were seared off in 11 years of playing soccer is too much. For me and for them.
Sorry that was the rant of the day/fact of the day that I didn't wear jeans until like 3rd grade.
Okay, I got an email from my uncle telling me to see how awesome this LED cube is...seriously, I want that.
Also, while we are on the subject of cubes, there are these magnet ball things right? Long story short, they are the most addicting thing ever and they apparently came in a big cube. Well my new roommate Jacob and I spent the better half of an hour trying to wrestle these little powerful magnets back into a cube, and after much trial and error, alas;
They stick to the screws on the underside of the table, so they stick up like Alfalfa's hair.
