Taylor

Eros

2010-11-02T00:11:00.001-04:00

i love kynslie.

Faith and Scriptures

2010-04-05T16:46:00.001-04:00

I was thinking that sometimes when I am having a difficult finding the time/motivation for the kind of scripture study time that I would like to have I feel like I'm not giving myself a chance to build my faith and so I feel like it's in danger of dropping off. But I just had the realization that the scriptures are really more like an aid to our faith. They the revelations about the truths of the gospel that are important for us to understand in while we attempt to live the gospel and the context in which those revelations came, and also give us a record of how other people lived the gospel.

I feel like our main source of faith is from our lives, feeling the Holy Ghost from reading the scriptures or as we pray or while we're thinking about some gospel topics, or the love we feel as we hear others bear their testimonies. Undoubtedly, reading the scriptures gives more for our brains to chew on that can allow these spiritual experiences to take place, but maybe this realization may help me deal with the guilt that I sometimes trip myself with over never taking the time to become a scriptorian or learning Hebrew and Greek and Latin, or it remove the need I feel to tell myself that someday I'll take a few months break to catch up on all the institute/seminary lessons I missed (when I know that the possibility of having a chance to do that would be slim to none). But I guess the main thing is just that I don't let all the past scripture learning I've missed out on cause me to question my faith. My faith in God and His plan has come from my own feelings and thoughts and experiences.

That said, I owe much of that to the scriptures and really should work on my daily scripture study, and maybe think about adapting Pres. Eyring's method of paying more attention to what the Lord is doing in my life.
President Henry B. Eyring - O Remember, Remember

Influential Albums

2009-03-24T14:34:00.011-04:00

My Early Musical History

"Weird Al" Yankovic's Greatest Hits I have my father to thanks for this influential middle school Christmas gift, which influenced me to be even more of a dork.

Crash Test Dummies Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Must have been Sally's or John's. Classic, though.

Bush - Sixteen Stones Loved it. Even if I didn't really know what glycerine was.

Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream I lost this one at Whitney Cowling's birthday party (like 13th or so). I was saddened.

The Beatles Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, Revolution I'd listen to my dad's records on the record player I kept in my mom's special ed classroom at my middle school while I'd wait on her after school.

Mineral EndSerenading I first starting coming into my own musical tastes when my brother John bequeathed this gem upon me that I think he acquired as part of Juniper Distribution he put together for him and his posse to order cd's for cheaper. It was a little mellow and matched my mood pretty well. This was about the time I talked my dad into buying me my first pioneer amp for my birthday (and Christmas). It was the best gift ever (next to Emily's full body massage), but what made it even better was the 25 disc CD player that we got from the same place for around 25 or 50 bucks. And my dad let me use his huge speakers, too. That's when I started jamming hard.

Cursive Such Blinding Stars For Starving Eyes. John had this on vinyl and it rocked my world. I remember one time chilling in my room jamming this album and watching a lizard on a branch outside my window. We made eye contact.

Sunny Day Real Estate Diary One of the first and only CD's I've ever purchased myself. I think I can name them all right now: 2) Get up Kids Something to Write Home About, 3) MXPX Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo a regrettable impulse buy on a science club trip at a mall up here south of Atlanta, 4) Last of the Mohicans Soundtrack, 5) Eddie Bauer Christmas, 6) The Empties (my cousin's band), 7) John Ralston Sorry Vampire (at a show), 8) The Stationary Set Don't Forget in the Darkness What You Saw in the Light (also at a show), 9) At the End of All Things It's never too Late 10) Sound on Film.

Get up Kids Something to Write Home About I bought this and listened to it on the way up to the state Science Olympiad competition held at Emory University. I almost won the cow-a-bungee competition after calculating how much phone wire to use to drop the weight as close to the target as possible without touching, but then I added one extra loop because I didn't want it to not be close enough...but it grazed the target and we were disqualified!! One of the low points in my life. But this CD was some awesome listening on the school bus.

I Hate Myself 10 Songs Great record. I would come home from a long hard day of school and club meetings and soccer practice and just crash with a little I Hate Myself lulling me to sleep. This was back when I was learning how to record records into mp3's. I later used this knowledge to transfer some songs a lady wanted to be played at her funeral from cassette tapes.

The Promise Ring Nothing Feels Good John let me have this one because he was starting to get a sense of what music I liked. I remember listening to it as I walked home one day from a JV soccer game at Bazemore-Hyder stadium to his house across the street from VSU fine art's building on a lazy Saturday afternoon. I wonder why no one picked me up...

Third Eye Blind Third Eye Blind "Man, this CD's so good. I hope I never don't like it" - from a conversation me and my best friend Drew had in his room while rocking this classic.
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So I guess you could say these were just some of the gateway drugs that got me hooked on music, that would lead me down the path of Napstering and Limewiring and g2p'ing. But I guess that's for another day.

Apologies: Back Posts Release

2008-12-22T01:22:00.003-05:00

I think it's bad form to just make a bunch of posts at once and not allow people the time they need to digest my thoughts and figure out a point related to what I was talking about but not quite able to get to. But, let's face it, I'm just not going to go back and edit or add stuff to old posts that I've started. I'm just not really the revising type. So those last few posts are thoughts that I've started over the last few months. Maybe one day I'll finish them. But until then, why not share them? (I mean, who really has anything against sounding like an idiot? Obviously not me.)

Television: Experience Substitute or Endorphin Tap

2008-12-22T00:04:00.006-05:00

It's interesting the role that television plays in the modern lifestyle. Purists can easily dismiss it in their own minds as a complete waste of time. I sometimes feel the pull of that mindset on my own feelings as well, but television (and in particular, I guess, television programming) is a complex beast. I sometimes feel like TV is just a cop-out, a way to avoid life and do nothing, an excuse to be lazy, similar to world of warcraft. But deep down inside I think TV is a way to expand your own experience, to observe situations others face (fictional people are people, too), which can be a very meaningful thing. God sent us here to Earth to gain experience. In some way I think we can gain experience from TV or books or other substitutes that bring situations to mind that we may never face in real life.
That's my for TV part of my brain speaking. But there's a huge problem here- more and more media is produced that has no link to reality. I'm not talking about how people in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fly through the air jumping on building tops. Even fantastical stories or settings can have their own analogies to real life situations or emotions. Popular TV shows and movies seem to be increasingly dilute of these things, shrouded in absurdities and obscenities, so that rather than empathizing with the characters viewers are merely "entertained". I will be the first one to tell you that I do get sucked into that myself, though. Sometimes it just feels good to get stupid and net nearly nothing after watching something like Hot Rod or Anchorman other than a good release of endorphins triggered by laughing and a few quotables (which benefit me nothing since I was born without the ability to successfully quote a single line from a movie...so I usually stick to short phrases or single words). But that's really kind of the point- if the changing trends in media released on TV can release chemicals in our bodies to make us feel good while delivering nothing beneficial to our souls then it is becoming more of a drug and less of a tool for learning from experiences you never would have had in the normal course of your own life.
So I'm really just saying that I have conflicted feelings about TV and movies, but I really do like watching something good!

The Santa Myth

2008-12-19T00:40:00.010-05:00

So it's all innocent and fun to lie to little kids to add a sense of excitement in their lives and stuff, right?...No, I'm not going to take that angle on this whole issue. I don't really care about making up stories for kids. But, I did have an interesting thought about the real implications of perpetuating the "Santa Myth"...but I'm not talking about the implications for kids, necessarily, like you might expect this to go. I'm thinking more in terms of everyone, big kids especially. Or, should I say, good big kids especially. Doesn't having this idea that Santa is going to bring you presents if you are good somehow connected to a feeling of entitlement to splurging a little for yourself during the holiday season after you've found out that Santa's not really going to come through on that childhood promise after all? I've been good all year. Don't I deserve something for being good? I think that the whole idea of Santa may be connected to this economic crisis we're in. Isn't it driven by outrageous consumer debt that people have pulled themselves into, the $5,000 or so every American on average is packing around? Maybe it is a little far fetched, but I'm sure that somehow it plays a part, the idea of deserving something more, even though you straight up ain't got the cash homeslice. What ever happened to, "yeah, that'd be cool, but I ain't got the money"?
The truth is there are tons of good people out there. And, unfortunately, most of them are not living the dream. Unfortunately being good most often is not correlated with having everything you want. I think it's especially difficult for Americans to grasp this concept. I mean, think about it. If everything fell out from under you financially what would be the first things to go? Even if you only had to pick a handful of things to give up. Your cell phone? Gas money? Your car? Health insurance? Cable? Movies? Eating out? Internet? New clothes? Furniture? Water? Electricity? There are just so many things involved in what we see as our way of life that we can hardly imagine living without...but we're definitely in the minority there. Pick any handful of those things I just listed and there's half the world going without them. What makes you and me so special? Why do we deserve them?
I guess this thought came to mind because somehow it seems that everything I want I just end up with at some point, but I realized, "Hey, I don't got a job. Where's all this stuff coming from?" But, anyway, maybe if I didn't not believe in Santa Claus I wouldn't have just bought myself a new digital SLR camera. That's all I'm saying.

Food for Thought
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson9/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/07/20/business/20debt-trap.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3988036n

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Well, after writing this thing and talking to my good friend Sara Snow I've decided that if you're going to deceive your children with a myth why not engineer the thing so it does some good and avoids the pitfalls I just brought up.
So here's my idea.
The whole problem is the myth undermining the sense of needing to work for what you get and creating that empty sense of entitlement. So...simple. Just throw in an addendum to your kids that tells them that they are Santa's elves! Make them make the presents!! Figure out things that would be fun for the other kids to receive that each kid can make, but don't tell that kid who the intended present is for. Then, Christmas eve Santa just pull the ole' swaperoo (and probably throw in some real presents that other more skilled elves have made...in China).
I think this scheme will make the whole Santa myth more exciting and just more awesome: they have a secret project to work on for a few weeks leading up to Christmas and then Santa, the disseminator of all gifts Christmas, uses their junk they made as a part of worldwide underground network of normal people elves. Not only will they gain a greater sense of empowerment and stuff like that at an earlier age, but the gifts themselves will have more meaning.
Cons to this scheme: this route definitely takes more thought and effort on the part of parents. Doing things with as little thought and effort possible is a popular thing in this country, but that's an issue for another day...

Right here I'm going to go ahead and admit, this whole thing might just be a stupid idea, but I have no qualms with using a stupid idea as a placeholder 'til I can get a hold of a better one to take it's place.

new.familysearch.org

2008-09-23T16:13:00.004-04:00

It's awesome and it makes it so easy to get ordinances performed for your ancestors. And it makes it so all that time that you're wasting on the computer because you are a habitual computer user can now be used for good!
Combining duplicate records is a snap. And it's fun! May the spirit of Elijah get up on you.
new.familysearch.org
be there

Portion Control

2008-08-09T15:42:00.004-04:00

It's funny how the way things are packaged determines how much you eat. For instance, I bought a jar of mandarin oranges so i could eat less than a can's worth if i wanted to and put the lid back on it. But I still ate the whole thing. Who eats a candy bar and just leaves a couple of bites? (well, ok, my mom for one, but that's got to be an exception...) My point is, if they freaking made the candy bar a few bites smaller wouldn't you really feel just as satisfied? (that's said toungue-in-check: who ever felt satisfied by a candy bar?? there's just no replacement for some fresh fruits and veggies. even if it is good don't lie to yourself. it's not so much that the sugar and fat and junk are bad for you, but not only are they sucking the life out of you they are also making it easier for you to ignore the fact that your body is missing out on real food!)

Gas Stations

2008-08-09T03:37:00.003-04:00

Gas stations play an integral part in modern society. But you know how to tell a good one from a ghetto one? No, any classy gas station can end up with that written on the bathroom wall. It's the windshield cleaner bucket. If it's got no squeegees then it's a good for nothing joint. If they would let your windshield stay filthy and let the sun glare risk your life, then they obviously don't care for you, and they are slackers. When I pull up to a nice clean jiffy store with some good windshield cleaner junk (not of rainwater) in the bucket with a sqeegee, that's how I know they care and they want the best for me. It's almost makes me feel as though the gas station attendant walked out, pumped my gas, gave me a hug, and then a full body massage.

Skills, Talents, and Interests

2008-05-23T00:15:00.005-04:00

I love soccer. I could play everyday. The crazy thing is that I haven't really improved much since about little leagues. I played for a few years as a kid (10-14 or so), played on the middle school team, then moved up to high school JV. The slow, chubby Indian kid finally quit, so I became the worst player on the team. The next year we got some new freshmen, and some upperclassmen that sucked. Then by the time senior year rolled around coach had to put me on the varsity team out of pity, but also to make the other guys feel good about themselves during practice. Over those several years I never really even got good at the basics. Why does it have to be like that? I don't feel like I'm alone here. I think a lot of people just aren't good at the things they like to do.
There's a lot of stuff that I like to do but I don't do well: reading books-i'm not good at keeping my head up, playing the piano-i can play through the song good enough for me to enjoy it but nobody else, guitar-i have to make up stuff easy enough for me to play, singing-i've always wanted to be able to express myself vocally but just don't got the right pipes, sports-i don't know what's going on around me well enough to do stuff on teams, dancing-good thing i never let pride get in the way, school-i forget it before i even learn it... But am I going to let that stop me from doing what I do? Heck no! When did I ever have to be the best or amazing?
So what's my point? That I suck? Not really. I guess it's just that I think it's ok to accept mediocrity in many aspects of life and just enjoy doing what you're doing. If you can't list it under "talents" who says you can't list it under "stuff I like to do." If I had to be good at everything I did in life I'd have done much less stuff. I think you can be virtually talentless and love life.

TV: Programming Jungle and Moral Dilemma

2008-05-22T23:42:00.005-04:00

I watched TV yesterday. It felt really weird sitting down with the remote and having to choose for myself what to watch. I rarely watch TV (don't get me wrong, I watch movies all the time), and even more rarely am I the one choosing the show. So it was really tough for me. I didn't feel at home at all watching. Everybody else makes it look so easy, like it should be second nature to humans. There were so many channels and I had to make sure I wasn't missing the good stuff. I watched TV from about 9:30 to 12 and I only made it through all the channels 3 times. Here's how it went.
I started with a little news to get me more in touch with the world. Apparently Bush is thinking about spending a lot of money to get the troops out of Iraq, Jesse Ventura thinks he sucks, and some guy named Michael visited some army hospital. I watched a little C-span and some congressman is clearly getting paid a lot of money to try to get natural gas fields opened up, which my roommate thinks is stupid since every new energy source we implement needs to be net zero carbon emission, which is stupid since that's not feasible right now so we got to do something better in the meantime. Then some guy in short shorts from the 80's and his wife that looked like a crack hooker or that scary chick from Best in Show were popping like 30 nutritional supplements every day and hiking on pbs. That was freaky, or maybe it was just her face. Then Pat was praying for a guy to get out of debt on 700 club.
Then I reached my real dilemma- the simpsons. Crap! Was I going to transition into bubble gum programming for the evening rather than watching something informative, educational, or uplifting? And if so, should it be simpsons? That old episode of friends? The naked guy in oil running through a candy store on family guy? At least sports and car racing are an easy no. Scrubs- yeah right, i'm not that brain dead. Flava of love? If I want to watch chicks act like their falling in love with this nasty dude and then squirm when they kiss. Get ready for the winner of american idol tomorrow night? (i already missed the whole season of idol? that's what happens when your sisters move away) CSI Miami? Would have stopped there if Jamie was here. Law and Order? If Mom was here. And if I was going to just watch junk anyway, why didn't I just avoid all of this difficult decision making and just catch up on more Office episodes I missed on my computer?!
So at this point it's already later than I wanted to stay up, I haven't watched more than 10 minutes of any particular show, I'm more stressed than when I started because I can't choose, and then i come across some disturbing show that never should have been made a show about different freak ways people have died. I took that last one as a clear sign that I never should have picked up that remote. That's right. Movies are just easier. You devote an hour and a half, you get the whole story start to finish, you never have to look forward to another episode (except star wars), you get to snuggle up with somebody if scheduling permits. I guess I'm just a movie guy. And if it's a really good show, it'll come out on DVD.

Getting it all out

2008-05-01T03:51:00.004-04:00

Isn't it really important to have constructive ways of getting everything out?

Resources and Interests

2008-04-25T16:43:00.003-04:00

Ever think about how much the interests you pursue are shaped by the resources you have available to you? If I had unlimited resources, which interests would I pursue? Well, then the resource in short supply would be time, but here goes.

I'd build all kind of sweet guitar effects pedals and my own tube amps.
I'd own a house and pimp that joker out. A new deck, a fence, built in surround sound system, in-wall TV...
I wouldn't work on my car. (Cuz I'd already have a sweet audi or infinity, or possibly a BMW but only a 7-series.)
I'd be all over some photography (with my sweet action digital SLR camera). And I'd finally learn how to really use Adobe photoshop, premier.
I'd be rockin out on so many instruments with my awesome recording equipment and finally learn how to produce and master with cool edit pro.
I'd be learn how to do a back flip on a wakeboard, and fo' sho' hit up the lakes with my jet ski all the time.
I'd watch almost every movie ever made. In HD. 7.1 surround sound.
I'd finally organize my music collection and have it all on my huge iPod (when they finally come out with a solid state 1 terabyte version).

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P.S. Actually, while I was writing this I realized that I was including things that I would do if I wasn't lacking the resource of will power, such as:

I'd memorize some poetry.
I'd relearn how to write Chinese.

Fulfillment Center

2008-04-25T16:07:00.005-04:00

So when I got home from school today I grabbed the mail as I came in and noticed that my roommate got a small package from "Fulfillment Center." (F.y.i. that's a pretty common from address for online orders). As you can imagine, I immediately thought, "Hmm, I wouldn't mind ordering a little fulfillment." If only it were that easy. Think about all the things that people do to find fulfillment, and all the things they do to cover up their lack of fulfillment.

I personally feel like parenthood and awesome family life is where for real fulfillment can be the most intense. But that's something to work up to. In the mean time though, where do we find fulfillment?? Well, guess my impetus for this post was basically the thought that most (hopefully that's an overestimate) young people are looking for fulfillment in very shallow ways. The most shallow of course would be in drugs, sex, and alcohol. Aside from those, popular choices seem to be humor, friendships, and education/employment.

It's so easy now for kids to keep themselves entertained that it's easier and easier to be able to feed your mind up in cotton candy all day everyday that there's got to be a ton of kids out there that do just that and end up feeling completely empty, unfulfilled, and directionless (my little brother?). Meaningful friendships are a great way to find fulfillment, learn about who you are, how other people outside of your family brainwashing think, and provide great targets for crotch hitting practice when your little brother's not around. There are also the cotton candy friendships though, the one's that are great but leave you with an empty feeling in your stomach, malnutritioned, and wondering why you even have friends. I feel bad for those people that are so focused on going to the best school or getting the best job, but especially for those that don't even know what they want to do other than be the best, that lack passion or vision or whatever. I'm much more inclined to see employment as a means to have an awesome family, but in the best case scenario it should be something you love to do. That's why I'm going to change the world by providing cheap, abundant, reliable plastic solar cells (organic photovoltaics). It's nice to think big. But, see, I have that thought back up with the thought that if that doesn't work out, I'll get a job doing just about anything else and be happy to have one as long as my family's happy.

Now back to the abundant fulfillment imposters from above. It's interesting how God gave us such strong sex drives so that people would get together, even if in their youthful idiocity they don't look to settle down. I guess I find this interesting because He knew that throughout millenia people would misuse this creative power, but that that scenario would be preferred to having a species of individualists that don't form family units and that may not find out the joy and happiness and comfort that we get in families. That just shows that He weighed it out, and it was worth it.

I kind of like this whole blogging thing and saying whatever the freak I want to.

Who gives a blog?!

2008-04-14T19:05:00.000-04:00

The question comes to mind as I create my first blog, "Why am I starting a blog?" Well, for me I think it's mostly just to make me think. Sure, they make me think a lot in materials science and engineering at school, but they sure aren't doing any creative writing assignments. The only current events we bring up are "exciting" new research. Basically my mind has turned off and I'm going to see if over the next few weeks I can come up with some coherent thoughts. Maybe if I'm really successful I'll even come up with some opinions, or some insights to my past. Hopefully at least I'll kick start my brain.
You may wonder, "How do you plan on doing this?" Well, I'll write a little bit about whatever comes to mind. I may have a thought first and sit down at the computer to blog it, or I may sit first and then come up with a thought. Who knows? And do I plan on extensively making use of rhetorical questions? You bet your plaid pants I do. Will people see my blog? Hope not. This is for me. I have this problem where I only try to write important things in my journal, so that ends up being next to nothing. I don't know if it's because I don't want to waste time to write about everything, or I don't want to waste space in my journal, but when you're blogging who cares? I'll waste as much of blogspot.com's space as I want, and I'm already wasting time on the computer anyway.

Growing Up = Forgetting

2008-04-14T18:28:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think I'm growing up. Then I realize I'm just getting older. Maybe I have learned a thing or two since then, but I'm basically the same. Maybe I've learned how to deal with different types of situations or emotions differently than a child would, but isn't that just to fit into social norms? Aren't people basically the same as they were since development? I'm basically the same as I was 10 years ago, except I keep forgetting things. I continue to "learn" things for school (cram so that I'll be able to regurgitate it out on a test. But in the process of focusing so much on facts and data and physical phenomena and grades and papers I've been losing myself. It's almost like while I have been worrying so much about those things I've forgotten what I like to do, what I want to be. I thought I had that all figured out once, but it's been slowly slipping away. It makes me think of that scripture that says that the Holy Ghost will bring to your remembrance, so the solution seems clear- focus on bringing God into my life more and He can make more out of me than I ever could. But I forget. I forget to read the scriptures. I forget to pray. At least I go to church...but then I just forget about what we've been talking about. So there's some changes I want to make that I think can help me do some actual growing up. It's about time to start reading the scriptures everyday. A good friend once asking me sincerely, "Why don't you just read them in the morning before school?" I almost laughed if off as if she were being sarcastic, but when I realized she was serious I had to really think. "Because I'm lazy." "Because I value sleep over God." These thoughts were unsettling, so I think that's something I should take up. The problem though is sleep. I need more. So I'll have to do a little managing. Did I veer off topic? Not in my mind.