Well, its over

BYU finished poorly with two losses against Utah and Cal, even though they were close games. Our program is still fighting against mediocrity, lets hope Bronco finds a way to overcome. The thing I liked the best about the disappointing cal game was to see Watkins step up for his last game. That felt good. All in all I'm still pretty pleased with the season.

We can look to our future, with Beck, Brown, Harline, and Jensen coming back next season, our offense will still be great, lets hope our defense performs a miracle transition over the break and comes back awesome.

After all, it is only 9 months until next football season.

hands down, best movie of the year

We went to see "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" this weekend and it was absolutley stupendous! It surpassed everything I thought it would be. The child actors were excelent, the effects were astounding, but the thing I liked the best was the pacing. After seeing "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" I had lost some hope of good books turned into films. Mostly because "Goblet of Fire" was so rushed I felt like there was no time to just enjoy the magical world. This was a far cry from "Wardrobe", where there was ample amounts of time for character development and just enoying the scenes, costumes, sets and characters.
But the best part was obviously the religous symbolism. I cried. It was hard not to. The depiction of Aslan was just as I hoped it would be, powerful, pacient, wise, perfect. One thing I like here compared to LOTR (very similar movies) was that this one was much more hopeful, and it was great to have Aslan on your team. You just knew that everything was going to be fine.
Bottom line, this is one you have to go see on the big screen. Then go and buy a copy as soon as it is out on DVD.

A Little Video

Sorry Austin, I didn't get the dives that you did well on, only the ones that weren't so hot.

But for everyone else, isn't it nice to see some video on my site? This is my little brother Austin at his meet last week against UNLV. He won the one meter and got 3rd on 3 meter. So unfortunatley I didn't get any of the one meter stuff where he actually did well, but anyways, way to go Austin!

Bowl Eligible

Thats right, because Wyoming can't keep the ball in their hands we won the game last saturday. That is just about the only reason, otherwise It wouldn't have been a very close game, and wyoming just might have won. Now on to play a Utah team that is missing their starting quaterback and top receiver. You hate to see guys get hurt, and it makes it even worse that we won't have pure bragging rights against Utah next week, instead we will have to say,

Yeah, but they didn't have their quaterback and receiver... so that is why they lost a billion to 3.

It just pre-taints our win next Saturday.

Getting fat?

If you are having a hard time staying away from your favorite junk foods, try Nature's Sunshine's latest hunger reducing products. Or just play the game I made for them. Its not perfect but we did a pretty good job for a two week project. Tell me what you think!

On a roll...

Byu is doing well. they are over .500 for the first time since 2001 and we will have a tough game both this weekend against Wyoming and even tougher next weekend against Utah. But I still think we are going to win.

The Latest

Just wanted to let you all know how we are doing and show off some pics

This is from my birthday party, sam found some cake and went to town.



He also got into some lotion also...



2 weeks ago We went to the BYU CSU game with the tickets we got for my birthday and cheered like crazy fans. Marcia actually understands the rules of football now, thanks to a little game i made in flash



We went to the Rodriguez Family sealing at the SLC temple and that was a great experience.





And BYU did pretty amazing yesterday, and I think that we are going to run the table from here on out. Yes, that means beating you Shawn, and your poopy little red team.

Not so hot

Ok, so maybe I was wrong about byu and ND, but we played well in the first half, and if Watkins hadn't dropped a million touchdown-garanteed passes, then the game would have been very different. Anyways, the weather in provo has been nice. That is good.

Lets pull it back together against air force.

Watch Out Notre Dame

BYU played like a bunch of champs last Saturday and would have blown out CSU, if not for two turnovers, but I'm not going to complain.

Jesus, (pronounced hay-zeus) thanks for the birthday tickets, they really hit the spot. It was Marcia and my weekend highlight.

Shawn, your Utah team gets worse and worse, they are playing for last place in the conference next weekend. I don't think you will "spank our little bottoms" as you are keen on saying.

Just you watch, we are going to win in South Bend against number 9 Notre Dame, right under Touchdown Jesus. The Catholics versus the Mormons. Notre Dame is going to so bummed out after such a heartbreaker against number 1 USC last week, that they are going to cry themselves to a loss against BYU. I looked on the ND site and they didn't have a word about BYU, this sat, instead the focus was all on the epic game that had just passed, but we had a lenghty article about preparing for ND. I bet all the player from both teams are re-watching the USC ND game, but BYU is watching to prepare for next week, and ND is watching and weeping. Having said that, ND lost their season opener against us last year, and I don't think they are just about to forget that.

And way to go Curtis Brown, season high 147 yards. CSU had as much sucess stopping him as keeping water in a leaky bucket.
After explaining the rules all day before the game to Marcia, I was hoping to see Todd Watkins and Harline catch the ball and show off BYU's amazing passing game, but if the run game is working, just stay with it. Lets see what happens against ND. If we will this next one, I think we'll win the rest of our games, then go to a bowl. And who knows, maybe TCU will loose twice, and we will win the conference. that would be a long shot, but possible.

One last note, I saw that TCU has been ranked 21! What would have happened if we had beat them! Curse that missed PAT!

Corpse Bride

Wow, what a movie, very creative. I loved the exaggerated proporitions of the characters, huge chins and foreheads, shoulders etc. The movie was just a whole lot of fun. I wouldn't take little kids, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a family film.
The part I liked best was how the dead girl played piano (so she had similar interests as the hero) but he still knew that Victoria was the one for him. Meaning that just have similar interests isn't the most important thing.

Thank you BYU

They finally did what we all know they are capable of: winning. This byu team is so fun to watch, and when the offense starts clicking like they did on saturday and against TCU, they can be incredible. Lets pray that it continues against the CSU rams next weekend.
My favorite players: Beck and Harline. Beck is the fourth leading QB in the country, and Harline has just started shining for the cougars. Everytime he catches the ball, he'll keep running after one or two guys hit him. Let them double cover deep-threat Watkin, and leave Beck to keep throwing it to Harline.
So here is a big thank you to BYU.

Ender's Game

I just finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and liked it a lot. The ending was weird, but we'll have to see where it takes us in Ender's Shadow, which I will read next.

---Warning may contain spoilers------

I really like the main question / theme of the book: Is is worth it to ruin the life of one to save a whole world? Well, I think that Graff choose correctly, it was worth it. And was Ender's life really ruined? Is he smart enough to become something more than just a military weapon? Sure, I think that was the whole weird-carring-the-egg ending, it was the start of him becomming more than an killing machine.

I'm really excited to see the film adaptation sometime next year. that will be interesting. Will they touch as heavily on the same themes, or just try to have the amazing battle sequences carry the movie because it would be hard to cram in the interesting moral dilemas with all the astounding action. I hope they pull it off. I haven't seen any of the movies that Wolfgang Petersen has directed (troy, perfect storm, in the line of fire, air force one, outbreak) but I have a lot of hope.

speaking of movies, who is excited for Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, Nacho Libre, King Kong and Corpus Bride?

by the way...

by the way, sam is walking like 8 steps at a time now. he may look like a drunken sailor still, but he gets more sober every day.

My sweet little sister

Danica just got married in Denver, and here are some pictures from the temple.



Here are all the barrand girls. oh, wait, i guess that there are only two barrand girls and a balio, and a mcdonald. well, at least they were all a barrand girl at some point in their life.



and the barrand boys. always and forever. well, i guess one used to be an olson. but at least we won't ever change again. man this is confusing.



Danica, you need to send me some pics from your star-wars themed reception in IL.

One year ago

Today is Samuel's birthday. He is the most awesomest kid in the universe. This picture was taken on this very special day. We went for a bike ride to celebrate.

One small step...

Sam took his first step yesterday. He went from not being able to stand by himself on saturday, to taking a "baby step" yesterday for the first time. It was awesome.

Willy vs Charlie

Last weekend I saw Tim Burtons Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was amazed. And it had a lot to live up to. I love burton films and I loved the original. So here is my comparision. I will give an aspect of the film then which I liked better.

Willy himself: This one goes to Gene Wilder. I loved Johnny depp, but gene's dry humor was perfect. Johnny depp was a little too over the top sometimes and by the end of the film it was a little like too much sugar.

Charlie: Little Freddie Highmore was awesome! I'm not suprised that burton paired depp and highmore again. they did so well together in Finding Neverland. He just seemed far less selfish, more volitional, and just fit the part better than the 1971 Charlie did.

Verca Salt: Definatley the Mel Stuart (1971) version. Far more bratty, and anoying.

Augustus, Violet, Mike Teevee: Way better in the burton version. I loved augustus' eyes, the way he looked around, it looked like he was just looking excitededly for the next thing to eat. Mike had much more personality. He was actually the way that kids are who get over-tv-ized, and I loved how Violet was driven to win, and pushed by her freaky mother.

Oopa Loompas: Burton's. Definatley. Hats off to Danny Elfman.

Character Detail: Burton's. There was more background on all of the characters.

Sets & Costumes: Burton's was way better. Take charlie's house for example. The Stuart version looked just like a sound stage with some thrift store furniture, whereas the Burton version looked great, with very rich detail, slanted doors and all.

In the end, I'm going to buy them both, but I did like the Burton version better.

Lake Powell

Last weekend we spent 4 days in lake powell with some family friends. It was an amazing trip

Here is the big house boat we were on.


Here are my parents with little sam. It was pretty wonderful how every time he got in his uncomfortable life vest, he just went straight to sleep instead of crying. So here he is asleep.


Here is Marcia and I up one of the little canyons. Check out the tan on that girl.


Here is me wakeboarding. This is right before one of my sorry attempts at a backflip.


Here is marcia wakeboarding.


Here is my dad Marcia and Sam happy as a clam in his life vest. (he'd be mad at me for showing him with the girly, pink binky. Sorry Sam)


Here is a sunset from the top of the houseboat.


Here is the monster cliff that my dad and I jumped off of. You can see us little specks at the top. According to the rope we dropped down, this is a 87 footer. I'll never do that again. How are your ribs dad?

Dilligent Hometeaching

Last week my hometeaching family took us wakeboarding. Which made me feel a little bad, becuase, I've never really done anything other than visit that family for the entire last year. But my guilt was suffocated by delight at the thought of going out on the lake.

I got to drive and that was great, but the coolest part was watching Marcia. I took a few minutes beforehand and explained to her that it wasn't a big deal if she didn't get up, because it is a hard thing to do, and not everybody gets up. Especially not their first time on the lake. But to our great suprise, as soon as she said "hit it" she was up on her feet and had already mastered wakeboarding.

A marvelous work and a wonder

The other day we went through the temple with some of our good friends, Ed and Vilma Rodriguez, from our ward as they got their endowments out in the Timpanogos Temple. There were baptized on our aniversary last year (april 17th) and have been stellar members of our church since then. It was a very happy day for all of us. I'm sure they will be dilligent in their responsibilities as curch members for the rest of their lives.

It's official

It was a long and expensive road, but today officially closed off a very large chapter in my life. I got my diploma from BYU.
There at the end we had kinda a nail biter. In fact, on the very last possible day the advisor over the theatre and media arts department "tweaked" my grade for a class awaiting a petition office approval without hearing from the petitions office. In fact I still haven't heard from them, but it is set in stone now, see for yourself.

BREAK THE WRIST AND WALK AWAY

A few weeks ago we went to the first annual Napoleon Dynamite Festival in Preston Idaho. My favorite part was the moon-boot dance competition. That was awesome. The kid who won had the whole thing memorized. He didn't move as well as John Heeder, but it was still pretty amazing.
We also me Lyle and the bully and the kid on the bus. This bully was the real deal, he really wanted to push me, even though I told him it was just for the picture.

At the highschool, we kicked it on the steps and talked about ligers and pinatas that look like seasons.

I also learned a few self-defensive skills in the dojo. All in all, It was a very fun trip.

Clear as Purple Crayon

I saw this and laughed my head off. Of course you got to skip the part with r2-d2. And there is one bad word, but if you have ever even heard of Star Wars before, then you will love this. It comes from sequentialpictures. I watched their other star wars movie they had there and it was about a 9.5 on the 0.0-lame scale. So just stick to this one.

This short parody will give you a better understanding of what it must have been like for poor old Darth Vader to wear that wretched helmet.

72- by the skin of my teeth

A couple of weeks ago, I passed the macromedia flash mx 2004 certified developers exam. And I'm very glad its over with.

In some ways it was easier than I had expected. The questions seemed very simple, but on very specfic topics. So, in other words if you had done anything with the certian function or component before, then the question was easy, and if you had no idea what the question was about you couldn't even make a logical guess, it was just a straight up guess.

I enjoyed the study guide book. I learned a lot of little tricks, features and functions that would fit perfectly in many situations. I also felt that the questions in the book were pretty close equivalent to the questions on the test. The only problem was that there were many questions on the test that did not come from the book.

I also finished the test with about 20 minutes to spare, so you shouldn't worry about time. I thought the time given was plenty. But then again, I tend to take tests too quickly, and just go with my first instinct and not take the time to revise my answer. Since I am graduated now, and passed this exam, I don't know when I'm going to be taking a test next, so if my test taking strategy is wretched, I don't really care :)

For those planning on taking the test, I reccomend taking about 3 weeks to go thourgh the book then with the last two days before the test, go through help files in flash and ask someone who knows, everything and anything you can think of, for as long as that person is willing to impart their wisdom. Preferably someone who has passed the test also. (thaks to Josh Buhler!) Remember that you don't have to know the subjects in that much detail, just get a decent idea of how something works, what it is called, and what the syntax looks like. Good Luck!

ps. then again I only scored a 72, with a passing score being a 70. So... you might be risking it to take my advise anyhow.