The East Coast at Christmastime

Well, here comes the ultimate in blogging. Mobile Blogging. It doesn't get much more amazing. Except for the fact that the camera on my phone isn't the greatest, but I couldn't find my memory card for the camera I have been borrowing from Jo and Aja so this was the next best thing. I kind of just popped my phone out and took a picture whenever I saw something interesting. So here it is.

Hail to Fenway. It was awesome to drive past the home of the champs as we were on our way out from the airport to see Charity at Wellesley. You gotta love Fenway.
Lake Waban on the Wellesley Campus. It kind of sounds like someone tried to name it Lake Robin, but they couldn't say their Rs. It was so beautiful. it was freezing cold, but I tell you what that is an incredible campus. The lake was just freezing over, but the ice was really clear so you could see down in. I also discovered a really cool sound that Dad, Char and Mom can attest to. If you throw a rock, like you are trying to skip it on the ice, it makes the coolest echoing noise. So next time you are near a newly frozen pond or lake, please give it a shot. This is right where Charity opened her mission call so it was really cool to be there with her.
The Temple! What a beauty. Last time I was there this temple didn't yet have a spire and Angel Moroni on it as it took the campaign a while to get approval on it. What a beautiful place. It was so awesome to be there with Charity as she went through for the first time. That was a special opportunity...that I will not soon forget. What an awesome girl Char is and what an incredible missionary she is going to be. It was great to be there with Mom, Dad, Saydi, Jeff, Jo, and Aja as well. We had the whole session to ourselves. Which was special as well. We went into Belmont and had some beauty Indian Food, then Char and I ventured off into the city for some freezing good times. Holy Cow it was cold there, my eyeballs hurt it was so cold. We walked around through Boston, saw the Christmas lights, enjoyed the season and then capped it off with a trip to a sweet Jazz club. It was great to be in the city with Charity and have her show me all around.
Boom. Then the next day it was on to the city I love the most. New York and Christmas. Wow. It was awesome. We went to the temple there with Noah, Kristi, Mom, Dad, Tal, Sarah, Charity and I and yet another amazing experience. You guys really are incredible examples, it was so cool to be there with you. That night we went to an awesome Sushi restaurant right by Noah's place then ventured off into the city. A walk down 5th Avenue to see all the Christmas decorations and to have a look at the beautiful tree there at Rockafeller Center.
Saks 5th Ave. Right across from Rockefeller there is this awesome display these snowflakes all over the building light up according to the beat as Carol of the Bells plays. That is one of my favorite Christmas things I have seen. The music is nice and loud and there are thousands of people there enjoying the Christmas spirit.

From there we headed down to Bryant Park for a potential ice skating experience, but we got there just as they were closing. Gotta love that feeling, we tried every way to get out there and get some skates, including Noah pretending like he was ice skating in his shoes to sneak over and get us some skates. That didn't work either. Nonetheless it was beauty. Check out the tree there and the Empire State lit up blue for Hanukkah in the background.

I can't get this to format so I have to write about these others down here. The next night (Sunday) Me, Tal, Sarah, Jo, and Aja ventured down to St. Patrick's (big cathedral) on 5th, which was beautiful, we then went up to Columbia and caught the end of the Columbia Orchestra's concert which was awesome. We then went over to Sarah's and had some hot cocoa (Sarah is awesome by the way, for those of you who haven't met her). Then we parted ways. I slept for an hour and a half then left for the airport at 2 am as my flight was at 5 and the subways were running local. This last picture was right as we were flying into Salt Lake, it was really cool, totally sunny and beauty where we were with the mountaintops, but then we flew down into the clouds and snow below. It looked really cool.

Oh, and the pennies. Supposedly one hundred million pennies there on spread across the block there near Rockefeller Center. All gathered by kids all over the place for Charity. It is supposedly a million dollars worth for Charity. Pretty cool sight I must admit. Gotta love the random stuff you see in NYC.

Life is good. Things are crazy with Mitt. It is crunch time. I gotta say I love the Holidays! Julie and I are going to the MoTab Christmas Concert tonight with the King Singers. I am headed down to St. George this weekend to do some call days down there, and then we are going to Mexico next week. I can't wait. I am not going to see Julie for a couple weeks which I am pretty sure is going to be rough. I will see what I can do though. Merry Christmas to all.

Bethlehem

In all the commotion and excitement of Christmas, I've been trying to think a lot about this place. Bethlehem.

Bethlehem. These are the fields in which the shephards saw the star.

2000 years later the terrain is still very similar.

What a place. What an oppotunity to actually go there this year.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

You all know how much I love Christmas.

I can't tell you how excited I was to wake up on Saturday to a fresh blanket of snow. Then is just kept going all day and provided for an absolutely beautiful winter wonderland capped off by a beauty trip to Temple Square and to get a tree. I just love this time of year. People change, there is just a different feeling in the air, everyone listens to the same great music, and most important, we get to go back 2000 years to that night in Bethlehem. That has taken on a whole new light for me this year as I have had the chance to actually go to Bethlehem in the last year. Wow. What an experience that was and I am excited to have many chances to reflect back on that this season. Temple square is as beautful as ever, I love walking around down there at Christmas.

The place was rammed with people from all over the world. I heard about 5 different languages as I walked around. Tourists and locals, LDS and non-LDS everyone there together enjoying the beauty of Temple Square. I walked past one group of tourists who were just dumbfounded by the lights. They kept saying, "it just looks like daylight under this tree" in total amazement. Props to the guys who put up all those lights, cause after putting lights on one tree I am ready for a nice long break.

So being there with Julie made it that much better. I think she is a littel shocked at how excited I am about Christmas, but that is just who I am. So we had a nice walk around and then went up and met Mom and Dad at the Christmas tree lot and found a beauty. Shopping for trees with Dad is pretty funny, it was cold out so every tree we looked at, he would just say "that is the most beautiful tree I have ever seen, let's buy it" You all know how awesome Dad is in those situations. So we bought one on impulse but it turns out to be quite a beauty.

I don't think i've been so busy in my life before. I get up, go to work for ridiculous hours (anything for Mitt right?) hang out with Julie for a while or come home and think for 20 minutes, go to bed and get up and do it again the next day. Crykee. I am excited for Jan. 3 (the Iowa Caucus) when we'll find out whether or not all of this was worth it. I should be greatful though, I got a job and it is a pretty incredible experience minus having to work through people that are wicked slow cause they have so much else on their plates. Oh well though. That's just life. I am really excited to go back East this weekend. To go through the temple with Char and to see the greatest city on earth at Christmastime. Oh baby.

The Waiting Game

The Waiting Game. I think that is the theme of my life right now in regard to work. I have never spent so much time waiting and trying to get things set up in my life and gotten paid for it. Everything is just behind schedule with these call centers and by the time we really get things rolling it will be finals week and then the students will all be gone for the holidays...then the primaries take place. Oh well. At least I am getting paid for it. So, I had an interesting experience last night. I had been at the office here in the Provo and it was about 5:30, at 6 some BYU Romney enthusiasts were coming to meet me at the office. So I thought I would go and grab something to eat. To my chagrin, I accidentally locked the keys in the office.

So I thought to myself, "what would McGyver do in a situation like this?" Would he call a locksmith, no way. So I thought beyond that. I remembered that one of the windows was open (unlocked) and I also remembered that there was a ladder around back of this little hole in the wall we call the office (great location right next to campus trumped out a nice office). The windows were about 15 feet off the ground on the second floor.


So I found this ladder. Yet it still was about 5 feet plus below the window. I figured since I had been on scaffolding so much lately it wouldn't be a problem. Luckily for me Julie was there to hold the ladder and balance it at the bottom, so I didn't fall off...and well, if that would have happened I wouldn't be writing this sounding so victorious. So I got up there...ended up having to rip the screen off (literally, there was some nice old wood that broke fairly easily) (I know McGyver wouldn't have done that, but let's face it, I am still at amateur McGyver level...maybe one day) smacked the window a couple times and boom I was in there. mission accomplished. I tried the window on the left first, and it was locked. Anyway, pretty cool story huh? Julie happened to have her camera so she documented the whole thing.

So I thought I would let you all rememer how Mcgyver like your little brother/big brother/son/friend/whatever is. The moral of the story...never call a locksmith. There is ALWAYS a way in.

Humility

Here's something I read by CS Lewis today in his book called "The Joyful Christian"

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.

Interesting huh? Straight to the point.

Lately

Lately my life has consisted of a couple things: Climbing on scaffolding risking my life to make the BCRANC look like an Isand Oasis, Working on the Romney Campaign, and Julie. As you can see, progress is being made in each of the categories. My life is about as unpredictable, and predictable as it can get at this point. It has been a lot of fun to be with my best buddies Tom and Parley working on putting this bark grass on the ceiling. We usually start at about 8pm and go til after midnight. We've worked about 6 nights so far and are rapidly approaching the finish line...maybe one more night. I am excited for you all to see it, cause it really does add even more uniqueness to mom and dad's new house. Which is going to be awesome.

It has been awesome being close to mom and dad and helping out in any way that I can. I am learning a great deal about patience in watching how they deal with all the retards in the construction business. Little by little the house is coming together and will be quite the masterpiece. We're going to have to cram to get it done by Thanksgiving but, if there is anyone that can accomplish something when they set their mind to it, it is mom and Rickey.

So on Friday night me and Julie went with mom and dad to the EMI (enterprise mentors international) fund raiser at the Marriott. For those who don't know, they are a charity organization that does microlending all over the world. It was really cool to be there and learn more about that kind of stuff. There are so many awesome was to help people all over the world, and this is one of the best I think as you don't just give them the help, you give them the ability to help themselves and establish themselves. We had a great time though with mom and dad and Lenna and her girls. It's always fun to have Julie around to meet new people.

So the thing you might be wondering the most, is how thing are going with Julie. They are going great. I am really excited about our relationship and how things are going. I am liking her more and more. She has so many awesome qualities... that I keep learning about her as we spend time together and as you might imagine that makes me like her even more. So I oficially started with the campaign about a week ago, but this week there wasn't a whole lot going on as we were waiting for the legal work on the offices to be finalized. But I got paid for doing things like finding a copy machine and a shredder for the offices, it was awesome. This week it should really pick up as the legal stuff is done and now we got to find a way to fill the office with volunteers all the time. So that should be interesting. I will be in Provo a lot, which is a painful realization, but at the same time the office is real close to where Julie lives, so I will be seeing her more. So...life is good. I am getting wicked excited about the upcoming holidays and being able to see you guys. I love you all. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

What is going on here?

It is the end of October, the Red Sox are in the World Series, they re-defined the term "a good old fashioned whoopin'" last night as they embarrassed the Rockies, but I am not in Boston I am here in Salt Lake City. What is going on here? I am learning right now that what you plan on doing isn't always what God has in store for you. In my mind's eye I would be doing all I can to sneak into to Fenway tonight, either that or I would have gotten really lucky and someone would be hooking me up with some sweet tickets for the game tonight. Well, that certainly isn't the case. Instead I am doing some awesome manual labor on Mom and Dad's new house and just got another job with the Romney Campaign here in Utah. Life isn't always as you expect it. Instead of Fenway tonight, I will be up on 30 foot scaffolding in the great room at Mom and Dad's house or the B-CRANC putting bark grass on the ceiling. That is almost the same rush let me tell you though. Scaffolding = kinda scary.

So I took a job under the Political arm of the the campaign this week. I will be working between Salt Lake and Provo, (mainly in Provo) at offices set up with the goal to call out to voters in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada (the early states) to first see what they think about Mitt's views on the issues they feel most important and then as January approaches we will be calling them to make sure they are registered to vote and that they actual do it. The office in Provo will mainly be staffed by student volunteers and then 5-6 interns that will be working there as well. I guess you could say I will be the one in charge of the office, making sure it is staffed, and that things are getting done. So, though I absolutely would never have pictured this, it is going to be a pretty cool job. I am an actual employee the campaign now with benefits and all. And I have upgraded from the pay of a full time Wendy's employee, to that of a $30.000 per year school teacher here in Utah. Alright!

The best part about the job is that it is short term (til Feb.) it will give me a little time to figure things out and explore what my next move is, and I will be in Provo a lot, which is where Julie is. Things are going really well with her, the more I am with her, the better things get, and that isn't usually the case with me and girls that I have dated. She keeps exceeding my expectations. So I am pretty excited about that. I think she is going to come to Arizona with us for Thanksgiving, so that will give those of you there a chance to meet her.

Life is pretty interesting, wouldn't you say. You can never know what to expect, but that is what I like best about it. Predictability would make life rather boring. That said, it would be nice to have a little clue of what is going on every once in a while. I am still pretty excited about getting into the travel industry...I am finding more and more that that is one of my biggest passions...finding a way to bring the rich and the poor together. Finding a way to do it where I can be involved in not only traveling myself with my family, but finding ways to get families from all over to get involved with it.

I love you guys. Go Red Sox!

Watch the little guys...they don't mind eating it hard.

aren't these little guys awesome?

St. George and Back.

So. Last weekend was conference, and Saren talked me into bringing Julie down to St. George for the weekend (I liked the idea too). So we went down there and had an awesome time. A nice long drive is always good for talks...and there is nothing like a good traffic jam in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason. We found a place to go backwards off an on-ramp and made up some time on the access road, so it wasn't too bad.

As usual Saren and Jared were awesome hosts. Jo and Aja were down in Vegas til Saturday night for Aja's reunion. So we had a great time with the Loosli's til Jo and Aja got there and then had a great time with them as well. They were all real nice to Julie and I think she was impressed by all you guys. I mean you are pretty awesome. So we had a lot of good food, both physically and spiritually...enjoyed some beautiful hikes...good weather...and lots of little kids.

For those of you who don't know, this is my new Jeep I just bought from a Vietnam vet. Just kidding, this is Jo's Jeepster Commando from the 60's. He let me and Julie take it out for a spin up Snow Canyon. That thing is awesome...feels like you are driving one of those army jeeps you see in the movies. Anyway, we made it to the top where there are some pretty huge speed bumps. Well, we went over those...and suddenly the old commando quit on me. So we tried to jump it, looked pretty dumb for a while...then couldn't get it to start so we coasted the whole way down the canyon, which was actually quite pleasant. We got back down to where Jo was and he in turn found out that one of the stupid big old speed bumps had popped the battery cable off the terminal. He slapped in on and it started...i guess I could have figured that out, I just figured we were out of gas. Anway, it was a great trip...I really enjoyed conference and the chance to spend some good time with Julie.

This last one is from the other night, Julie took me out and one of the stops was a 3d Imax about the ocean and the life therin. That would explain the sweet glasses on my head. We came home after and made fondue and ate with mom and dad. Nothing tops that huh?
Well. As for now I am going to be sticking around here in Salt Lake for a while as Julie is pretty awesome, and I can't just leave now that things are going so well. Not what I had anticipated, never in a million years would I guess that I would still be here and not back on the East Coast, but good thing God knows better than I do and things don't always turn out they way I expect them. Love you guys, give me a call...

a girl

So you may have heard a bit that there is a girl. Julie. She's pretty awesome. We were really good friends in Jerusalem...she had a guy back home though, so nothing really amounted other than us getting to be really good friends. So we got back, she was home in San Diego for the summer...a couple of weeks ago I went by to visit her when I was down in Provo and decided I ought to ask her out (after firguring out what happened with the other guy). So we went out. And we hit it off...so we have been spending a lot of time together the last couple weeks. and it has been really...well, great. She is really quite a girl. She came up last weekend and met mom and dad and Saren and Jared, so if you want the real inside scoop you might have to ask them. That much said, she is making my life quite a bit harder right now as I am unemployed and deciding where to go next...but harder in a really good way. Call me and we can talk details. Love you all, read on for more on the Rally that finally took place.

The Rally

Well. We came we saw we conquered. The Rally happened. It happened good. It is crazy to spend so much time on something and then all of the sudden it is over. What an experience it has been. It has been crazy. Every day til late 9pm working our tails off. It was awesome to see it actually happen. Mitt was there, he was happy, his people were happy and I think we raised a pretty good sum of money. So as Mitt has said before "I was pleased as punch" to see this thing finally come about.

Here they are....The Rally Coordinators. From left to right. Stevie from Iowa, me, Danielle, Brad and my doggy Parley. Had these guys not been around it would have been impossible to keep my sanity. We were all the on the same boat and felt the same way about a lot of things so we were able to vent to each other and keep our cool instead of going ape on our bosses. They are all now really good friends and it was definately a pleasure to work with them and get to know them. I think they will be friends for a long time.

Here's the Rally in action. We had around 1.000 there. Not bad, not what we wanted, but everyone that was there was dedicated to the cause and really excited about what is happening with the campaign.
Here we all are making calls. The baloon were the markers. Red = $1,000. Silver = 2,000 Gold = 5,000 and Blue = 10,000. By the end there were quite a few baloons around as we raised a good chunk of cash. Fund raising is not easy, especially after you have exhausted most of your options. I am really interested to see what the campaign does in the fourth quarter as they have pretty much tapped out all of their resources.

The Perks

You all know how much I love cities. Salt Lake isn't all that big, but anytime you get up on top of something that is the tallest building around. It just feels good. We go up on top of the Wells Fargo building every once in a while to keep sane.
The big event is in 48 hours. Things are crazy around here. Like you can't imagine. I love how people around here handle stress. It's like...ok here comes the event...let's get more stressed and make it even more difficult. That much said I am learning at a very high rate here, both the "dos" and the "don'ts" I have no idea what I am going to be doing next week at this time. Life is crazy, but I kind of like flying on the seat of my pants. Living it up.
I have been hanging out with this girl...and let's just say she has it going on. We were good friends in Jerusalem and things just kind of happened and we have been having some fun times together. If you want to know more you are going to have to call me about it...maybe that will entice you enough.
Love you all. And just remember. Go Mitt!

The Rally Office

Early in the morning, the office prepares itself for another day or coMITTment. This has been my home for the last two months. I spend more time here than anywhere.

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I have a crink in my neck from tilting it to hold the phone on my ear. I don't think I ever want to use a phone again. I do get to flirt with some nice old ladies on the phone though, and that is always fun.

The Wells Fargo

The Closest I can get to the Big Apple right now.

The Office

Boxes and boxes of nonsense. The Rally is in two days and the office is basically full of boxes...not really sure what they are but they are probably important.

My Life

Have you ever felt like a monkey that does whatever someone tells you to do? Have you ever taped a phone to your head? This is my buddy Parley. One of my best friends who happens to be my coworker. He keeps me sane. The people I am working with are great. They make something that could potentially make one crazy, quite a bit of fun. The rally is coming along. My job description and what I am supposed to do changes just about every day as we try to get ready for this massive event. This week one of our responisibilites on top of coordinating with all the recruiters for the event, we became call monkeys. They asked us to get on the phone and start calling all the donors in the state, thus Paley has a phone taped to his head. I strapped it on there real good. it brought on a pretty good laugh. So I have talked to a lot of people on the phone this week. Mitt has a lot of really old people for supporters. but I have also talked to a lot of really great people that want to come to the event.
I am learning a lot about the world, and how it works. Some of the methods they take aren't always the most effective, but I have learned to respect what they want us to do, and just do it. I think a lot of the business world comes down to people having confidence and acting like they know what they are talking about that. When you do that, it is like almost automatically people respect you and think you know what you are talking about. Have you experienced that it in the business world?
At any rate, things are coming along. This is going to be an experience I will never forget. I am not sure yet if i am in to things enough to go back to Boston. I am also going after a job at a huge luxury vacations/travel company that is based in Seatlle, but they have an office in NYC. check it out.
It is a lot of fun to be here in SLC, I haven't really lived here for like 6 years, so it is fun to be here with my best buddies, and to be close to mom and dad and char (until she takes off on Sunday).
I am headed up to Jackson Hole for Labor Day to go river rafting with some of my friends. I am excited about the rafting, but even more so I am excited to eat a Billy Burger. So there's a bit of an update on my life. Love you all. Check out that is the main website for this fundraiser. SLC is the last of 42 of these going on all over the country the last week of September. Go Mitt.