way past due

well, you know what i realized? i realized that i used to keep up on this thing way better than i do. i would write at least once a month and post pics and everything. speaking of posting pics, i have some of meagan and i when we went to temple square to see the lights. we got some good picutres, not a lot though. we also saw the joseph smith movie in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. it was meagan's first time to see it and we both cried. i love that movie though. fantastic.

i just wanted to give another shout out to the google group that i started. you know, i never really realized what the governments rights were and what kind of power they were actually supposed to have until i actually sat down and read the constitution. we are being played for fools, the vast majority of americans, mostly because we just take it for granted that the government is doing what is in "our", meaning we the citizens, best interest, when in actuality it is in the best interest of those in power, politicians and businessmen alike. our situation is very similiar to, but not as obvious as, the russians during the cold war. after gorbachev resigned and the ussr was through, a more free government, democracy or a republic, which ever you choose, was trying to form. the only way that freedom was ever going to be had in russia, was with a tricky and rather unfortunate necessity of the government selling its many state controlled business to private owners. from the time that gorbachev left office until this happened, there were very few entrepreneurs who actually did well, due to the ever present pressure of communist forces still thriving in russia. it ended up turning their free market and economy into a gangster controller oligarcy, of which they are still suffering from today.

in our situation, the government has done a much better job of putting a pleasing facade ontop of what is actually going on, but it is essentially the same thing. our liberties and our control over our own country and economy is being syphoned slowly and very cleverly away by greedy politicians and big businessmen, who are creating laws to meet their own lusts and keep the entrepreneurs at bay. posted in that group are many articles written by modern day intellectuals who follow after the thoughts and ideas of the greats like von Mises and Hayek. check it out. maybe you will learn something.

...eBay...

so....surfing the internet and while looking for a PC for meagan and i for our house when we get married, i found this awesome eBay store site.

http://stores.ebay.com/The-Computer-Outlet-Group

if you or anyone you know of is interested in getting a computer, go here first. they seem to have fabulous PC's and laptops. New ones are so expensive and these are just like new. anyway. that is my two cents for the day.

engagement post

well, i just posted some of our engagement photos online on our blog. we weren't able to take a lot of them because we didn't have a big enough memory card in the camera, but we did get a lot of good ones. just thought that i should update ya. and i don't know if any of you have read my sisters blog and the paragraph she wrote about her feelings about our engagement, but i have heard some concerns from close freinds and some soon to be family, so i though i might address that.

it is true, my sister and i haven't been on the best terms for a while. things have improved a lot over the last few years though. we just don't see things eye to eye. i wouldn't post about some of the things that she has posted about, but that is her choice. and if i had something against her getting married to someone else like it sounds that she is(sorry kati, you tried to make it sound like you weren't upset, but it came out that way anyway and some people are concerned), i would have expressed my concerns in person and not hinted so over a blog. i love my sister and respect her opinion, just don't like how she expresses it sometimes.

having said that, all those that read this blog and the others that i have links to, please don't worry. no ones opinion about this marriage is going to affect my feelings or intentions to marry meagan. i am determined and resolved. i love her more than anything. august 16th is coming!! be happy!! i love you all.

!!! it's official !!!

well, it is finally official!! Meagan Duncan agreed to marry me on Saturday, 3 May 2008. We will be getting married on the 16th of August in the Timp(can't spell it) Temple in American Fork, UT. we are both very excited. the pic below isn't one of our engagement pictures though. this is one that we took at her oldest sisters wedding...which just happened to be on the same day. we wanted to wait until after she was married so that we wouldn't steal any of the attention that she was getting. we love you Amy and Dru. also, we have a blog of our own. (yes, we jumped on the bandwagon of every other mormon couple and have our own blog.) there isn't a post on it yet, but i hope to get one up by the end of the day today. it will have pictures of Amy and Dru's wedding. and eventually, we will get some engagement pictures up there and some of the ring as well. the address isn't so different from mine. it is www.smbudge.blogspot.com. kinda cliche, i know, but it works. we like it. announcements and more information will be out soon. ;)

This is Her...

Well, this is her. Her name is Meagan Duncan. This is the only pic we have so far of each other. We both have camera's but we just don't take pics very often. And it was taken on my phone and touched up the best I could with Picasa from Google. It isn't very sharp but it works. We will be taking more soon. Anyway. This is her.

...finally...

I finally brought my camera with me to Euless and I am finally going to upload some pics. Not particularly cool, but pics just the same. I have Picasa on my home computer and the rest of the cool pics are there, so I will be heading home in a few and will upload more then. And I will have edited some then, too, with Picasa. Anyway....enjoy. :)

These were just cool. It was perfect timing. I took these through my sun roof.

These were some pics that Meagan and I took for one of her Photography assignments. She needed to take the pics and I was just goofing off. I think that they turned out pretty good though.

These are from the one day of snow we had a couple of weeks ago. I was on my way home from work and I snapped a few pics on the way. Some of them are blurry because I was driving. :)

...still no pics...

well, i am here @ odyssey one source again, without my camera. i have quite a few pics i would like to post too. one of these days. i am posting right now because i got a comment asking for a new post and it is probably time i gave an update.

well, seeing as how it is now the end of march and my average is one post a month, it is time. as for the last month, things have been at their highest highs and their lowest lows. i think i remember posting something about Meagan Duncan, the girl i have been dating, so i will start with an update there. so meagan and i have been dating since the end of december, beginning of january. there wasn't an actual date that we called ourselves "boyfriend and girlfriend". (by the way, that sounds really high school to me, "boyfriend and girlfriend") either way, she is my girlfriend and i am her boyfriend and things have been going really well....really well. when i say really well, i mean REALLY well. don't worry, if we decide to take things to the next level (the M word), everyone who reads this blog will know long before i post anything about it. i would consider myself a loser if my friends had to find out from a post on a blog. but, to keep you on the edge of your seat, august is a really good month...keep all saturdays open... ;) not saying anything is happening during that month, but their might be one saturday that month that i might need to see all of you. ;)

school sucks...as usual. i am not interested at all in bookwork. i am taking a biology class and man does it suck. i like to apply science when i learn it. it is way more interesting to me than a lecture from mister rogers. no kidding, my biology professor dresses like mister rogers and talks like jed clampet. he is the goofiest guy and the most boring lecturer. no worries though. i make good use of the time. i read my scriptures or something and pay just enough attention to his lecture that if i think he is saying something important, i will jot it down and then get back to reading. the time goes so much faster too.

work is hard. i work in a huge warehouse moving boxes all day long...so i am way buff now....ok not really, but i am in much better shape than i was....and that isn't saying much because i was a twig then and i am still a twig. i am very much looking forward to moving back to utah though, because i get my desk job back and i get to work with devin again. let me rephrase that, i get to do the thing i love (problem solve) and work with devin. it isn't really a desk job...ok it is. but i like it. end of may or beginning of june. i was going to start again in may at first, but then i realized that my brother is graduating high school like the weekend after i move, so i might stay a little bit longer down here. we'll see. i still need to talk to the boss in utah.

other than that, nothing really new on my end....yet (shifty eyes) lindsey will understand that. :D life is good and i hope yours is too. until next month.

...late...

i think i like how i put the dots (...) in front of and behind all the titles on my posts. it is unique i think.... i hope... ;) anyway. it has been a long while since i posted on here so now is as good of a time as any. i am at a company called Odyssey One Source right now. they are located in Euless, Texas, about a half hour from my parents house down here. I have been doing so much for DirectPointe here at Odyssey over the last month. this week was rediculous especially. it took four days to finally figure out how to set up their windows mobile phones so that they could get emails from the server. four days too long in my opinion. i had to do another one of those today and now that i know how to do it, it took a couple of minutes. what a pain. currently, i am working on their liquidation pc's. that is why i am online at the same time. i liquidated a couple already and kept one plugged in so that i have a way to communicate electronically with the rest of the world while i am here. work and post at the same time...i like it. if i am not online posting or sending emails or trying to fix phones, i am reading a book, scriptures, writing in my journal...or something like that. anyway. so this post,

well, not much is different from the last time i posted. i am in school and taking biology at TCC because that is about the only class that will transfer to BYU. so i am going to finish that class, get the transcripts sent up so i won't have to take it again. i am not a science guy. not a fan really. not a math guy either, which is why i was terrible at chemistry. the best part of my biology class is that my professor dresses like mister rogers. he is a goofball, but he knows his biology. he is a really smart guy, just goofy.

i got a new calling in church recently as well. i am now the ward clerk. holy crap that is a job. This calling keeps me on my toes. we have such a high turnover rate in our ward that we are requesting records almost every week. and callings change all the time and finances are not fun. wow, it is busy. but i like it. i am learning a ton.

as for my dating life. i am dating someone pretty seriously. not as seriously as lindsey is ;) congrats by the way lindz if you read this. but fairly seriously. she is trying to get into UVSC, which will be UVU. her name is meagan duncan. she comes from a military family and has one older brother and three older sisters, two of which are currently engaged. she is the youngest and i think, of course, the most attractive, though they are all very attractive. :) she wants to go to school to be a dental hygenist. not what she loves but she think very logically. she wants to do that so that she can help suppliment her hubby's income when the kids are old enough to all be in school at the same time. that and they get to choose their own hours and make fairly decent money. she is a smart kid. and i like her.

i still have quite a few pics that i need to post. one of these days, maybe tomorrow, i will bring my camera in here and post them, seeing as how this is the only time i get on the computer anymore. ;)

...in my defense...

if anyone has read my sister's blog of jan 10 2008, i need to add my two cents, because i think that she still doesn't understand my reaction to her pregnancy. i don't completely understand why she would talk about that in a blog, but i haven't gone through it and i don't understand what it does to a person. if it helps her to talk about it, then more power to her.

i love my sister. and it is true, we don't see eye to eye on everything. our personalities are very different and tend to clash...alot. also, as she said, things are getting better. but i really do love my sister.

i remember the day that she told us that she was pregnant like it was yesterday. everyone who didn't know already thought that we were moving again. my family tends to movie quite a bit. it happened just as she said it did. she said it through sobs and she got the reactions from all of us like she said she did. i really did say that. and i am not ashamed of saying it either. my sister made a mistake. and she will admit that it was a mistake. she said that i was on a pedestal. i probably was, but how can you help someone you love improve if you are not better yourself. that sounds kind of selfcentered. i hope that made sense. an example of what i am trying to say is how can a drug addict help another drug addict from quitting. it doesn't work.

my intention in saying what i said was to help her understand that in order for her to become better and overcome this mistake the right way, she needed to feel everything and feel it to the fullest. she needed to be dragged through the mud, i guess, not by me or anyone else, but by herself. she needed to feel that guilt that prompts us to change. i guess i didn't get across that i was supportive of her and love her.

i don't understand how she felt or what she was going through. and i am learning that girls, especially when they are pregnant think with their emotions and not very logically, so alot of her choices have not made sense to me. i have been and will always be there for my sister though. sometimes, however, (and this pregnancy was not one of them) we have to go through some problems on our own in order to grow like heavenly father wants us to grow. so kati, if i don't help sometimes, it isn't because i don't love you or care about you, it is because i do love you and want to see you grow like i know you can. ;)

...finally...

so i finally added a dude to my friends list. well, he is married and has a son, so it is his family's blog, but he is still a dude. now i feel better. ;)

...uh...

i was just reading some of the comments that were made on my last post and found some new people to add to my "cool links" list. so i added them and noticed that they are all women. the only people, besides my dad who checks only occasionally, that check my blog with any kind of consistency are women. not that that is a bad thing but come on. guys. where are ya?!

...more pics...

i said that i was going to post pics of the fam last blog and now i have them. i told you also that i posed for my dad when he was figuring out the settings. so those are included because they are hilarious. and then some modified ones of the family. some of the ones that i fixed up and made to look better (i think).

...jan 3...

well, it is now 2008. holy cow, last year was long and short all at the same time. so much happened last year, for me at least. and for the world. it is amazing how much stuff you can pack into a day and how much history is taking place in a day. interesting to think about.

well, on new years eve, the singles dance (be jealous those of you that are married, not really, i wish i was married) was at our building. it was the entire region. for the entire region, not that many people showed up, sadly. singles dances down here have a tendancy to be terrible. mostly because of the music. the dj's think they are the ish and try and dj like they are in a club or something and play crappy techno the whole night. thank goodness our dj didn't, though he did try and show off his dj skill by running several songs together that were really bad. he did that a couple of times with techno songs and then latino songs. it was annoying. but he did play alot of popular music to. everyone likes to dance to popular music. much better. it was pretty good. decorating it was a beast though. rachel may and i figured out how to do a canopy of stars that actually worked out really well, if i do say so myself. it turned out a lot better than i thought it was going to. we had a bunch of stars left over too that i think would have made it look that much better, but we didn't really have time. oh well. all in all, it was a fun dance, even though i didn't dance a whole lot. i prefer to watch. i am not a huge dancer. and there were a bunch of pictures taken too, but not by me. i had a bunch of friends take pictures. i will have to get them from them.

and we took a family picture on christmas day. i will need to post some of those. some are pretty funny. my dad had me pose for the camera while he was trying to figure out the settings on the camera....yeah... it was interesting. so those of you who have been asking for an update, this is it for now. i will post the pics when i get them.