If Robots Could Have Feelings

This is another word of the day, see if you can guess what the word was.

if robots could have feelings
and I tell you that they may.
they wouldn't care that much at all

for our word of the day.

they wouldn't harm us humans
as they're bound by the three laws,
but ask a simple inquiry
and you'll truly see their flaws
so formulate a question
with no 0's and no 1's
and you'll get a hidden message
meant for only Obi-wan.

The Psychedelic Fonzerelic Relic

One evening in the springtime, I though that I might die

I left my house in April, came back in late July
twas only s'posed to be a short trip in the night
but the psychedelic fonzerelic relic caught my eye

some say it came from fonzie, others from the psych
but good or bad it made me glad with colors of delight
Ne'er before had I seen a relic such as this
like Aladdin and his genie it fulfilled a grandest wish

Misadventures on a Halfpipe

I went skiing last Friday. Loved it. Had and interesting experience though. Parker thought it'd be fun to take a ride down the halfpipe. yeah, that thing right there -->

Of course I went, it's a matter of man-pride, the anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better mentality that exists between guys. Parker went first, making sure not to get too much speed. The last thing he needed was to get in a wreck. Then it was my turn. I started down the trail, had a perfect drop into the pipe. Checked my speed and made the first turn. Checked my speed again and made the second turn, letting myself go a little faster. Made the third turn and made a big mistake. I didn't slow down at all. All I remember is facing the 20 foot giant straight on going what felt very fast.

I know what you're thinking...of course I didn't make it, haha. I just remember all of a sudden staring up at the twinkling stars in the sky. What happened? I got air. Not much, but apparently enough. I got up and started looking for my detached skis. Found one, but the other wasn't anywhere to be found. I thought it might have ended up further down the pipe, as that can happen if the ski ends up parallel to the hill. Nope, it wasn't there. Three guys were walking along the top of the halfpipe. Come to think of it, I could turn this into one of those fabled three Nephite stories. One of them yelled down to me, "aren't you glad we're up here?". Next thing I know he throws my ski down to me. It was on top of the halfpipe. How did it get there? The only way I can think it happened is when I got air, the back end of my ski got caught on the lip causing me to take a tumble and have my ski get stuck on top.

Well I managed to get both skis back on and headed down the rest of the slope. Oh, the entire time I was putting my skis back on people are dodging me cause I'm completely in the way.

I pulled up to where Parker was waiting and he was laughing a riot. The worst part is I totally didn't learn anything. I didn't get hurt in any way, so I wanted to do it again.

Don't worry, I didn't.

To Take a Penny, or Leave a Penny. That is the Question...

I tend to over-analyze things. Usually to the point of ridiculousness. This article is no exception. I want to talk about the take a penny, leave a penny tray. You know the ones I'm talking about...usually at gas stations right by the register. There's an entire wikipedia article related to it if you feel like catching up on something completely random...I did.

Sorry, I don't have a story where I went to pay for my gas and noticed a silver twinkle in my eye which, lo and behold, was a quarter in the take a penny tray. Nor do I want to talk about the complete unnecessity of such a contraption thanks to the invention of electronic transaction devices. Rather I want to talk of my love for the Take a penny, leave a penny tray...or at least the concept of it.

Conceptualized it's perfect. If I need a penny I'm free to take one. If I have extra, I'm free to give. That philosophy can be used on just about every situation in life and if carried out successfully will almost always lead to a Utopian lifestyle. A few of my friends have even talked about that sort of mindset in reference to a consecrated lifestyle in a society. I agree with them, but I don't want to talk about that too much here. Instead, what's been on my mind lately is having that sort of motto, to take a penny or leave a penny, in regard to our relationships with others.

I believe that in order to have a healthy relationship, you need proper balance. I'm using relationship in the general sense here, it doesn't have to be romantic. Problem: In our ever advancing technological world, balance can be a very hard thing to find. Employers and educators are demanding more of our time, not to mention the social obligations we have to our friends and family. It's a big emotional strain. Solution: That's why at many times we need to rely on others for support. Loved ones and true friends will always be willing to lend a listening ear, share thoughts of concern, or give a shoulder to cry on. We all need those at times, and I sincerely hope that you provide them at times as well. If you don't it puts things out of balance and in my opinion takes advantage of those that were generous enough to offer help. To go back to our analogy, the take a penny tray only works if pennies continue to be put in as they are taken out.

I like telling people that I feel we're all on an emotional roller-coaster, complete with all it's ups and downs. When someone we care about starts to descend, it's our responsibility to help lift them back up. The idea is that when we get a little down in the dumps ourselves, someone will be there to pick us back up.

That's what led me to write my thoughts on this subject. It seems to me lately that too many people tend to be trying to take pennies out of the tray, but are never willing to put a few in. The mindset of our society is leaning towards the philosophy of getting something they feel they deserve, even though they have done nothing to deserve it. While that might not be changing on a globalized level anytime soon, you can make sure that you don't think that way, or more importantly that you don't act that way.

In my ward I currently have two official callings. I was having a conversation with my friend in Provo and mentioned that to him. He said that that never happens in his ward, and that they've actually started to make up callings to accommodate all of the people. That got me thinking. My ward was the same way, at least as far as making up callings to give everybody some sense of responsibility. I told him that we weren't necessarily short of people, just dependable people. Don't get me wrong. I love my ward to death, and have met some of the best people I've ever known there...but still there's a division of those that are incredibly innovative, letting accomplishment be their motivation, versus those that simply go with the flow. The difference it between ordinary and extraordinary. His response hit hard. He said that life can be difficult for those that will work because many times they make up for the people that won't work.

Ability had little to do with it. Rather dependability. So do what you can, you'll get better with time. It's alright to rely on others, we all have to at some point, but don't let that be a crutch your entire life. We were not meant for mediocrity, but progression and improvement. Sometimes that means taking a few steps in the darkness before we find the light switch.

Back to our analogy...go ahead and take a few pennies when you need them, however, my simple challenge for myself and you is to become the type of person that leaves pennies in the tray; you never know who may need them.

Here's another word of the day poem. Don't ask where the stories come from, they pretty much write themselves.

it started as a simple feud that happened long ago
it started in a village town, then grew to fill the globe
a question of your loyalties, and knowing where they lie
whom do you serve? then ask yourself, are you prepared to die?
the onslaught waged on for many years, many lives were lost
and now we stay up wondering if it was worth such a great cost
there are no heroes in this tale, only broken hearts
and lessons that there is no hope, and breaks our lives apart...

STOP IT Grandpa you know that's not how the story goes.
The hero comes and saves the day and vanquishes his foes,
he comes riding in on valiant steed, with courage, steel, and might!
and makes the bad guys run away, and flee into the night

at last he gets the princess, together they run far away

and legend has it he’ll return when we need him someday.
and history will remember him for bravery and love
by placing his picture in the sky, within the stars above

Ok, so that’s the finished version I came up with. The word was Onslaught. The following is what I started with, and it came from reading about 3 hours of live updates about apple’s new iPad…

It’s my alternate nerdy ending...

it started as a simple feud that happened long ago

it started in a village town, then grew to fill the globe
a question of your loyalties, and knowing where they lie
whom do you serve? then ask yourself, are you prepared to die?
the war waged on for many years, many lives were lost
the onslaught wasn't tragic though, since they were all robots
build by two nerdy, weathly men, a war between two mobs
and history tries to forget the day Bill Gates took on Steve Jobs

Everybody has a different Rock and Roll face

I can prove it too. Last Friday I was asked to take pictures at our stake's valentine's dance. I'm not the biggest fan of dances, yet alone one that was destined to remind myself of how single I am. As you can bet, I wasn't too excited. That excitement changed quite dramatically though when a girl in my ward told me that the theme was "Love Rocks" and that they were going to have rock band guitars and drumsticks for everyone to pose with at my photo booth. I can live with that. Here are a few pictures from that night. All I did was ask them to show me how they rock out. Enjoy! ;)

Honestly I don't even know who half of these people are, but I sure love that they don't mind acting posing like they belong in the big haired 80's.

Wintry, Frosty Air of Night

About 3 days out of they work week a friend sends me a "word of the day". My job is to somehow use it creatively in a form of literature, a sentence, or clever wordplay, but usually poetry. The following poem is from the word critique. Not perfect, but I really like it all the same.

pale blue moon that shines so bright,
wintry, frosty, air of night
will you ever go away?
but alas I know you won’t today.
though you chill my bones so cold
and feel that I am getting old

I will survive, for all is well

thou goest, bitter air, to hell
I am not scared or filled with fright
oh wintry, frosty, air of night
for in my mind, a glowing fire
with one I love of beauty higher.
and though I am so far away
and have to leave and cannot stay
my love for her is still unique
it's something that you can't critique
for I will love her for all time
and maybe someday make her mine

yet 'til that day, I face your plight
oh wintry, frosty air of night

The High-Five Heard Around the World

Ok I'll admit it. I'm in a singles ward. Shut up. I've come to grow quite fond of it too, though I never thought I would. I used to think it had a lot to do with the interaction of people my age, being around people that are at the same point in life. I also used to think it had a lot to do with the maturity level of the group. Perhaps it was the pot luck meals every other week, or even the cute girl sitting across the chapel that I didn't dare go talk to.

I was wrong.

Even though those are all things that make the experience more enjoyable, I'd have to say one of my favorite parts about being in a singles ward (or at least my singles ward) is watching the socially awkward moments people have. Now I don't say that to be mean. Face it, we all have those moments (granted, some more than others), but I can usually find something comical to watch each week. It's not the end of the world when it happens. Nevertheless, when you get the nerve to finally ask that amazingly beautiful girl for her phone number and trip on your shoelace as you're walking over to talk to her...I hope I'm there to watch. Not to be mean, just to enjoy the moment, because in the future such a trivial event will have no meaning other than to make us smile.

That being said I've had plenty of socially awkward moments of my own, so I figure it's only fair if I share some of them with you. I used to have the mindset that my "life is a tale told by an idiot", a line fondly taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth. I've since realized two things. If my life really were to be written by an idiot, since I have control over my life, I am that idiot. Secondly, we all have had our awkward moments, and know we will have many in the future. Perhaps we're all idiots telling our own story and some just have better memories or are better storytellers than others. Either way the following story is deserving of such a lengthy introduction as I get asked to tell it to just about everybody I meet. I don't know if I've ever felt as awkward, and know I'll try hard as heck to make sure I don't make the same mistake again. It's the story of "the high-five heard around the world", or simply "the high-five story". It is completely true too, which makes it all that more sad.

Dances in high school fit into one of two categories for a student. Either you're excited to go, or you could care less. Surprisingly I found myself on the more excited side of the fence and was planning on having a blast. Now, I'm not claiming by any means to understand the female mind. To do so would be a scientific accomplishment beyond our years. However, I do imagine that guys and girls are excited for such social events for different reasons. Girls probably get excited about the cute dress they're going to wear, what colors they're going use, or how they're going to do their hair. Guys' excitement can be contained in one word. I don't even have to give you a clue. "girls". I of course was excited for this too, and I feel I had good reason. After all, Felicia (names have most definitely been changed) was one of the cutest girls I had any association with in high school. To this day I don't remember how I asked her out, just that it was unreasonably complex (as was the style at the time), and that she agreed to go with me.

Amidst conversations with friends at school we founded our group for the day date. I think there was probably around 12 of us. For the most part I remember it being a fantastic date. We danced, got our pictures taken (they still look good to this day), even went back to Parker's house to watch a movie afterwards. The date was great. Dropping her off? Not so much.


I drove that night, so it was me and Felicia in the front with Parker and his date in the back. I can still picture it in my head right now, cruising down 5400 S. in my '87 Maroon Corsica. That car needs an article of it's own. It was set up with a candy dispenser, spring-loaded doors, and lawn mower handle handles. Pimpin'.


We pulled into Felicia's neighborhood. It made sense to drop her off first since it was on the way. Her porch was covered in green turf, you couldn't miss it. I pulled part way into her driveway when suddenly I felt a big throb in my heart. I'd consider it normal for a guy to be a bit shy or nervous around a cute girl, especially the anticipation leading up to any interaction with them, but usually that subsides after spending 15 minutes with them, let alone 6 hours or so. So to have this sudden onslaught of butterfly stomach and accelerated heart beat didn't make any sense. I slowly got out of my car and walked to open her door and let her out. I took a quick glance in Parker direction whose face had a sinisterish evil look...not like he was going to do something, but as if he knew I'd look like an idiot all on my own. It only added to my nervousness.

As she was getting out of the car I looked over my shoulder to see her porch. There it was. Nothing unordinary or nothing askew. Just four normal steps covered in that green turf and an incandecent bulb to light the way. Why did I get so nervous? Was it the food I ate? Am I gonna spew all over her driveway, or her porch, or worse...her? No. Physically I was fine. She's out of the car by now and we're slowly making our way to her front door. I'm carrying leftovers from dinner, she has her purse. Back in Parker's direction. Now he has more of a snickering look as he whispers something to his date that I can't quite make out. His date starts to laugh. For those of you in an older generation I could have sworn the dog from duck hunt that pops up when you miss was there laughing at me too. Were they talking about me? Was it something I did, or was going to do?

By now we're heading up the stairs. I hand her the leftovers as she immediately puts it on the ground with her purse. What does this mean? Suddenly I realized why I was so nervous. How much of a move was I going to make? I'd taken Felicia out a few times before, but never anything serious, more of just having fun with a friend. Was I going to try and change that? I looked at her food on the ground, it didn't look like it was in any hurry to get inside. Parker and his date were still having a great time observing my obvious uncomfort. Then Felicia pulls out her keys. Now if you've seen Will Smith in "Hitch" you'll know you can judge a girl by what she does with her keys...does she put in the door as a quick escape from the porch scene? Or does she jingle them as if to say, "hey, I'm in no rush".

I got the jingle.

I didn't know what to do, and I bet I made her a tad uncomfortable by just standing there observing my surroundings. It wasn't blatantly obvious that I felt awkward, but it wasn't exactly hidden like Waldo either (yeah, take a break and click the picture to find Waldo, you know you want to). Parker and his date are still having a great time watching, the food on the ground is happy, Keys are jingling, Felicia is smiling...waiting. Another line from "Hitch", "90 and 10". If I so choose to venture for the porch scene kiss I was only allowed to go 90% of the way...she had to go the remaining 10%. By now my nerves are stacked up like a tower of jenga blocks ready to tumble at the slightest prod.

Everything must have come crashing down pretty hard, something must have snapped, because all of my previous thoughts had to have occurred in about 10 seconds or so...then nothing. Blank.

I don't know why I did what I did next, it really didn't make any sense. Did I force a kiss to ultimately get rejected? No. Did I go for a hug despite the obvious awkwardness? No. Did I go for the least of all known social interactions at the end of date and shake her hand goodnight? No, not even that...much worse. A high five. My held high in the air waiting for hers. The confused look on her face could only have been topped by mine. Of all the options I had available, of all the things at my disposal, why a high five? If ever I felt like my life was a story being told by an idiot, it was then.

She gave me the high five with a clap that was heard around the world. I imagine it must have been quite painful to watch for as I slowly turned to retreat back to my car Parker and his date were no longer laughing. Only a stern look of shock. Felicia, obviously confounded by the events that had just transpired, now worked her way back into her house. I walked the green mile back to my car along her turf covered porch.

Nothing was said in the car. A moment of silence for my manhood. Parker dropped his date off. Of course after seeing what I had just done he wasn't going to make the same mistake. As he got back into my car we started our ritualistic post date chat. You know, kinda like Jerry and George on Seinfeld. We were trying to figure out why I choked...I mean, not even a hug? Sadness. We came to no conclusion, but Parker decided it'd be best to never speak of that night again. I concurred.

Honestly I was over it that night thinking, "well that sucked, but oh well...such is life" right? It wasn't until six months later that we realized the true damage of that night's events. One of our friends (just so happened to be Parker's date from earlier) was getting ready to leave for college, moving away from our crowd. She went around our group giving everybody a big hug. She got to Parker and me, and I'll never forget what I heard next. "Oh Parker and Cody, I'm going to miss you guys, but I'll give you a high five because I know you don't like hugs". I couldn't believe it, I was in no way not a fan of hugs. In fact, I like hugs. Who doesn't? I tried to figure out where she would have thought of such a random falsity. At that moment Parker and I realized where it had come from. The high-five night. Somehow my fumbling idiocy was portrayed as a disinterest for physical contact. What's worse, the fallacy encompassed Parker as well and we were both left with weakened reputations, at least until things got straightened out.

It's long been fixed since that fateful night, but I know I'll never forget it. The next time you see me and give me a high five, I bet you start laughing. It's happened before. ;)

Update:

So the other night I went to a friend's show in Provo at the Velour. Felicia was there. I was reminded of this story and ventured to ask if she remembered that fateful night on her porch...she didn't. Oh well...

What Video Games Have Taught Me

Wow, so my goal of starting a quality blog that gets updated often kinda went down the drain eh? That's ok though, when we fail at something it's best to get back up, re-evaluate your previous efforts, find out what went wrong, and then make sure it doesn't happen again.

Now I'm not exactly full of prophetic wisdom or eloquent wording, but I figure I don't really need to be. This is more of something I'm doing for myself, a place to publicly contain my thoughts and efforts to see if any improvement has been made compared to the last time I posted on the said subject.

Lately I've taken back to more of my nerdy roots and resurrected a few old projects I've been working on over the last few years. I mostly use wave.google.com to contain the technical aspects of my projects, but I'll keep a brief summary of progress and updates here as well. Of my electronic projects that I'm bringing back, I'm most excited about the home arcade. Growing up I played a lot of video games (big surprise), but It's not even the fact that I'll get to play the games that makes me excited. This project has taken a lot of planning, learning, and preparations to make it work. It's one of the biggest DIY projects I've done by myself (well a few friends helped with the labor). So with that I feel a great sense of accomplishment of seeing it come from a concept to fruition. I imagine that you feel the same way when you accomplish something that either you didn't know you could do, or seemed too far beyond your grasp. Now I don't mean to make some big spiritual comment or life changing realization based on something as trivial as an arcade machine, but I did learn a few things about myself when faced with a problem I don't know how to solve.

Early on when designing this arcade machine, I was most worried about how I was going to run all of the electronics. I had basic experience with soldering a few points and understanding very basic schematics, but this arcade would require at least 20 inputs not including directional keys. I remember getting the equivalent of last place in the science fair in like 5th grade (everybody either got a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place ribbon...I got 3rd). If I were to compare what I knew in 5th grade about electronics to what I understood about electronics before I started this project, the only difference would have been my knowledge on how to use google now. So a few searches later and I started the long laborious effort I knew it take to not only design the style, look, and appeal of my machine, but more importantly the mechanics and electronics of how it'd work. This is about where I had my first realization. This size of the project scared me, so instead of working out the kinks I simply put it on the back burner for a long time, maybe if I ignored it long enough perhaps one day I'd walk down to my basement and see if finished sitting there waiting for me to beat whoever dared to challenge me in a game of NFL Blitz...not likely. I'd talk to people about it trying to build some enthusiasm, but eventually it got put on the bottom of my list and even forgotten about. It wasn't until a conversation with my boss about 6 months ago that brought it back to attention and I decided to just start working on it.

Realization #2: Once I actually started working on the project, the problems starting solving themselves and progress became faster. Over the past two semesters I've taken both macro- and micro-economics. At a quick glance I was curious as to why they didn't cover both subjects in the same class, after all they were both related to economics right? After taking both classes it was interesting to see how similar-yet-different they were, but more at how important each mechanic played a role in the system. Simplified, micro- is the study of things up close, the localization of a mechanic...not unlike an organ of the body. How it works, what it's purpose is. Macro- is the bigger, grander picture. Like the body as a whole and how all the organs work together to function. Turns out when working on my arcade machine I was focusing too much on the macro side of things. I saw the end result in my head and thought it'd take too much work, that it'd take forever to finish. Once I finally broke it down into smaller components (literally and figuritively) that I could work on in my spare time I soon ended up with a nostalgic and very playable arcade.

That's where this entry leads me today. While the arcade itself could be hooked up to pretty much any computer and configured to work, I never finished the front end (software) of my project and occasionally have glitches that can be irritating. The idea was to have a dedicated computer that when booted up contained all of the available games and to have them be chosen using the arcade console. As it stands at this moment you have to boot to windows, and using a keyboard and mouse, start the desired game. Perhaps I didn't learn my lesson. I thought too much at how much work it was going to be have it completely figured out, rationalizing that it was good as is. In essence I cheated myself. If I would have taken just a bit more time to solve the issues I was having the end product would be that much better, I also would have learned what happened as to prevent that problem from happening in the future, instead I fell back into my previous mindset of thinking too much, without getting much done. Realization #3: It's easy to fall back into our previous ways if we don't do anything to prevent it.

I've recently ordered the necessary parts and as soon as they arrive I'm going to install them and finish the project, partly to fix the problems it's having, but more to prove to myself that I can...and not only that I can fix the problem, but finish the project in of itself. If I can finish this project, then my sanity can remain while I work on the next project, getting better and better each time.