Conspiracy theories are absurd.

I was mindlessly surfing the web a couple days ago and I came across a blog that was talking about how the music industry was controlled by the Illuminati. For those of you who don't hate conspiracy theorists, the Illuminati is some secret society of important people that was founded in 1776 and they held meetings in the German state Bavaria where they talked about how to overthrow corrupt European governments. Somehow, according to idiot conspiracy theorists, this society still exists today in 2010 and works to overthrow society as we know it and set in motion a New World Order. Not a cool New World Order with guys like Sting and Hulk Hogan, but an evil one with dictators and complete society control. Now this alleged Illuminati apparently finds music stars like Lady Gaga and Kanye West and pays them to write music about promiscuity and use occult symbolism to brainwash todays generation into becoming mindless slaves of this new world order.

How the nut jobs claim this works I'm not exactly clear on. Something to the effect of if we watch Lady Gaga make hand motions that look like an Egyptian Goddesses eye makeup and then she has an orgy in her music video we're all going to worship Egyptian Deity's, have orgies and mindlessly follow whatever the music says to do and that our generation is the one that is screwed. This, despite the fact that they also claim this same Illuminati is the same society that made the Beatles famous and had them put secret backwards messages in their music, but only when you warped it just right and would variate the speed at certain points so that it sounded like what you were looking for it to sound like and that these messages would ruin a previous generation. This is good science. When something doesn't fit with the point I'm trying to get across I simply change the way I test it until it does fit the results I want it to. No, I'm serious, it was the only way I got through chemistry lab. "Hmm... 16 g/mol? Well I know it's not oxygen that I centrifuged out of this because it would become gas and this is clearly solid so I'll double it and say it's sulfur then do the calculations from there." What? The class was straight regurgitation and I got an A.

So anyway, the people who believe in Illuminati are as good at life as I am at chemistry lab, which isn't very good.

Now when our generation becomes brainwashed by Kanye West and Lada Niva, Lady Gaga, other Illuminati leaders like Barack Obama, George Bush, Yasser Arafat (who in all likelihood would never have any involvement with American political leaders) and Spiderman will proceed to guide us to following a single world government under which we are like the Borg from Star Trek. You know, this single world government thing (despite how ridiculous it sounds) doesn't sound half bad. No wars, no third-world-countries, no trade restrictions. Hell, if we can get a billion Hindu's, a billion Atheists, a billion Muslims half a billion Buddhists and 2 billion Christians to agree on any one thing let these Illuminati people work their magic.

Fortunately I am immune. I listen to alternative and punk rock and they don't follow the standards set by the evil music industry. They sing against mainstream society and therefore the Illuminati don't approach them with vast amounts of money to make them famous which is why it's alternative. In fact, here is my counter-conspiracy-theory. In the early 90's Illuminati saw that Nirvana was becoming popular among young people and singing about sex and drugs yet was not using the Illuminati devil horn sign of "rock on" used by mainstream rock bands. (seriously, google it, you can't find Cobain making devil horn signs) so Courtney Love, known member of the Illuminati took him out. Cobain was a martyr in the fight against the NWO.

You should probably pretend you didn't read that last paragraph as I'm obviously making it all up.

Another one I really like is that the moon landing was in some studio. This is because solar wind, cosmic rays, not enough time delay between replies and because there are no stars in the images. Well right, solar wind and cosmic rays are a problem because the astronauts were up there in shorts and t-shirts with scuba masks for air. Then the stars should have been there because it's always night time in space, because it's space and space is night. These people are morons. They didn't have 80lb space suits on or anything for protection and we didn't land on the LIGHT side of the moon where the sun and Earth radiate vast amounts light and cameras were set for daylight exposure since they were on the moon in broad daylight. Try this, go sit in a super bright room and see if you can see stars outside or try taking a picture at night with the flash on. See if you can see any stars.

Then the time delay, on the edited documentary tapes does not represent the actual real-time which was two seconds, as expected. That time delay one is just stupid too. Let's pretend for a minute that Apollo 11 was faked. They pulled off this amazing million dollar scheme which fooled the entire world, but when it came time to record moon-shots they forgot to delay their responses 2 seconds, yeahhhhh right. That would be like an NBA star preparing nearly his entire life to be a basketball player and then forgetting the goal is to get the orange ball in the hoop you're attacking and keep it out of the hoop you're defending.

Then of course there are the Hubble shots of the moon landing sites, the 400,000 employees of the Apollo programs and the fact that the Soviet's of the 1960's, who hated the American's, acknowledged the Apollo missions and congratulated us on the accomplishments. If your arch-nemesis compliments you on something, what kind of idiot citizen does it take to refute events supported by two competing and unfriendly factions that the same event did in fact take place?

This is becoming a bit wordy, so in short - conspiracy theorists are stupid. If you believe in conspiracies, and you're actually still reading them, you should probably reevaluate your thoughts pretty heavily. Now I'm sure there are certain conspiracies that may hold a little weight, such as the one where diamonds are neither valuable nor precious stones, DeBeers simply controls the market and sets the price at whatever stupid American's will pay for them. But Illuminati controlling the popular media, political figures and putting flouride in your water to make you easier to control? Hahahaha, we do live among some easily impressionable people.

Yes, great argument. Trace amounts of fluoride in water should be banned because healthy teeth are just a way for the Illuminati to control you and make you die younger. Then we have NASA faking the Apollo missions to gain a moral victory over the Soviet's and crashing our own planes into our own towers so we could start a war. If you believe any of these you need to quit watching Fox News and reading tabloid smut magazines. Yes, I just lumped Fox News and tabloid smut together. Fox News is bestowed this honor for their claims that Mr. Rogers is evil, therefore it should be regarded as highly (or lowly) as Weekly World News and Globe. The source for all your trashy made-up entertainment news. Seriously, if we're going to consider Mr. Rogers evil, then let's consider Bat Boy and Bigfoot to be real!

Oh and my friend informed me that she had to be mentioned in my blog, so Data > Spock & Picard > Kirk. Happy nerd pride day everyone.

Ah summer..

The end of the semester wasn't exactly my finest hour. I had to skip dead week so I could come home and learn how to harass people at their homes so the census can pay me, which is real brain busting work, let me tell you. Then I had a final in each of my classes. Finals which I didn't exactly do well on, besides the one in my Earth History class. I was afraid that I'd get pretty average grades after what I felt to be an impressive semester on my part. As my grades were posted they started about how I expected. First a B+ in Structural Geology, not as good as I would have hoped but I can't really frown at a B+ I suppose. Then Abnormal Psych (my easy gen ed class) was posted as an A-. This pissed me off, how did I get an A- in a bonehead psychology class? Well I suppose a 71/100 on the final may have helped. Then my Earth History grade was posted, an A. I was sitting at a 3.64 with one grade left, Geophysics. The hardest class I've taken in college and likely the class I've put the most effort into. I scored a 34/100 on the midterm and my average lab grade was right around the 50-60% range. I had no idea how the professor would be curving the grades, but talking to other people in the class my grades sounded about typical. Finally, the last day to post grades, still nothing. I looked again at about 6PM. I had an A. What.. the hell? I checked my email and had a message from the professor saying "Good job, you got a 96/200 on the final. Sorry the class and our field area was so difficult, I hope you got something out of it, you put a lot of work into it. Your final grade is an A." My final GPA was a 3.75. Best grades I've ever gotten in a full time semester and I was taking all 3000 and 5000 level classes. Quite proud of that actually :)

I wanted to celebrate by buying myself something nice and getting dinner. I went shopping and ended up realizing the same thing I always realize when I go shopping. I already have everything I need and I don't want to needlessly spend money. I ended up with a new rock hammer and ate a microwavable meal for dinner. I really live a sad life sometimes, but it's completely my fault. Oh well.

It's summer! Yay, summer. The weather is warm, the sun is out, I don't have class and I can more or less just do whatever I want. I moved home and I've been having a pretty fun time so far. I've eaten some gourmet tofu, gone car shopping for someone else, beat my friends at a board game that involves cows and corn, been a census robot and hiked halfway up what looked to be a really pretty hike. Not off to a bad start other than the fact that I've been sick for most of it.

So I think I went on a date today, okay yeah it was a date. I just tell myself that it wasn't so I feel better about it. I don't know what it is about dating that terrifies me. A girl from high school randomly wrote me on facebook and was like "Hi you're cool!" and it pretty much made my day so I had to befriend her and I realized she was pretty cool and that I had to meet her.. again.. so not meet her, but .. eh whatever.

So here's what sucks about dating:

First dates. The whole time you're wondering what's an acceptable way to act. Do I act my annoying self and be loud because I'm with people I'm comfortable with or do I act calm with an effort to not make her uncomfortable? Do I say the raunchy sexual remark that just came to my mind even though it will certainly not impress her or do I hide it and act on my best manners because that's what's appropriate? Do I ask her lame get-to-know-you questions when there is a pause in conversation or is some silence acceptable? Is it cool if I sit on the same oversized chair as her at the ice cream place? Do I walk her to her door or will either of these actions make her uncomfortable? Is it even remotely okay to talk this much about rocks?

Dating can be so awkward, but it's unfortunately one of the best ways to learn if you like someone or not. Today I did something rare - I was my normal self on a first date. I guess not ALL first dates suck. I need to learn to be that way on all first dates.

I just realized if I post this on facebook like I do the rest of my blogs and she reads this I'll feel pretty stupid - so maybe I'll wait a day or two on that. How arrogant of me to think people actually read these incoherent loosely related cluster of sentences. I should just post it anyway.

I hate the Lakers.

While I'm on the subject of girls, I think I want to fall in love (Don't worry, I'm not going to sell out for someone who is anything short of incredible for the sake of being in love, like so many people do). I've been doing the whole dating around thing for about... well basically since Shelly. Sure I've had a few relationships and almost-serious flings mixed in, but really my longest relationship since Shelly was a crazy girl from Los Angeles who I saw a total of maybe 15 days, and other that that basically dated via Skype. A girl who also liked video games more than she did me, which is cool, video games have their perks, but they've got nothing on me! At least she was considerate enough to have us be a Sims 3 family and put my computer outside because it made me happy to be outside. I'm quite certain Shelly screwed with my head more than I let myself believe. I think I subconsciously let that effect my relations with girls I'm interested in more than I know.

Speaking of female horror stories, I went out with this girl a couple times last semester and I kept it at a distance because I knew she had a guy who she was semi-serious towards or at least was, but she insisted they weren't together. Then we sort of ended up making out recently and a week later she tells me she's not coming back to Logan because her boyfriend asked her to marry him and move wherever the army takes him. Was I seriously just the other guy? Wow, that.. is horrible of me. I honestly feel bad about it despite having been told by a couple people that I really shouldn't blame myself. I think the worst part is that I was just like "Oh yeah, that's cool. Good luck." and this boy is likely head over heels for her and would have his week ruined if he knew she cheated on him. I really am angry at myself for that. He'll probably never know, but the fact that it happened kinda bothers me.

I hate Kobe. (What the.. Why is Kobe in my spellchecker, but Angeles is not?)

Makes me curious.. Lebron, Carmello, Shaquille, Deron, Rondo... oh c'mon... Rondo? Firefox is weird. It depresses me to have to re-accept every year that the Jazz will never with the NBA championship under Jerry Sloan and that without Jerry Sloan the Jazz would likely suffer a few years of not making the playoffs.

I watched this movie called Pandorum. It was kind of like Titan AE meets Event Horizon. A ship was traveling across the galaxy to colonize a new planet because we screwed up Earth too badly and then some evil force invaded the ship and a few people woke up out of stasis to it all freaked out. I was a fan.

Oh yeah, back to how I want to be in love or something. I don't really think I even know what love is, but I imagine it's pretty cool. The times I've pretended to be in love have been fun, so if I was really head over heels for a girl I think that would just make my day.. or possibly quite a few days.. I suppose to do that though, I actually have to commit to someone and put my heart into something without holding back or hiding at all. That could be hard for me. It takes me 2 minutes to choose which orange juice concentrate I want to commit to drinking for the next week and sometimes I end up with grape juice because it's on sale. I should sleep, it's almost 2 and I have important door to door census sales.. I mean.. government work to do tomorrow. You know, this job is serving some purpose - next year any time I consider quitting school or not working as hard I'll just have to think back to a crazy old lady with 3 psychotic Pomeranian's screaming at me that she already has a security system and slamming the door in my face or the interesting man who kept interrupting me to tell me jokes like, "How can you tell an Irishman has had too much to drink? - He's Dublin over." and I'll remember how important this college education is.

Satan is necessary.

This blog post will probably be nothing short of blasphemous to most people, but I think it's a fun thought.

So assuming you believe in Christianity (specifically Mormonism) the kind of general story is that Satan has to tempt us so we can prove our worthiness. The Mormon story goes that Satan had a plan to force us to all be perfect so we could return to heaven and worship him for saving us then Jesus was like no, you all can go make your own choices and if you decide to accept me I'll be punished for you and you can come back and worship God. Meanwhile Satan gets kicked out and decides he wants to screw with our heads and tempt us to do wrong things to get as many people to come live with him in "hell" instead of with God in "heaven."

Satan sounds like a pretty bad dude at this point. What has to be considered though is that for Christ's plan to even exist, Satan must exist. Satan is what creates evil, the required antagonistic force in Christ's plan. He's what tempts us to do wrong and sin as to not go back to Christ and God, but he is completely necessary.

So did Christ and God banish him for the sake of having an element of evil? It almost sounds like had we just gone with "Satan's plan" there would have never been evil, he wouldn't have been "forcing" us to be good, there just wouldn't have been any evil to participate in. However when God denied him permission because of his arrogance in wanting the glory of a people who he didn't create evil was created at this point. This became part of Christ's plan. Satan was needed in it. Without Satan, Christ wouldn't need to be our savior.

Why does Satan get such a bad reputation then? He's just a misunderstood and incredibly arrogant individual (assuming he even exists) who made a bad choice. We should feel sorry for the guy and help him if we want to be "Christ-like," right? Also what would life be without temptation? Some of the greatest feelings in the world come from either overcoming temptation or temptation itself and without it we would never be able to prove ourselves to God to be rewarded with whatever he deems us worthy for.

This has further implications though. Satan isn't the cause of all evil is he? If a hurricane happens and kills some people is that Satan's doing or is that just natural evil? If you answer that it's Satan's doing then you have to accept that Satan helped create the universe which means he has powers similar to what we know of God. If you say that this was not Satan's doing then you have to accept that God created a universe with built in evil. If God is capable of creating evil, then would this not mean he has to have an understanding and desire for it? Furthermore, God created Satan, according to LDS beliefs. God created Satan, who is the father of all evil, so God did create evil, or maybe he just messed up a little in the whole creation of beings and some of them (a third according to Mormonism) came out wrong.

My mind just went spiraling off on a new tangent. I have to study for finals, I'm done thinking about this.

"Global warming"

I posted this as a comment to remarks on facebook and thought I would post it here so I can copy and paste it in the future when people are being lame about climate change.

"If you don't believe in global warming maybe you can answer why gravity data from GRACE satellites (GRACE data) show that continental ice sheets are melting at rates of well over 4 cm/yr while global sea levels are rising slowly? I'm sure myself and the entire scientific community are open to other possibilities.
Until then I would say that looking at increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 (Recent CO2 trends) which were down at ~270ppm before 1800 and CH4 concentrations being more than anything analyzed from core samples in the last 600,000 years (CH4 data) and the fact that we know those gasses trap infrared radiation, which then re-radiates back to Earth, (CO2/temp correlation) makes human contribution to the melting of continental ice and rise in temperature a pretty viable cause."

I heart Earthquakes

I'm sure someday I'll eat these words when the Wasatch fault finally moves and I break an arm or my computer gets knocked off a shelf and snaps in half, but for now. I love earthquakes.

Being a Geology major has made me a self-proclaimed expert on the subject that's all the rage the past day or so. Now to be honest, I'm not an expert. If I were to compare geology knowledge to basketball skill, Paul Hoffman (professor at Harvard who came up with the Snowball Earth hypothesis) would be Lebron James and I would be that guy on some moderately good college basketball team who comes off the bench, but still sees pretty good minutes. So by no means an expert - but better than any of you!

Anyway, over the past few months there have been some big earthquakes. There was a 7.1 in the Solomon Islands, that devastating 7.0 in Haiti, a 7.0 in Japan, then a goliath 8.8 in Chile, and a 7.3 in Baja and people start talking about how it means Jesus is coming again and posting on facebook that we need to repent because it's a "sign of the times." I love this. Mostly because there is an average of 18 7.0+ earthquakes per year and between Jan 1 and Apr 16 there have been 5. Spot on with the average! Unfortunately three of these earthquakes have happened close to major population centers, one of which was far from prepared for a large earthquake.

Then today a 4.9 earthquake happened out about 40 miles east of Logan on some crappy Crawford Fault (that I'd not even heard of until today, but I believe it's part of the East Bear Lake Fault Zone) Well I've had fun correcting people who think that this earthquake is a precursor to the "big one" that the Wasatch Fault is expecting, being as these fault zones aren't even related. Then I had someone on the X96 facebook page tell me that a 10.0 was coming soon on the Wasatch Fault, okay even if this 4.9 earthquake DID happen on the Wasatch Fault and even if earthquakes were always correlated (which does occasionally happen, but very rarely). Think about it, a 10.0 earthquake? Okay first of all a 10.0 earthquake would make the Haiti earthquake seem like a cell phone on vibrate and they just don't happen (the largest ever was a 9.2) and on top of that I can't even imagine a 9.5+ earthquake happening anywhere in the world, not Alaska, not Chile, not the Himalayas, and certainly not on some random normal fault system in the middle of a continent about 700 miles away from the nearest plate boundary.

Another guy went off on how this meant a 6.8 earthquake would happen in Utah now any time and I was like "whoa dude, if you can predict earthquakes - hook me up with your methods." and he talked about how a 6.8 is the maximum earthquake the WFZ could ever have and that it was going to happen soon. Okay, granted there's not been a large earthquake on the WFZ for like 400 years (and scarier, not one on the Brigham City section in 2400 years) but saying a big one will happen any time now is pretty bold. It could happen tomorrow, sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if nothing happened until well after my lifetime. Then narrowing it down to a 6.8 is pretty bold too. Could it be a 6.8? Sure! Could it be a 7.1 or a 6.3? Sure! Some evidence suggests the WFZ can have earthquakes up to 7.5 (though I'm skeptical about that.) Ah well, confidence is good to have I guess. This guy wasn't too bad, so I'll have to finish with another real moron.

Okay so, in my opinion, conspiracy theorists are among the dumbest people in the world. I read a comment from this one guy who wrote that these earthquakes were all signs that that that made up planet (Niburu?) is getting close enough to effect the earths gravitational field. Okay first of all, why is it that only conspiracy theorists know anything about this alleged planet that is going to collide with Earth in 2012? Then secondly, if it's a dwarf planet, like Pluto or Eris, and it's still two years away how is it possibly causing earthquakes? The moon is 5x the mass of Pluto and it's like ... right there *points at the moon.* Pretty sure the moon just pulls the ocean water around to different places, not entire crustal plates. How does this smaller and farther away Niburu planet do it? I bet the aliens that live there have tractor beams! I think I actually heard that Barack Obama was one of them.. yes.. and the Soviets know about it. I hate conspiracy theorists.

I still have to say that my favorites are the prophesiers of doom though. Yes, a 4.9 earthquake happened in Utah, better roll out the red carpet for Jesus! Don't take into account that 13,000 4.1-5.0 earthquakes happen per year and we do live in one of the more seismically active 48 states. This epic 4.9er in Randolph is a sign. We're totally experiencing the end of the world. Idiots. I wonder what these people would be like if they lived in L.A. and had frequent earthquakes that shook your pots and pans around (or knocked various freeway overpasses down). I guess Jesus would come about as often as birthdays. That would be kinda cool, I bet he'd bring awesome presents.

I was kind of disappointed that I didn't even feel the local earthquake today though. Ironically enough I was playing frisbee with some other geology students and none of us felt it. First earthquake I've really had a good opportunity to feel since the 7.3 Landers earthquake in 1992 and I missed it, lame. Well I guess there was the Big Bear quake like 2 hours later, but whatever, same day.

Pride

I dunno if it's pride, but I can't think of a better word for it.

I don't know how many people realize this about me, but I care way too much about what people around me think. I'd say if I were to rate my seven deadly sins from top to bottom, pride would be number one. For some reason I just think it's important to be dignified and respected. I don't know when exactly this started, but I would say sometime in the area of 2005-2007 as I can think back in the past about times when I couldn't care less what people thought of me. I would act pathetic if it achieved whatever it was that I wanted. Now there is no way I would. It's pretty bad. I suppose writing a blog about a weakness of mine is a step toward beating it, but I don't think it helps much.

So what is it I do that makes me prideful? Well I have a hard time asking for help. Yes, I realize all you femme-nazi's think this is just a male trait. It's not that. I don't have a hard time asking for directions to find some place I don't know the location of. It's more like things I feel I should be able to do I refuse to ask for help with. Geophysics for instance. I attend lecture every day and even read the textbook every so often. The class still is so confusing to me that defining it as over my head would be a stretch. That implies it comes near my head. This stuff is more like above the elevation of my head and offset by 20 meters to the left. Not once have I gone and asked my professor for help. I've emailed him a couple times, sure, but I can't get myself to go to his office when I'm confused. I even like the guy. He knows me, I call him by his first name, we say hi if we see each other on campus. I just don't want him thinking I don't understand his class, which believe me, I don't.

Another aspect I see this prevalent in is dating. The reason I never ask girls out is probably slightly because I'm shy with girls, but I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that it puts me in position for possible rejection. I won't let someone think they're rejecting me. In nearly all of my recent relationships I've ended things, and when Rachel broke up with me I acted like I didn't give a fuck. I pretty much told her it was cool and I was over her already. Knowing that she would take some time to get over me and having her think that I was over it already made me feel as if I was the one ending the relationship and she was getting the crappy end of the deal. I truly had myself convinced of it too. Almost a year later I realize wow, I should have tried to keep her. Though that is a stupid thought because it would have possibly ended in her legitimately rejecting me and a relationship between an outdoors loving, fairly spiritual Christian, Utah native who only eats red meat when it's inconvenient not to and an arthritic religion hating atheist, New..Hampshire..ian..?, who would rather starve than eat fish wouldn't have worked.

Also this pride rolls over into my sex life. I feel empowered when I reject a girl for sex. I feel like I'm breaking stereotype and being different and they'll remember being told no by me, so that makes me important. Sure there's a side of me that really doesn't want to sex anyone 'til I marry or find someone super special, but let's be honest - if the girl is hot enough and wants me bad enough I really don't care THAT much, and I've definitely dated a couple of girls who were hot enough and wanted me enough. I think the empowerment of saying no is just about as influential on this aspect of my life as the waiting thing. Then again maybe it's just a sadistic thrill I get. Drive the girl wild, make her beg for sex and then deny her. Kinda hot really.

I guess it's not a terrible quality to have. I mean it forces me to better myself from time to time. When I was 20 I realized being a high school drop-out made me somewhat of a loser, I would lie to people about my GED to make myself feel better. That sucked so I fixed it and now I don't have to lie, I think it makes me awesome. I'm slightly self-conscious about my body and up until the last couple years had a hard time letting people see me shirtless (I'm really bony and white), but since then I've tried to fatten up and I've gained about 15 lbs and it looks better. I mean of the seven sins I think if I had to pick one to be my worst that would be it. Envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust all suck worse in my opinion. Well I dunno - wrath would be pretty bad ass if it turned me into Liam Neeson from Taken.

April 2nd

Ah, what a long book. I just got done reading Snowball Earth, which isn't actually a long book at all, but I had to do it in two days because I had a 5 page report on it due ... well today (it's after midnight.) So we all (yeah right) know that interesting life first started on Earth around 550 million years ago during the Cambrian. This is the age in which Earth, which for the past 4 billion years had been void of anything you or I would consider life decided to really come alive. Life has been on the planet for almost 3 billion years now, but only recently have multicellular organisms found their niche in the world. Only the last 1/9th of Earths existence have we had organisms as advanced (yes, advanced) as worms, flies and leafy plants. Well actually multicellular life extends back into the Ediacaran period, which started about 640 mya, but most people don't get anal about this.

So anyway, apparantly there is evidence such as glacial deposits at rocks which were, at the time, on the equator and banded iron formations (that only form when the ocean is not in contact with the atmosphere) in the rocks from just before the Ediacaran that imply a global freeze of the planet. The entire planet looked like Antarctica for millions of years. Volcanoes continued erupting and greenhouse gasses continued to come up through the ice and create a blanket, warming the Earth to the point of melting the ice and leaving a nearly lifeless Earth. Since there was so much empty and unpopulated space it is theorized that life exploded (much like it always does after a mass extinction event) and diversified, forming the first multicelluar life and 640 million years later allowing for me to write this blog. Interesting huh?!

I like that thought, the whole Earth being a giant snowball just tumbling around through space with it's neighbor the moon looking down and getting chills just thinking about how cold Earth must be. It's humbling, thinking humans have only been around for approximately 200,000 years. I can't even comprehend that length of time, let alone how long ago the Cambrian explosion (When all the new life developed) took place. Yet to the Earth, complex life has only been on the planet for about as long as I've been in college, about 1/8th of my life. If I were to compare how long humans have been on the Earth with my life - it would be since about Tuesday morning (I'm writing this on a Friday at 1am.) Though, unlike the Earth, the past week hasn't been the most interesting part of my life.

Last weekend I went camping with some geology students. We went out to Southern Utah, looked at rocks and partied. It was honestly one of the best experiences I've had to date as a college student. I sort of felt like I fit in with these people. They were all a little older, but not overly mature. They were smart, but not like the engineers who were smart about stuff that I didn't care to hear about. They even partied a little. No one in the group wanted to be drunk, we just wanted to have fun and relax after a day of driving, hiking and looking at outcrop. I met some legitimately cool people that I felt like I fit in with. I may be wrong since, besides the trip, I've not really socialized with anyone in my major outside of class, but at least I know that in the future when we go on field trips I'll have fun with the people I'm with.

For so long I've felt like an outcast here because of my inability to conform to the dominant religion of this state. I tried describing this to a friend earlier. For me it's like this:

Pretend that nearly everyone you know believes in aliens and that these aliens do special things for them and will care for them after they die. You grew up being told about these aliens, but then one day you realized it was all kind of a strange story full of holes and decided, "Hey, maybe there is something else to life than just these aliens that no one has actually met. Now I'm not discounting them, they really may exist, but I'm not going to just blindly follow the laws laid out in the alien accord." Now everyone around you seems to feel a little taken back by the fact that you don't follow these alien teachings and you have trouble being respected the same way and girls that are attracted to your personality and looks won't give you a chance because you can't hold special, seemingly made up, titles these aliens have bestowed upon the human race. No one really takes into account that you basically follow the alien laws, you just aren't blindly convinced that they exist exactly how their followers claim they do. All the realize is that you don't go to the meetings and don't believe in them the same way you do.

Would you not feel a little outcast? Would you not feel it's a little ridiculous that you're treated differently because you happen to disagree on the metaphysics of life. Even though you would never judge or treat differently a follower of the alien teachings, most of them feel differently about you.

Really think about that - well that's how the LDS church makes me feel. Then people wonder why I have trouble wanting anything to do with it. I respect the LDS church and think it's a fantastic organization. I think President Monson is an amazing person and may even speak to God (which yes, I do believe in God.) I just don't know this, and if I don't know it why should I pretend that I do? Maybe those aliens exist - but you aren't aware of it. You don't discount it and you follow most of their teachings because the teachings are good. You've just never seen or felt an alien, so you have a hard time knowing that the followers are 100% right.

Loose analogy, I'm aware, but I like it.

My friend Katie and I played an April fools joke in which we were engaged to each other. About 3 people that I knew fell for it. With Katie it seemed like a lot of her friends and family fell for it. Now granted I go to Utah State and she goes to BYU and people up here are just a little more sane than people down there and tend to think things through a little more, but a lot of my friends said things to me like, "I just know you aren't the type to get married. You're bitter towards marriage and you don't want someone in your life." This kind of bothered me, but as I thought about it, I can understand why they think that. It's not true. I'm not really bitter towards marriage. I just think it's absurd how people rush into it and will settle just because they want to hurry up and get it done before they turn 23. Really, you've got about a 17 year window from the time you turn 18 until you get married to do this. Take your time - find someone who is right for you and don't settle.

I'm not bitter towards marriage. I would love to be married to an amazing woman and think certain relationships (yes even at young ages) are absolutely amazing and they make me very happy. Unfortunately I've just not met someone yet who I think I would be happy and content with spending the rest of my life with without one of us compromising something important. Well that isn't 100% true. One girl - it didn't work out, but close enough. Until that time I'm perfectly content being single. I like myself. I don't typically have trouble finding a girl to hang out or go out with. It just always stops shy of serious. Sometimes it's my fault, sometimes it's hers, sometimes we just realize it isn't working, however typically, for the last 3 years anyway, it's because the girl doesn't want someone who won't take her to the alien sanctuary temple.