Notable Quote

"I want the brownie bladder blizzard."

(yours truly, unfortunately)

The joys of life

Last night when I got to my car the remote didn't unlock the door.  So I unlocked it with the key.  When I turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened.  Literally nothing, no lights came on, no needles fluttered, and the engine might as well have not been there.  The Pearl was dead in the water, so to speak.

Thus begin my adventures for the week so far.  I pushed the button on the wall and called up security, and they dispatched a truck to come jump my car.  I was planning to go to the temple with friends, but wasn't sure if the car would start again.  After driving home, showering (we had been playing basketball after work) and changing my faith was rewarded when the engine sputtered to life without issue.  After the temple it started for a second time on it's own; I decided to tempt fate and stopped to fill my empty tank, and it started on its own power for a third time at the gas station on the way home.

Once home last night I got my things together so that this morning all I had to do was roll out of bed and shave, then I started the three mile bike ride to avoid the construction on my street to get to work.  Once at work I logged my ride as a workout, then used the showers at the fitness center to clean up and get dressed for work.

Once ready I walked upstairs to the cafeteria across from my work area and ordered an omlette for breakfast and bought a minute maid orange juice to reward myself.  I feel like He-man today.

Texas.

It just happens to be my new home.

The second largest state in the union both by geography and population (but let's be honest, it's the biggest truly inhabited state in the union) with a total of 268,601 square miles and 20,851,820 inhabitants as of 2000 (second only to California, but probably not for too much longer).  Two presidents (Eisenhower and LBJ) were born here.  The state motto is "Friendship," stemming from the original tribes of eastern Texas who called their collective nation "Tejas" meaning "those who are friends."

Dinosaurs that have been found in Texas include Acrocanthosaurus, Alamosaurus (no joke!), Brontopodus, Camptosaurus, Coelophysis, Deinonychus (my favorite), Dimetridon, Edmontosaurus, Hypsilophodon, Iguanodon, Kritosaurus, Megatherium, Orinthomimus, Panoplosaurus, Pawpawsaurus, Pluerocoelus (this is the state dinosaur), Protohadros byrdi, Quetzalcoatlus, Shuvosaurus, Stegoceras, Technosaurus (the nerdy species), Tenontosaurus, Texascetes (even dinosaurs had pride in this place), Torosaurus, and of course Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The state animals are the mockingbird, the Texas longhorn, Armadillo, free-tailed bat, monarch butterfly, Texas horned lizard, and the Guadalupe bass.  The state shell is the lightning whelk.  The state flowers and plants are the bluebonnet, prickly pear cactus, pecan tree, and chinese crepe myrtle.  The state fruit is the grapefruit, the vegetable is the onion.  The state fiber is cotton (which I am proudly wearing at this moment; probably you, too).  The state grass is sideoats grama.  The state stone is petrified palmwood and the state gem is the Texas blue topaz.

San Antonio itself was named after the Portuguese Saint Anthony by Spanish explorers (must have been before nationalism?) in 1691 and served as the capital city of Texas until sometime after the Mexican-American war.  There are nine different sister cities to San Antonio, including two in Spain, two in Mexico, one in India, one in Japan, one in Taiwan, one in South Korea and one in Israel.  One city in Germany is listed as an alliance city, but I'm not sure how the Germans could help San Antonio very well in the event that we needed an ally.

There are four military bases inside San Antonio, and one just outside the city (although with its aggressive annexation policies, it may one day be inside the city as well).  About three-fourths of the city's area has been annexed since 1960.  In effect there are no real suburbs, as any that did exist are now completely enveloped by the city limits and act as little island townships within the city.  There are over 100,000 students and 31 higher-education facilities in the San Antonio area.  San Antonio also boasts the most inexpensive public transit systems in the nation.

United Services Automobile Association (USAA) was founded in 1922 by military officers who were unable to procure insurance due to the perception that they were high risk.  The company was one of the pioneers of direct marketing from the start, selling insurance directly to customers instead of working through agents.  Headquartered in San Antonio, USAA operates five other offices in Phoenix, Tampa, Norfolk, Colorado Springs and Frankfurt.  The main campus occupies 286 acres of a former horse farm with one of the largest single-occupancy buildings in the USA, rivaling the Willis Tower and the Pentagon.  Technically the insurance arm of USAA is not a corporation, but rather an inter-insurance exchange, which allows it operate differently than almost any other Fortune 500 firm at Wall street.  Also by working on this basis recently USAA lobbyists were able to push through an amendment to the Volker rule that allows the company to continue its unique operations.  Also because of their unique member owned organization, the company returns unused profits to the insureds at year end, similar to dividends for stockholders.

Isn't it great what you can learn from the internet?

I have problems with authority

Apparently I have too much respect for it.

This last week I was in San Francisco for the Google IO developers' conference at the Moscone Center West.  It was tons of fun, super nerdy and pretty much everything I hoped it would be; but that's a different story.

Instead, today's look into the life of B-Rob comes from his voyage out to San Francisco.  You see, instead of fly (boring!) and then have to find my way around the peninsula relying on other people for transport and so on, I decided to drive.  This last Monday I was chugging along through the Reno Nevada area on the phone with Mom and Dad, when suddenly I noticed a police marked SUV hovering around me.  Naturally he started making me nervous.

To make a long story short, he pulled me over for "following too closely, changing lanes without using a turn signal, and weaving within my lane."  He also mentioned that he didn't get me on radar, but had a feeling I was going too fast.  Good thing they can't give out tickets based on their feelings.  He said he was going to let me off with a warning this time (third time in my life I've been pulled over, and I still haven't been ticketed).

He couldn't get over the fact that I was nervous for some reason, though.  I suppose I look like suspicious when I don't shave or something.  He wanted to ask some more questions, and so I obliged.  The conversation went something like this:

"Why are you going to San Francisco?"
"I'm going to a developers' conference for google."
"Where will you be staying?"
"With my cousins in San Jose."
"Are you carrying anything for anyone?"
"Well, yes...I guess I am, I am helping a friend of mine that is attending the conference move some stuff because he's starting a job in Sacramento and didn't have room in his car for it."
"Do you have anything illegal in your car?"
"No, (of course not, I think, I'm a mormon boy).  "You can search it if you really want."
"Are you volunteering?"
If you're asking, yes.  "If you want."

Then he handed me a form to sign, and I started filling it out right there.  "Did you read it?"  Why do I care?  I didn't do anything wrong.  "Oh, ok, well let's see...looks good."  Signed.  Then he made me stand a good 50 feet away while he went through my trunk and pulled out all my friend's baggage, hangers, clothing, and other odds and ends.  After about five minutes he seemed satisfied and told me not to be so nervous, that he thought I looked like I should be in trouble.  I told him I'd probably take a break there in Reno for a bit, get some gas, then head back out onto the road.

So ends my latest encounter with law enforcement.  I'm not sure what to take away from the experience, honestly.  Am I not supposed to be scared of being pulled over?  I guess I have too much of a criminal look; hopefully I never get framed.

There's a new guy at work now.

He's here to replace me, since today is my last day at work here in Provo.  Based on the following chat from yesterday, I think he'll do fine:

Conversation with Drew - 257 on 5/13/2010 3:41:05 PM:
(3:41:07 PM) Me: hi dres
(3:41:10 PM)  Me: *drew
(3:41:10 PM)  Drew: dres?
(3:41:12 PM) Drew: Gotcha
(3:41:15 PM) Drew: I am so offended
(3:41:20 PM)  Me: fine, I quite
(3:41:22 PM)  Me: *quit
(3:41:32 PM) Drew: You can't quit...
(3:41:34 PM) Drew: YOU'RE FIRED
(3:41:43 PM)  Me: you don't have that authority
(3:41:48 PM)  Me: ...yet
(3:41:51 PM) Drew: Brian asked me to tell you
(3:42:01 PM)  Me: hey, just fyi, your pants are on fire

Dating is trench warfare.

This post has been long in the making, mostly because I am constantly second guessing my theories on life, especially dating.  For entertainment's sake I've decided to just throw this up there anyway, whether or not it's a true principle.  It's just a theory, after all.  Now we just need to apply it to real life and see how well it holds true.

Dating.  It doesn't make sense.

There are merits to dating; such as cultivating healthy relationships, giving people time to really get to know each other and spend time together, so on and so forth.  But when it comes to the nitty gritty details of an individual's emotional welfare, dating can be a real battle.

First of all, I think we can all agree that there are two sides in this battle.  Boys vs. Girls.  All us men-folk camp out on our side of no-man's land, doing manly things all the time and wondering if this is all there is to life.  Women-folk are on their side, doing who knows what with their time and energy (how should I know, I'm in with the men, after all).  Every now and then some guy or girl builds up enough courage to single out someone they want to take out (on a date) and they charge across the barren fields of no-man's land.  Sometimes they make it.  Many times they're just gunned down in their tracks, except the only problem with this war is it won't kill you.  Then there is the long crawl dragging your broken self back to your side of the lines.  You patch yourself up, then start plotting your next line of attack.

Every once and a while, at times like Christmas or Easter, or even when the weather finally starts getting warmer again in the spring, relations tend to thaw a little bit.  Just like the old World War I soldiers, people will just climb out of their foxholes and meet up in the middle of the fields of war for a little party time.  Everyone should have at least one good friend of the opposite gender that they can just talk to--nothing more, nothing less.  Then afterwards they climb back into the trenches, and the next morning they're back at it again.

Of course there are many much more advanced tactics available than simply charging across the field, too.  I won't go into detail, but there certainly can be much debate over the effectiveness of spy planes, thickening your skin using personal armor of some type, or even area of effect weaponry such as mustard gas or grenades.  And, to be perfectly honest, I would not be surprised if this analogy only makes sense from the male perspective.  But there you are, from one shell-shocked young single adult to another, there's just one of the many thoughts that I've had run through my crazy brain in recent months.

Cartoon Politics

Life is so boring with people always being so serious.  Apparently the Apple app store banned an app from a pulitzer prize winning cartoonist recently.  His work is "too controversial" for them.  Turns out that Apple believes in communist style suppression of freedom of speech.  I say we send them to China where they belong; I mean, that's where all their iPods and stuff are made anyway.

Kudos to this cartoonist, though.  Here's some of his work:

Obama Interruptions