Marrying Man

today I got to marry a young couple. She has been married, divorced and has three kids. For him its the first time. The names were great to pronounce: She's Hawaiian and he's Chinese. When I ask him the solemn question, rather that saying "I Do" he said. "yeah, I guess so". I hope they have a great honeymoon.

working for "the man"

Working for the University of Phoenix has been a nice bonus but I'm starting to experience a few problems. First is the economics of higher education. I am hired as a private contractor, meaning they don't have to pay any benefits, plus I'm supposed to come up with all the materials and resources for my own classes. I get paid a little under $1,000 per class and each student pays a little over $1,000 per class. That's a comfortable profit margin. Second, they have decided that I can teach everything so the past four classes assigned me, three were new. Two of them psychology classes which I'm not too strong in anyway. Third, there was a scheduling mix-up so they tabbed me to pick up a geography class, a week before it started. Its one I've taught so I wasn't too concerned until I looked more closely at the schedule and realized they had scheduled me over another class. They told me they would get me a sub for that night, now what I'm waiting to see is if they dock me pay for having to get a sub even tho its their fault. Oh well, I've almost made enough off of them to pay off my student loan, which was the original intent.

Em wanted a new blog so here goes: By the way Joe died on Wed. and his funeral will be Monday.
Last night as I was driving home from teaching a class up by Clearfield I thought I saw a stange sight. It took me awhile to recognize the wierdness of what I was experiencing and I'm still not sure if it was true (being 10:00 PM and driving with only one eye open) but I believe I actually drove through a stretch of Utah highway that DIDN'T have any orange barrels or cones lined up along it. It was a surreal experience!

Death and dying

It looks to be an interesting week for the old ward. Fletcher Norris went off dialysis 2 weeks ago and is certainly within a day or two of going to the great beyond. I was called on to give him a blessing to speed things along. His daughter wanted to do the right thing by having him come home to her house to die, but it is wearing on her as she watches the life ebb away.
Joe Peterson has decided his quality of life isn't worth extending anymore and is going off dialysis this week. I got a couple of calls this morning from other members (as news has leaked out of his decision) who wonder whether he is making the right decision or even if he might be doing something that is against God's plan. Its a tough dilemma? What is suicide? What does it mean when we state: "Do not recesitate"? Who gets to determine what quality of life is worth sustaining? It would be nice to make all those decisions early in life and take the burden off the children or spouse, but what I'm realizing is that the attitude about such things can change over time and maybe even daily. There are all sorts of issues involved and we have the chance to learn so many things by watching others.

Eating Healthy

So as I was mowing the lawn last week I ate a couple of apple, some plums, and a tomato. Then to balance my diet I had a Jr. Whopper. Life's good in the fall.

Best of Utah

Spring and Fall are great seasons in Utah, the heat isn't bad and the cold has subsided. The colors of the leaves are nice and the bugs aren't bad. Yup I really enjoy those three days each year!

Modern Football in Cougar-town, nation, universe

I spent a lovely afternoon with 65,000 of my friends at the BYU Arizona game. It was a good game and we even won but as I was watching the crowd I had a few thoughts: 1) this large generation of diabetic prone people are going to change the seating at stadiums. The 8-10 inches allotted to each person's butt just isn't cutting it anymore. 2) Why bring young younguns to the game, sure baby sitting costs a little money but if you are reduced to reading the little tyke books about the destruction of the dinosaurs during the third quarter...well what's sacrament meeting for? 3) I'm waiting for an audience to really express their hatred for the purple hat guy. He is the gnome that works for the television people and decides abitraily to walk out on the field and stop the action so that some station can sell a truck or a beer to people watching the game from their easy chair. I think those that have paid the big bucks to be in the seats, squished between the large bottomed thousands are the one's that should be catered to, and if the oaf at home misses a play or two and is bothered by that, then they should pay the money and wedge themselves into those staduim seats that were designed by the Seven Dwarf drafing and engineering corp. (the 12" legroom looked plenty big to them).