Coming Soon to a Boom Box Near You

This is what I did with most of my day today. I was very much inspired by the realistic-looking icons Mac OS X has for printers. I'm working on a web site for the Church and needed an image of a cassette tape. Finding a high-res image of a cassette tape proved a little more lame that I thought (that is, until a co-worker showed me tapedeck.org). So I grabbed an image of the current LDS Catalog site and more-or-less traced it. The fun/challenging part was adding the color. That is what made it realistic and that is where I pulled in the expertise of my co-worker.

And while I'm showing off things I've done at work, check out LDS Account. It's a service that the church is offering which will (eventually) allow you to sign in to nearly any online service the church provides. Currenly there are few services our there that utilize it simply because it's so new. Eventually your Stake and Ward websites will use it. But now you are in the know.

I Think I Just Got Punked

Here is an exchange I had with a lady sitting on a corner downtown (verbatim, as far as memory serves):

Lady: So how's your McDonalds?

Me: Huh?

Lady: How's your McDonalds? Is it good food?

Me: Yeah, I think they have pretty good food nowadays.

Lady: Hmm. I think I might do carry-out. That might be nice.

Me: Yeah.

Lady: Carry-out, just like they did Mildred.

Me: yup ...


This is what I love about working downtown.

On a Lighter Note,

This looks really comfortable

Agency

I want to make something clear. My religion is not superstition. I would like you to think of what “superstition” means. I think of somebody kissing a frizzy-haired doll before their bingo number is called: no grasp on cause and effect. The connection between the two events exists only in the mind. I learned cause and effect in science class. Correlation does not mean causation.

I have seen people treat their religion like a superstition and I have seen people treat religion like reality. There is a key difference between these two behaviors. The first, treating religion superstitiously, is dangerous. This is likely to result in learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a psychological condition that happens then the person can’t detect a pattern in their actions and their consequences. That is to say, they feel they have no control over their situation, whatever they do is futile. They have learned to feel helpless.

When you realize, however, that religion is reality, and that God does in reality live, you begin a constant journey of converting faith into knowledge (Alma 32). And as you travel down this path, you gain a sense that you are truly an agent unto yourself (D&C 58:28).

Salvation By Haircut

This post is for Katie. If you get to talking to her about the BYU honor code, she will tell you exactly what she thinks about it. To save you the suspense, I'll tell you that she is against it. And this always raises a good amount of controversy, especially since a number of our extended family have strong feelings in favor of the h0nor code. Me? As is typical, I can see both sides of the argument. In this day and age, it's comforting to know that there is a place that does not relax its standards to appear in vogue with the rest of the world. However, we can never learn for ourselves until we are able to exercise free will.

This morning I was reading on Wikipedia about Hugh Nibley, a superstar LDS Scholar. Brother Nibley had been a professor at BYU from 1946 until 1975, but continued teaching there as a professor emeritus until 1994. I feel confident that he was familiar with the BYU Honor Code. Katie will be interested to know that Hugh Nibley was very critical about the some of the ways in portions the Honor Code are enforced. He notes that

The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances. Taken from The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU

In other words, little can be profited by an overactive focus on the dress and grooming of the students. I'm not suggesting that the relaxing of the BYU Honor Code will produce better Laatter-day Saints. I am suggesting that we all put first in our minds our relationship to Jesus Christ in our daily lives. Do we know Christ, and is His image in our countenance?

Tagged

As infrequently as I post on this blog, I figured I should jump on her invitation to fill out this little blog meme so all both of my readers will get to know me better. But since one of those readers is Katie, I guess this one goes out to the other reader.

10 Years Ago: I had probably opened my mission call and was reading about Virginia in an encyclopedia (note, wikipedia was not even a gleam in Jimmy Wales' eye). It's also possible that I was getting ready to go on a date with Trinity McDermaid, my biggest crush at the time.

5 Years Ago: I had recently proposed to my girlfriend Katie (my biggest crush at that time ... come to think of it, she's still my biggest crush). She had just scratched the surface of how angry she could be at one human being (me). I'm thinking we've gotten just below the surface now.

5 Months Ago: I was getting ready for the strangest job switch in my short professional history. I was going to quit one company and work for another just so I could keep doing what I had been doing. I had been working as a contractor through STG for the LDS Church and I was hiring on full-time at the Church.

5 things on my to-do list today:

1. Work on designs for magazine subscription site
2. Ride my bike to TRAX
3. Attend an HTML workshop put on by mah peeps at work
4. Come home to my loving wife
5. Await her instructions concerning my after-work to-do list

5 snacks I enjoy:

1. M & Ms
2. Cookie Dough
3. Ice cream
4. Graham crackers and Cool Whip™ Free
5. Chips & Salsa

5 thinks I would do if I were suddenly a millionaire:

1. New car (a Mini Cooper)
2. Server Room
3. Media Room
4. New computer(s)
5. Ice Cream for everyone

5 of my bad habits:

1. Bad Speling
2. Procrastination
3. Clutter
4. Not following through
5. Easily distrac

5 places I have lived:

1. Salt Lake
2. Sandy
3. Farmville
4. Orem
5. Draper

5 jobs I have had:

1. Buddy Beeper
2. Cell phone salesman
3. Antique furniture mover
4. Developer
5. Designer

5 things people don't know about me:

1. I have a secret crush on all 3 of my sisters-in-law (Katie, your sisters are hot)
2. My dream job would be to lecture on philosophy
3. I believe God put me on earth for a very specific purpose (although I don't know exactly what that is)
   
4. My greatest fear is that I will fail at that purpose
   
5. There is no 's' on the end of Grigg

So there you go. That was actually a really cathartic exercise, thanks Katie. 5 people I tag: Drew and Taylor, the Meyers family, The Owens family (even though Katie already tagged them) and Shboogoo.

Un Tooned

Verry talented bloke over at Pixeloo took it upon himself to see what a couple of different cartoon characters would look in real life. This isn't to say, "What would they look like if they were a real person", all he did was take the proportions of the character and apply photo-realistic texture and shading. Based on the comments on his site, Mario is a molester and Homer is a murderer. What do you say?