Geocaching and Grave Digging

This weekend is our yearly pilgrimage to all of my wife's family grave sites. At our first stop, her maternal grandparents in Duchesne, we did a little grave repair, which I'm sure had a few people wondering what we were up to.
We also did a little geocaching. Which was a lot of fun. With a fun little app on my phone we had a full blown treasure hunt. It took a few minutes to find, even once we arrived at the gps coordinates.
Then we headed back to the hotel for some swimming. There is some mexican church group staying at the same hotel. The pool was so dang full that it didn't matter if you knew how swim our not. But then they were all called to some kind of saturday night religious meeting in which a guy with no singing skill bellowed out "¡YO QUIERO MAIS!" at the top of his lungs. But, the pool was sudfenly usable.

The Art of Self-Compulsion

The lessons and discussions in church this morning got me thinking. And this post will be putting those thoughts to paper.

If you are reading this, whether you are religious or not, I how you stick with me. This post is about mankind, not religion or God.

We were taking about prayer, specifically about praying for our Heavenly Father to place specific opportunities in our lives. And it occured to me: what we are really praying for is to be compelledinto those opportunities.

For example, when we prayfor help being more humble, what we are really asking is for Him to make us humble. I think it is human nature to look fire someone to do the hard part for us. In some ways I think atheists have an advantage in this regard. They believe that there is no one there to help them, and so they are more motivated to act.

Now, I do believe in God. So, I do find myself sitting around waiting for asked-for blessings to start raining in on me.

But, this is wrong. Religious our not, atheist or Muslim, Jew, or Christian, you have to work on yourself. And for yourself.

Ok, now I want to leave theology behind and talk solely about people. I hope you're all still with me (is it funny that I pretend to have readers, our just sad?).

So, how do we, as the post title suggest, self-coerce? Or self-motivate? How do we move ourselves forward in lieu of waiting for others to do out for us?

I think that self-improvement is important to just about everyone. But I think our own motivations often slide around, between self-gratification, self-improvement, and sometimes even self-destruction. Actual selfless-ness is pretty rare, if not completely foreign, for most of us.

I'm rambling. Sorry.

Let's get back on track with an example. I want to learn to play the guitar. I've even made some really good starts in teaching myself. But, after years of owning a guitar, and all of the materials that I need to learn, why can I still not play guitar? Truthfully? I think it's because it takes actual effort on my part and no amount of waiting for someone to do that work for me if going to work. I can't just pray for it and suddenly rival Slash.

So what other personal improvements am I waiting for someone to do for me? I have no job. Maybe someone is going to just approach me and offer to hire me to do my dream job for an absurd amount of money. Yeah, I'm sure that's how it will happen. Or, maybe, if I go out there and do some searching along with my praying, I'll find something, an opportunity of some kind, to support my family financially.

I guess I don't really know what my point was in all this rambling nonsense. Maybe just that we need to stop waiting and start doing. Maybe this has just ben a whole lot of chewing myself out. I know I needed it.

Date Night - Sushi and Fair Game

After suffering through 3 hours of an elementary school carnival, Tauni took me out on a date. All the movies out right now look like cinematic excrement, so we just went to dinner, then rented a movie to watch at home.

First after wandering around town wondering where to eat, we headed to Wabi Sabi. We'd heard good things and wanted to try it out. Tauni is somewhat of a sushi virgin, and I'm none too experienced with it myself. But, we were daring and after long moments or indecision, ordered two sushi rolls and some gyosa. Both rolls of sushi contained raw tuna.  And they were delicious.

As a side note, just because you can eat wasabi peas by the handful, does not mean that you can take fresh wasabi and it in similar quantities. I've learned that lesson the hard way. Tauni almost got us kicked out of the restaurant, she was laughing so hard.

We both left stuffed, though we didn't get that much food. And, apparently, they don't let you take sushi home in doggy bags, so we had to leave a few sections behind.

We found a redbox and rented Fair Game, which turned out to be a pretty good movie. I am always impressed with Sean Penn's acting, even though he seems like such a douche in real life. The movie, is part spy flick, part government expose, and part drama. It makes you think a bit about government power, and how much they may or may not be abusing it. And it made be remember this quote:

"Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it." — Mark Twain

Most people think that country and government are one and the same. But, they are not.

I guess now I should probably go on record and say that I am not one of those anti-government conspiracy theorists. Do I think our government lies to us? Yeah, they do. Do I think they destroy families and peoples lives and mold data to fit whatever their agenda happens to be at the time? Of course they do. Was Bush a corrupt president? Probably, and I think Obama probably is too.

The problem we face as Americans is that we cannot believe anything we hear in the media. They, also, spin data to match their agenda.

The only way to get corruption out of government (and media) is to get corruption out of people. No matter how perfectly setup a system of government is, there will always be people that want to exploit any loophole or twist it for their own ends.

Aftermath

Well, I am sore today. I was already having some moob pain from a workout a free days ago, in which I introduced some new weight training type stuff.

But today, after last night's run, I am hurting. It was a race, afterall, and I pushed myself much harder than I normally do. Surprisingly, most of the pain is localized in my calfs and ankles.

I guess I know where to focus on future workouts. Once I've healed, that is.

Today's workout I actually had to warm-up before I could run. That's how bad it was. Generally, I just take off jogging at a good pace, then adjust from there. I got the blood flowing and was soon running, did some weights (the same pain inducing sets as before), and then some stationary bike.

I don't think anything helps the body heal quicker than getting the blood flossing through it faster.

And now I am home again, needing to continue with actual life related thing, instead of laying on my bed, blogging on my phone.

First* 5k, of many.

* It was my first 5k since I was 16 years old running Cross Country in High School.

Tonight was the Brookwood Elementary Fun Run/5k. And it was the first running race of any kind that I have been in in over 15 years.

I won...sort of.

My time was 22:30, which I am pretty psyched about. I doubt I have any chance of ever reaching my former levels or cross country prowess. But, I think about how I was 40 lbs. fatter a few months ago, and couldn't run 50 feet without dying of a heart attack, and I'm pretty happy with where I am now.

I won, first place in my age group, 'younger' adults. But I only got 7th place, overall. The sad thing was that I was beaten by two old guys (40+), two 6th graders, and two teens. And the first female runner finished only about 30 seconds behind me. But, I'm happy. I was really only racing myself, to see how good I could do, time-wise, and to set the bar for my next race.

I need to also mention that my wonderful girls also participated. In the little half-mile fun run for the little kids, Elyse got second place out of the girl kinder-gardeners. She may have caught the running bug now, too.

Katy and Tauni, and Elyse, walked/ran most of the 5k. I appreciate Tauni sticking with the girls so that I could do a race speed run. I feel a little bad for Katy, who didn't get a medal. I've been trying extra hard to make her feel special.

...winter comes again.

This morning I was in a meeting with several of the local leaders of out church. As we discussed a family in need of assistance, their house in dire need of repair and they do not have the resources to do it themselves, our Bishop made the statement that we, and they, need to get things done now, because "winter comes again."

He meant it literally when he said it. But the statement struck me figuratively as well. Perhaps that is because I am in a figurative winter right now.

I guess the lesson here is that winter always comes, so prepare in the summer, figuratively. Perhaps you should also say that summer also comes again. Which can be hard to remember in a winter.

Figuratively, of course.

On a not completely unrelated note, I was released from my calling of Elders Quorum President today. While I feel some relief, as it has been a big responsibility and sometimes burden, I am saddened by the loss of opportunities to serve my brothers. Before my experience as the EQP, I cared little for people outside my own family. I never sought to help others. I hope that if I
learned anything, it's to love people and to actively serve those who need it.

I know that Tauni fears that with my release, we will lose what divine help we had been receiving. I do not feel that this is the case. If anything, I think there will be less opposition to his blessing.

I know, I know. I'm not normally one to get so religious in my blogging. But, it is a part of who I am.

Also, we finally got rid of our Chrystler Town & Deathtrap. We traded it in for this wicked Nissan Altima.

Oh, lordy, my nips hurt!

I guess it's something that I'd conveniently forgotten from my days of running cross-country in high school. Or perhaps I repressed the memory, like I do with all horrible things.

Either way, I certainly recall it now:

running = chaffing

I'd become reacquainted with the chaffed inner-thighs thing a few months ago, and got some new undies that took care if it.

Over the last few weeks, I've experienced some new chaffing. On my nipples. And it's getting worse. Seriously, it's like running in sand-paper shirts.

I hear there is some sort of roll-on anti-chaffing stuff, like a deodorant stick. As soon as I figure out where to buy some, I most definitely will do so.