Assistantship

Put another one in the "It's better to be lucky and blessed than good" column... I got an assistantship.

After a few months of swinging and missing (à la the Florida State bats against Miami with runners-in-scoring-position), I was afforded an amazing opportunity by my program head, Dr. Joseph Beckham. He offered me a choice of two jobs that will pay me a small stipend as well as provide me with tuition grants for the coming school year. Both were far better than I deserve (in my mind) and one stood out greatly. So, I am taking the opportunity and running with it (à la Walter Dix and the Back-to-Back-to-Back National Champion Florida State Seminole Track and Field Team.)

For the next year I will be working with Florida State's President, Dr. T.K. Wetherell, developing courses in the Higher Education Department. This is new ground for both of us, so hopefully I won't mess it up too bad for him.

I am very grateful and humbled by this offer and look forward to getting back to school come August. This is a lesson to show that missing out on perceived opportunities is not always something bad, as I theoretically could have been offered other jobs in the past few months and missed on this extraordinary chance, but things have worked out in the absolute best way possible.

Mufasa

Mufasa, Mufasa, Mufasa!

So cross getting me a lionfish off of your list. Yesterday we decided to add to our aquarium family and purchased Mufasa, a red lionfish.

He is fitting in sorta well... meaning he is a solitary loner and is difficult to feed. Hopefully we can figure it out soon.

We also got an anemone and some Mexican snail things... they are cool too.

He looks like this, so the fact that he is hard to feed, highly poisonous, and doesn't socialize with the other fish is not a big deal at all:
In conclusion, there are 50 days shopping days left until my birthday. Remember that down.

Popcorn Popping Right Before my Eyes

My short run in the best calling in the Church has ended. I am no longer a Nursery worker. No more snack, Play-Doh, or building blocks. However, I still get to skip Priesthood and Sunday School.

I am now the Primary Music Leader. Scary huh? I am rather intimidated by this calling, but I think I'll be alright after the first few Sundays.

To anyone with thoughts or ideas, I will graciously accept them along with any encouragement you have to offer.

The Eternal Question of No Import

"How about the power of flight? Does that do anything for ya? That's levitation holmes. How 'bout the power to kill a yak, from 200 yards away! With mind bullets! That's telekinesis Kyle." -- Tenacious D "Wonderboy"

Through the ages of time, man has dreamed of having supernatural powers. But the question continually begs, which superpower is the best? Given the choice of only one power, what would your desire be? When the ubiquitous Brian Barabash posed it to me last week, this question returned to the forefront of my mind. Since then, I have assembled a veritable "who's who" of the world's foremost experts on superpowers; Logan Anderson, Lance Anderson, Kyre Lahtinen, and myself.... maybe not so much a "who's who" and more of a "who?".... but I digress.

Several powers were discussed, including flight, invisibility, telekinesis, teleportation, etc. Each panel member weighed in, and these are the results:

For the good of the world, Brian Barabash's favorite power, "The Sterile Touch", ranked very highly, but our panel members were not necessarily in it for the good of the world. This power basically allows you to play God, or at least surgeon, and suspend the procreative powers of any man or woman you deem not suitable for parenthood. I believe this power would be fantastic, but the responsibility would be so enormous that it would make the job quite undesirable.

On the ability to control the weather, panelist Logan Anderson concluded, "Maybe I'm just not being very creative here, but I can't see that much use for this power aside from destruction and super cool electrity/fire/water shooting. Which is super awesome, but would eventually not be needed to be used that much. This power jumps up to #2 (almost #1) in my mind, mind you, if it includes the ability to summon Captain Planet." This panelist agrees, Captain Planet rocks.

Invisibility has it's advantages, or as Kyre Lahtinen puts it, "The Universal Law of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon dictates that any individual possessing the ability to become invisible, either intentionally or unintentionally, immediately takes on the properties of the Five Degrees of “that individual’s name” raised to the Kevin Bacon. That, my friend, is a scientific fact; and you can quote me on it." I don't understand it, but Mr. Lahtinen does.

Telekinesis has been commented on by panelist Lance Anderson thusly, "Any simple scratching of the backside would be easily relieved through the power of your mind. I think that the real reason that Yoda was so feeble and short and everything was because he was too busy lifting X-Wings out of the Dagobah swamp with his telekinesis/force powers, and not pumping some iron with those green wrinkly arms."

However, these powers all failed to crack the top 2. The biggest debate is Flying vs. Teleportation. According to Lance, flying is cooler because chicks dig it and it looks way cool. Logan and I agree that teleportation is way better and offers a vast array of exciting money making/crime fighting/break dancing maneuvers. This power becomes especially cool if you are able to take someone with you by touching them, à la Side-Along Apparition from Harry Potter.

The real winner? Post-discussion, Logan Anderson concluded that Time-Travel would actually be way cooler, because it would be: Teleportation + Ability to Witness Cool Events in History + Ability to be like Biff in Back to the Future II and make loads of cash. I can't help but concur. Time-Travel wins in a landslide.