Reading by the River

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

10/10

Foer is a masterful author. The first thing that pulled me into the novel was a series of creative and unique observations. The second thing that pulled me into the novel was the uniqueness of Oskar Schell and his family. Oskar is nine years old, over-educated, curious, confident, vegan and pacifistic. He sees the world through different eyes.

Oskar's relationship with his father is quite close. His father fulfills the role of provider and protector, but he truly shines in the role of teacher. Socrates reborn. Common activities include reading through the New York Times looking for grammar and punctuation errors, going on treasure hunts a la National Treasure in Central Park, etc.

On September 11, Oskar's father Thomas dies in the World Trade Center and Oskar's life spins into a freefall. Soon thereafter, Oskar finds a blue vase he had never seen before in his father's closet. Inside the vase is an envelope with the word "Black" written on it, and inside the envelope is a key.

Oskar launches on a city-wide quest to find the lock which fits the key, contacting every single person with the surname Black in any of the five boroughs. His adventures are interesting, moving, and keep you wondering what he will find at the end of the quest.

Intermixed with Oskar's story are narratives from two other perspectives - one from a homeless ex-sculptor who no longer speaks and has tattooed "Yes" on one hand and "No" on the other. He carries around daybooks in which he writes more complicated questions and answers. The other is from Oskar's paternal grandmother, abandoned by her husband, mourning her dead son, who lives across the street from Oscar and is an integral part of his life.

The three perspectives slowly weave themselves together and pieces of the mystery fall into place. Long-hidden secrets are revealed, relieving heavy burdens and healing rifts.

One theme I noticed at the end of the novel related to these secrets. The Schell family had a habit of keeping large secrets in order to shield other family members from pain. However, when the secrets were revealed, the other parties already knew the content. But because one party was too stubborn to share and the other was too stubborn to confront, the rifts and pain had grown and festered.

And that's just the storyline. Foer

You should read this book. It's intelligent, mysterious, captivating, and enjoyable.

Why We Believe

As some of you know, I've spent some of my free time recently creating a website, http://www.whywebelieve.com. I personally had a lot of fun creating it, especially because it constantly challenged me to learn new things. Anyway, we've now officially launched the site, and I would love if you would check it out and contribute.

I would love feedback and suggestions, so if you have any, there's a link at the bottom of each page of the site.

It's kind of nice to have finished this project, because now I can move on to something else. Perhaps derekchristensen.com, which I purchased but is still standing vacant, with nothing but a shell of a Joomla installation. Or incompletelybrilliant.com, which isn't quite as vacant, but has only had a day of work. I'm also considering working with some friends on start-ups. Learning iPhone programming would also be interesting.

Here's the blurb from the About Us page (which I wrote, so it's pretty much like reading one of my blog posts anyway, so don't skip it!)

The goal of Why We Believe is to provide a place where members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints can share their testimonies online. We strongly encourage you to post a link to your testimony on all of your social media profiles: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogger, etc.

The idea came from the 2009 LDS Education Conference held in Boston. Clayton Christensen, a highly-respected Harvard Business School professor, and David Neeleman, founder and CEO of Jet Blue, spoke to a group of approximately 600 LDS single adults about innovative ways to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

After the presentations, groups of participants brainstormed and drafted innovative ideas for sharing the gospel. All participants then voted on the ideas they liked most. The idea for Why We Believe came from that poster session.

An excellent summary of the Education Conference, including videos of the keynote speakers, can be found here.

Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day

Free cone day!

no wonder the bottled water is complimentary...

Smithsonian Castle

Only my brother...

Wordoid

This site is pretty cool. Trying to think up a creative URL? Look no further.

http://wordoid.com/

This one too...

Two weeks ago, we had pajama prom with two of the singles wards here. It was ladies choice so I happened to ask the man in charge.

Hence, I "luckily" got to help out before the dance and decorate the place like prom. I would like to point out I did the professional photography backdrop and hung all the lights up inside the gym. Unfortunately, I did not get to eat any waffles at the dance, as dinner did not sit well with me. My group took our dates to eat at Bertucci's in our pajamas.

I bought Derek pj pants that were pink and gray plaid... only to show up to the dance to see his best friend Mark wearing the same pants. Looks like Mark and I had similar shopping tastes and it made for a great laugh. I bought my pjs at a thrift store. You can't really see the over sized silky top but I thought they were fun.

I stole this post from Brooke's blog

I have been dreaming about visiting DC for a very long time. When I had a few days off work, and Derek can do basically whatever he wants, we decided to book a quick flight to visit his parents. I have received several requests for pictures so here are more than you want to see.

We loved walking around Georgetown with the cute houses and shops.

Derek wanted to leave Julia butter. Bon Appetit!

I am hoping to post a video in the upcoming month.

My dad said I want to see a picture of you, Derek, and Obama. We saw one Marine 1 fly in (3 fly in together) and had no idea he was in our picture until afterward. Please Barack, I charge people to get my picture taken with them.

Library of Congress.

I want to pretend this picture is a joke but we really did walk around with our smitten glove (I bought us half joking but mostly seriously). Derek's parents did not even make fun of us. I guarantee my dad has ten jokes within thirty seconds of seeing this picture.

Our last morning we took it easy. Above Derek is chatting with his sister on his mom's blue tooth. We were still in our pajamas when we went out to shovel snow around 4 pm. I love staying in on a beautiful, snowy day. (And lets be real, we were tried of the National Mall, there is only so much you can take in a span of a couple days).

And one more....

I will make it on this wall someday

Rain rain go away

DC

We may have looked like Asian tourists the entire weekend, but at least we did something productive with the footage. Brooke was a film editor before she moved out here to Boston.

Random Wall Decoration I Like #2

(this one was in banana republic)

Random Wall Decoration I Like #1

Opportunity Shop

That's what they call Thrift Stores in DC. I love the branding!

Games

Xbox 360 Games - E3 2010 - Guitar Hero 5

Food Rules

I finally got around to buying Michael Pollan's book Food Rules. I devoured it on the plane. It's short, it's easy to read, it's memorable, and you feel healthier just reading it.

Now to put it into practice. I got a hotel with a kitchen so I wouldn't eat out every night (although there's an incredible restaurant called Good Earth which has tasty and moderately-priced organic food).

On my way to the hotel on Monday I stopped by a grocery store and bought healthy food - whole wheat noodles, beans, salmon, whole wheat rolls, and a potato and yam combo. It was tasty, and I've got leftovers.


Next time you're at a bookstore, do yourself a favor and flip through the book. It contains simple, down-to earth food advice. It's not a diet. It's not counting calories. It's simply a collection of "Hey, here are some rules of thumb that will keep you healthy."

Some of my favorites:

If it has more than 5 ingredients on the label, don't eat it.
Pay the grocer today instead of the doctor tomorrow.
Put down your fork between bites.
Drink your food and chew your drink (i.e. chew well before swallowing)
The whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead.
If a third grader can't pronounce the ingredients, don't eat it.
If your grandmother wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it.
Don't buy your food where you buy your gas.
If a cereal changes color in milk, don't eat it.

Aliso Viejo

This past weekend was rejuvinating. How could I have forgotten how beautiful Southern California is? I guess Aliso Viejo (right by Laguna Beach - in Orange County, for all you OC fans out there) is a lot more scenic than Compton and Watts. I used one of my flex trips from work to go visit Brig, one of my college roommates and best friends. His wife and kids were out of town for the weekend, so it was one long awesome guys night out.

We rode bicycles outside in shorts and t-shirts. We started building a giant bear out of flexible tubing, an egg-crate mattress, and faux fur. I purchased another domain name and got 80% of a site up and running (http://incompletelybrilliant.com). We fixed Brig's blog so it shows up now (http://www.whatwedidnttellyou.com). We went to the mall. Brig bought a blazer. I almost bought skinny jeans, but I don't think I'm cool enough to wear them yet so I didn't. He bought Made to Stick. I bought Food Rules. We watched The Hurt Locker on Clearplay. I didn't think it was all that good. We BBQ's carne asada and had homemade french fries and asparagus.We stayed up until 2:30 AM mocking up financials for different business ideas. We were so tired we couldn't even think straight. It was amazing. We went to a Euro Techno dance club and tore it up (aka - nobody else was dancing, but we were).

Did I mention that it's beautiful. This is the view from the church building.

And this is Brig. He does advertising for a start-up company. Check them out at http://smi.sh

"Are you feeling green?"

That's what the girl at the Hertz rental counter of the St. Paul airport asked me a little after midnight on Sunday/Monday. Not really knowing what she was hinting at and distrusting how perky she was that late at night, I hesitantly said yes. The result? I got a free upgrade to a Toyota Prius.

After reassuring me that the gas pedal wasn't going to get stuck and send me to a fiery (yet environmentally friendly) death, she walked me out to the car to set my radio presets to good stations and to show me how it works. There's a key fob, but no key. As long as the key is proximate to the car, you can start it. Simply put your foot on the brake and press the Power button.

To put it in gear, you use the little joystick. To put it in park, you press the P button. There's also one of those cameras which shows what's behind you when you're reversing. Kinda fun.