Professional Sports

Lately I haven't been watching professional sports on television. The World Series is going on right now and I haven’t watched a single game. I used to watch professional sports all the time. I would mostly follow my favorite teams but on occasion I would watch other teams. I have been watching college sports a lot lately (mostly football). I have lost so much interest in watching professional sports mainly because all of my favorite sports teams are absolutely horrible. My favorite sports teams include the Sacramento Kings, the San Francisco 49ers, and the San Francisco Giants. I’m the kind of sports fan that will not “jump on the bandwagon” and start liking a certain team because they are good. I have had my loyalties toward my favorite sports teams ever since I was a little kid. I refuse to change them because they stink. Most professional teams are good for a few years, then they are at the bottom for a few years, and then they are good again. It is annoying because there are a few teams out there that are always at the top and never at the bottom. As of right now, all three of my favorite sports teams are at the bottom doing horrible. It has been a long time since they have been at the top, especially for the 49ers. I try to follow my teams but it is so painful to watch how horrible they really are. I would watch them a lot more if they were actually competitive, but most of the time they don’t even stand a chance to win. Hopefully sometime soon one of my favorite teams will start winning again. In the mean time I am going to stick to watching just college sports.

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!!!

Most people aren't getting too excited that fall is here and it is starting to get cold outside. Fall in Utah means that winter is right around the corning and when winter is here, the snow is also. I've already heard a lot of people complaining about the cold weather. My feelings toward winter are the opposite. Although I don't love being cold, I do love the snow and snowboarding. I've also learned that you can still be very comfortable by dressing warm. We've already had our first little snow here in Utah and I felt like a little kid waiting to open his presents on Christmas Eve. I know that a good snow storm is right around the corner and I absolutely cannot wait until the ski resorts open up so I can hit the slopes up on my brand new snowboard! I’m especially excited for this winter because I plan on taking a snowboarding class when I transfer to BYU Idaho in the winter and I know I will have a chance to go up several times. Riding can be so peaceful and at the same time thrilling. I used to wear headphones while I went snowboarding, but it is so much more enjoying for me to hear the quiet sounds of nature and the sound of my board gliding across the snow. I feel that to really start enjoying snowboarding, you need to go at least 5 times. Some people go boarding one or two times and they say they hate it. I feel sorry for these people because I know that they are truly missing out on something amazing! If you will just give snowboarding a real chance and try it out at least 5 times, I promise you’ll love it and be as excited as I am to hit those slopes.

YES ON PROPOSITION 8!!

I would feel bad if I did not talk about prop 8 in my blog, so here we go. I would say that most Californians are now familiar with proposition 8. Proposition 8 will put into the California constitution the same language that voters passed back in 2000 with proposition 22. It will clearly state that: "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California". It is extremely frustrating to me because prop 22 was passed by 61% of voters in California back in 2000, but it was overturned by the California Supreme Court earlier this year. One of the most important parts of prop 8 is that it will protect children from being taught in public schools that "same-sex marriage" is the same as traditional marriage. I read an article the other day that disgusted me. A first grade class went on a field trip to go watch their woman teacher get married another woman. These kids minds are like sponges and will possibly always think that a woman with another woman is normal. This is definitely not the case and isn't how nature or God intended it. For those that would like to read this story, here is the hyperlink: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/11/MNFG13F1VG.DTL Many organizations including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and many other christian denominations are supporting prop 8. I am trying my best to let as many people as possible know about how important this proposition is.

Financial Crisis

I have never paid much attention to the stock market. I have always thought that stocks were boring and they didn't affect me very much. What has happened in the last week has been a little scary and has caught my attention. I have been watching CNBC for the past week. On this channel they have a constant ticker at the bottom of the screen. This ticker shows the prices of stock for major publicly traded companies and it also tells you how much it has either increased or decreased for the day. Almost every stock that they show on this ticker is in the red (decreased for the day). The DOW Jones Industrial Average has dropped from 10,831 on October 1, 2008 to 8,579 on October 9, 2008. That is more than 20%! Also, today GM shares fell to its lowest level since 1950! All of this sounds crazy, but I think eventually things will work out fine. I don't think it would be possible for our country to go into another depression. I do think that this financial crisis will have an effect on the job market which might eventually affect me a little bit. In the long run though I think everything will be fine. One thing good happening right now is crude oil has fallen about 40% to $84.67 per barrel since its record price set on July 11 at $147.27 per barrel. I personally believe that crude oil rising so fast over the summer was the cause for our economic crisis. Many questions have risen about what should be done about this financial crisis. Although I don't know a lot about how our economy works, I think the best thing to do is to do nothing and ride it out.

Heroes!

Have you ever wished you had a superpower? If so, what kind of power would you want? How do you think it would affect your life? Would you use your power to help others or yourself? How do you think people around you would react once they found out you had a superpower? I've thought a lot about these type of questions ever since I started watching NBC's popular TV show "Heroes". Heroes is now in its third season and is very popular. I had heard a lot about the show the past year but never watched it. A few weeks ago I saw a preview for the new season premier of Heroes and it looked awesome. After a few days I decided to go to Hollywood Video to rent Season 1 on DVD. I sat down\and watched the first two episodes back to back. I thought it was very entertaining and fell in love with it right away. I couldn't stop watching episode after episode. Basically it is about a bunch of different people who start developing different "special abilities". Some of these abilities include walking through walls, self regeneration, flying, painting the future, time traveling, mind reading, and many more. Some of these people use their powers for good while others for bad. Together, the good people try to "save the world". Over the past few weeks I have watched both seasons that were released on DVD. If you like TV shows that make you think a lot and wonder what is going to happen next, then Heroes is the show for you! As to answer my own question, I would want the power that Hiro Nakamura has. Hiro can time travel and also freeze time. I think it would be fun to go back in time and see different historical events.

For my post this week, I thought I would write a little bit about BYU football. The past two weeks I've had the awesome opportunity of attending both of BYU's football games. The Cougars had received much criticism prior to the BYU/UCLA football game. BYU had won a very close game against Washington. Many sports analysts believed that Washington was cheated and the game should have gone into overtime. All the sports analysts could talk about regarding BYU prior to the UCLA game was how they didn't deserve the win against Washington and how BYU was an overrated football team.
Since the game in Washington, BYU has been dominating teams. First was against former #23 ranked UCLA where BYU handed UCLA its worst loss in over 79 years. The final score was 59-0. This game was a statement game for the Cougars. The next game was versus Wyoming who was 2-1 going into the game. BYU showed no mercy in this game either shutting out the Cowboys 44-0!
At the beginning of the football stadium, BYU was ranked #16 in the nation. After the game against Wyoming, BYU had moved to the #11 spot. The Cougars are on a mission this year. They want an opportunity to compete in a BCS bowl game. By the way they have playing, BYU definitely has a shot at being in a BCS bowl game and possibly even the national championship game!