Festival of Colors

Freakin loved this!!!

Andrew the Resident Assistant

This kid is something else.

I don't think that any of my descriptions can possibly do justice to the situation. But I have to do my best, because if I don't tell others I'm not sure that I'll believe that this actually happened.***

Let's begin a journey. A bedtime journey...

To begin this story, suppose that it's 02:37. Your apartment is all but empty. It's Friday evening, and all of your roommates are off scurrying about until all hours of the evening while you are lying in bed reading a book in dim light as you slowly sink into blissful slumber... 

When suddenly. *KNOCK.. KNOCK.. KNOCK*
A slight pause.
"Perhaps if I ignore them they'll just go away..."
*KNOCK, KNOCK!*
<As I slowly climb out of bed and walk to the door>
"Dang it, Haven. Stop losing your key."
<I look through the peephole, surprised to see none other than Andrew, my RA>
To say the least, I was surprised to see him. I don't mean to suggest that the visit was unwelcome, it was simply unexpected.
<Slowly opening the door>
J: "Hello?"
A: "Hey, man, Jack, how's it goin'?"
J: "Alright. What's up?"
A: "Hey, so I just got back from this date, and it went on a lot longer than I expected. I was thinking we were just going out to get something to eat, then we'd be heading back home, but then..."
"Is this real life? Did he seriously come over at three AM to recount his date?"
A: "so we just ended up going  bungee jumping, then we went-"
J: "You went bungee jumping tonight?!"
A: "Yeah, man. Wait, no. What I had meant to say was that we went... we went to the, the trampoline >?"
J: "Like Lowe's?"
A: "Yeah. But-"
J: "That's not bungee jumping, Andrew. Not even a little bit."
A: "Hahaha, anyways. What I had wanted to do was just come back and watch a movie. And I was wondering if your dorm had Netflix."
J: "My dorm? I mean, I don't know if everyone has Netflix. I have Netflix."
A: "Oh, cool. Where do you have it? Like in the living room?
"It's not exactly fixed to a location. I'm not sure you understand the internet, Andrew.."
J: "No, it's on my computer."
A: "Okay. Oh. So.. How's this gonna work?"
J: "How's what going to work...?" 
<Realizing that he doesn't have any intention of verbally asking if he can use my computer and Netflix account to watch something>
A: <While walking into my room> "Oh, like, on here?" <Pointing to my desktop>
J: "Nah, it's on my laptop." <Pointing it out on my desk>
A: "So, where should I like.. I mean, if you wanna watch with me.. but if you're tryna like get to sleep..."
J: "Yeah, I'll be turning in soon, so I think that the living room would be best."
<As I start up my computer and open Netflix>
A: "So where is everybody, man?"
J: "I dunno. I think David's hiking."
A: "Why are you just all alone?"
J: "... Andrew, it's three AM. I'm going to sleep.."
A: "Yeah.. As I was sayin' it, I now realize that your answer makes a lot more sense than my question. Hahaha. You know what I'm sayin'? Hahaha. I think I was just thinking that like on a Friday night people should be out with other people."
<I finish loading up the computer and starting Netflix>
A: "Yeah, hey, so do you think I could just like take this to my room, then bring it back tomorrow morning?" [I don't want you to think that I'm saying this was a ridiculous question, it was just not a possibility at that time]
J: "No. I'm leaving early tomorrow morning. Sorry." <I wasn't sorry>
A: "Ah, it's cool, man. You think we should check to see if 'Big Fish' is on there first?"
J: "It's on there. Goodnight, Andrew."


So, that was super weird. I mean, fine, but super weird. 


-Sir Jacob van Heemskerck Duker DeBaltzo Esquire

***Just to be clear, I love Andrew. He's absolutely terrific. He's friendly, outgoing, personable, happy, and generally very considerate. This was just super goofy and had to be documented. I mean, come on! That was pretty crazy.

Confessions of a Christian Sinner

Hahaha. Oh dear, I think I'm afraid to see how often this will have been the case when looking back at my life.



-Sir Jacob van Heemskerck Duker DeBaltzo Esquire

The Smartest Man in the World

So, perhaps my title is a bit of an overstatement. But it's just that! Only a bit of an overstatement. For the most part, I stand by my title. I hold to it with conviction. Well - some conviction. I don't know a great deal about him, I've read a few brief bio's on him, but he isn't the smartest man based upon who he is, rather what he says.

Today our topic of discussion is "Quotes of Pastor Rick Warren." As far as I can tell, he has more wisdom in his little finger than I do throughout my whole being. To better understand what I mean, I invite you to visit this, that, or the other website. I have found them to be wonderfully insightful. 

In order to give you all just a little taste of his aforesaid "insights" I will share with you more than a few of his quotes which have stood out to me, along with the reason they stood out to me. These quotes aren't particularly meaningful in my life, but they're interesting semi-abstract ideas that have either caught me off guard or caused me to view something in an entirely new light.

Without any further ado (in no particular order):

• I can't imagine God not allowing my dog into heaven.
• I really think this is just cool. Obviously he's not preaching that God will allow a person's pet into heaven, so it really raises a question of "What would encourage God to not allow your dog to enter heaven?" 
• It's kind of funny, but in all seriousness we have no real reason to assume that God isn't going to allow one of his children the opportunity to spend more time with one of his or her lifelong companions. (Especially when that companion is really quite innocent in the eternal 'scheme of things') 
• I happen to agree with many of the liberal emphasis on compassion, justice and equality. I just disagree that it's the government's role to provide everything.
• This has, in many ways, truly given me words for many of my political opinions. Before reading this I didn't truly have a great way to explain the contrast in my moral and political beliefs, but this is it: I don't feel that the government's role is to provide these services.
• In the Old Testament, it says that if you have the power to do something good, then you have to do it. You're not to avoid helping somebody in their time of need.
• Okay, so I must admit that I was a little hesitant in posting this quote... By posting this I'm forever going to feel more obligated to do my part in fulfilling this. Haha, and while this is a good thing, it's also a little bit of pressure I'm putting on myself.
• While I can't personally attest that this is legitimate doctrine of the Old Testament, I don't have any reason to doubt it's legitimacy. And even if it's not, I'm confident in saying that this is doctrine of God. 
• If good can be done by our hands, why would we hesitate? Naturally this all sounds great in words, but it's a lot of work to constantly do good. Being even mildly selfless is an incredibly tiring task. Nonetheless, it's a worthwhile task and it is (ironically it also rejuvenates a person). So, with this in mind, I hope to become better at offering my hand when it can provide a service.
• There are illegitimate parents, but I don't believe there are any illegitimate children.
• So, this one is pretty intense. Legitimacy is defined as many things including that which is lawful, just, right, proper, and logical. With this in mind, I can't really see how one could describe any child as illegitimate. 
• A child is the result of one action and a newborn child has neither broken any law, committed any unjust act, behaved in any wrong manner, nor acted illogical. No, the child has done everything he/she is expected to do. But the parents of a child labelled as illegitimate can scarce say the same, and to them should the title be given.
• So I would say God hates war, but God loves every soldier.
• I really view this one as going along with "God hates the sin, not the sinner." (Not to suggest that war is necessarily a sin as we know that in the Book of Mormon we are instructed to protect and defend our people and our rights).
• But the point is, regardless of what we or another is doing God loves us. And that's a powerful message, because it's hard to feel capable of being loved when one is doing something that displeases God. But his love his more powerful than any type of emotion imaginable in the human condition: and that's why there is always a way to return to him. (Just something to think about as I prepare to preach His gospel)
• If you have ever said, "I didn't get anything out of worship today," you worshiped for the wrong reason. Worship isn't for you. It's for God.
• So this one really kicked me down a few notches. It's just something that sort of blew my mind for a moment. Perhaps I am the only one who will feel this way, but it is simply an amazing sort of thought; it's not exactly earth-shattering, but I certainly wasn't viewing worship properly before reading this.
•  In church I feel that we often discuss the blessings that we receive from attending our meetings, paying our tithing, saying our prayers, reading our scriptures, etc... While in many ways these are self-serving behaviors, it's crucial to remember that a worship service is truly that: a worship (expression of reverence and adoration) service (the action of doing work for someone). We shouldn't go to church for us, we should do it to praise God.

And finally, I must add this one for entirely selfish reasons.

• Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others.
• Often times my supposed pride is joked (I think?) about. I have been blessed with a very well sized portion of self-confidence, and it has been a bolster to every step of my life. And while I understand that it certainly wouldn't hurt me to occasionally refrain from voicing said confidence, I think that it's important to recognize that thinking less of myself would not particularly help me in my effort to think more of others. 
• With that being said, thinking of myself less is something that I can certainly work on. I look forward to the challenge and opportunity to learn greater selflessness as I strive to answer the Lord's call.

Well, I do apologize for the length and verbosity (that word is really quite the conundrum) of my remarks, but I do hope that at least one of Pastor Warren's, or my, thoughts may have affected you for the better.

With love,

-Sir Jacob van Heemskerck Duker DeBaltzo Esquire

English is the Worst

Today in Writing 150 Madame discussed how her pet peeve is expectation in writing form. She spent the first ten minutes describing the well-known "five paragraph essay". While describing it she talked about all the reasons that demanding a certain structure is bad and wrong. From what I understand, her main frustration is that one is expected to write a paper with a broad general intro, three points of focused discussion, and a conclusion that brings all of the points to one solid idea.

Understandably this drives her mad. I mean, who in his/her right mind would want to read a logical, well-formatted, practiced style of writing?

"Don't worry about this. Just say what you want to say. I'm not going to make you do anything. The writing that you do that is un-form-like is likely to be your best work. Just make sure it's exactly the style that I would have written it in, and has all the points of the 'A' essay as prescribed by MLA." -Madame

Okay, so I may have gone freestyle on that last sentence. But for crying out loud. She drives me crazy. She thinks she's so "free-spirited" because she doesn't write her introduction first.

She has her own idea of exactly what each type of paper should look like. Just because it's not the structure that is seen in other English classes, she acts as though she is so overly "out of the box". She may be out of one box. But she's gladly hopped into a new box. And now she's trying to "cookie-cut" us into her shape. Even if she doesn't realize it. (She doesn't).

Oh my goodness now she's freaking bringing in Thoreau. "Non-conformity is the only way to become your own..."

Shoot me now.


-Sir Jacob van Heemskerck Duker DeBaltzo Esquire

RANT COMPLETE



PS: ~In a snarky voice~ "Oh, my teacher said this is the way that I need to do this, so this is the way I'm going to do it... You can't just do everything your expected to do." -Madame

Oh, dear... You have no idea of the irony or your statements.

RANT ACTUALLY COMPLETE

Go Luke

I knew that the brothers - particularly Max - would appreciate the quality vintage wardrobe selection that Luke and David Kemp made at Value World. Rest assured Sam that they resisted from shopping the underwear aisle...

Congrats to Luke on his 3rd Varsity Letter! Way to go Puker!

Facebook Status Pics

Here are my Facebook status posts for the past five months, I thought mom would enjoy

Pi Day for Soph

Picking up the Soph

I am picking up the Soph from track practice and while sitting here realized I have just listened to a Taylor Swift song and now Kelly Clarkson. I am catching my breath. Such a swaggalicious dad... They did play a Collective Soul song in between so I still feel manly. Here is the Soph!

Rambles of a sober BYU student

Welp Philly and I were driving the other day and we flipped on some Bob Marley music. It was at this point that we decided we would still be best friends even if we weren't members of the church, we'd just be potheads instead. I think the conversation got to the point of, "I'm pretty sure if the prophet ever announced that marijuana was ok I'd leave general conference and smoke a joint immediately." Talk about an uplifting conversation with Phil and Sam!
Going on to normal life...
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. I just thought you should know the theme of my past two months. I have been blessed with the opportunity to go to a comedy show every week since mid January. Currently jack and max are in a fight to the death to see who will come with me to the next comedy sensation this upcoming Wednesday. I'm pretty sure bribes will be a fair part of this.
In other need, I went to my first prep class for the internship this fall in Washington D.C. We have three classes to sort of yeah us how to act in D.C. By far the most important part of the two hour class was noticing that there are three beautiful daughters of our Heavenly Father joining me in D.C. There's about thirty people total so I have three months to be 1-15 guys out for the heart of at least one of these girls...let the games begin.
My roommates and I are starting a competition base off of a game Philly and I invented the other day. Good thing max doesn't read this because he's heard me describe the game like 5,000,000,971 times. As for jack, sorry, here's number 5,000,000,972. Anyways, the game is called shoot the gap. In shoot the gap, the goal is to awkwardly walk in between (through) people whilst on campus. The scoring system:
1 point: walk in between two people (the people are walking within two feet of each other)
2 points: walk in between two people walking very close to each other, but not holding hands or arm in arm.
4 points: walk in between people stopped who are talking to each other (the people are within two feet of each other)
7 points: walk in between two people who are walking and holding hands or arm in arm.
10 points: walk in between two people hugging or kissing.
Other than that life's good. Going to another comedy show tomorrow night.
I love you guys, here are the pictures for the week (my own and random ones I've found).

This just made me happy :):

I have no idea why, but this kid brings this empty pipe to school EVERY day. ?

Just Philly studying:

Random pictures that make me laugh:

Love, Sam

Mahalo Hawaii!

What an awesome trip we have had. It's been great to be able to stay in touch with each of you as we have been able to celebrate 25 extremely happy years of marriage - and look forward to the next 25+ . Right now we are sitting in the very chill Kona airport. It is open air and you walk out to the plane on the runway - none of the "tubes" - Kona is gorgeous, hot and tropical. Year round weather between 78-82 - ideal. Love you all and talk to you very soon. You are the greatest treasures we have collected over these 25 years of happiness. Love from Mom and Dad