Favorite Album...Right Now

So, I know that this is probably not too interesting for some, but I wanted to tell you that the album "Broken Bride" by Ludo is fantastic! I ordered it on iTunes after purchasing their other album, "You're Aweful, I Love You" (which is also awesome! They have a really funny and creative edge to their music). Anyway, after ordering it I was listening to some of their other tracks from other albums, and saw that Broken Bride album. It was cheaper than the others and only had 5 songs on it, so thought it was worth reading the reviews. The reviews were all great, saying that this was more of musical theater than anything else, and how it was a beautiful love story. I decided to give it a shot and bought it. The first few times I listened to it - even though I listened to it all the way through - I didn't really get the storyline, I just heard the music. The music itself is great! It has a lot of different styles and varieties in it so it can pertain to a lot of different tastes, in my opinion. Over the last few weeks, however, I've really started listening to the lyrics and now I can't listen to the all of the songs without crying!

The first song, Broken Bride Part I, starts with the main character, if you will, saying how his bride died in May of 1989, and how he's been working for 15 years to create a time machine to stop her from dying. (All of you Sci-Fi haters, I know it sounds weird but just trust me, it's amazing). Anyway, he has his machine built and tries to go back in time but something goes wrong and he ends up in pre-historic times, hiding in a cave so he doesn't get eaten, basically. So, thinking that he's failed and he will die in vain, he tries to write his story on the cave walls, but the glaciers wash his words away.

The next song - Save Our City - I'm not sure how but he goes forward into the future again into a war torn city. Gets kind of weird in that they are fighting against Zombies. Anyway, doesn't really have the main guy in it, it's just talking about this place and their King.

The next song, "Part II: Tonight's The Night" is the main guy again, and he's really hopeful and he's fixed (or is fixing) the time machine so he can try to go to the right time again to save his love.

"Part III: The Lamb And The Dragon" is where it really explains how the main guy went forward in time, and it's at the "end of days". So maybe Save Our City should be after this song, but whatever. Anyway, so in the first part you can't really tell what he's saying, but basically it says that he barely escaped the dinosaurs (he mentions raptors specifically) and his machine threw him to the end of days. It talks about the war that's going on, there's a distinction between the religious side calling for "The wrath of the Lamb!" to aid them while the other side is calling for "the Dragon" to rise. A few of the lyrics actually pull ideas from the bible (revelations). It turns to the view of the main character again getting ready to use his machine again, but something happens and his machine is destroyed and it somehow saves the "souls" of the people fighting from "the Destroyer of Worlds", so maybe it killed the dragon? Anyway, I think this blast killed him, and he sort of recounts what he's done to try and save her and how he wishes he could have one last chance to see her to say goodbye on the morning that she died, and it transitions to him in their old apartment seeing her sleeping. (That's the part that makes me cry)

Then the last song, combined with the previous is probably my favorite, "Part IV: Morning In May", he's with his love again and he talks about how happy and terrified he is at seeing her again and how he's sort of taking in everything about that moment as well as remembering the time after she died and how hard it was to deal with losing her, then when she wakes up and has to leave, he's torn because he knows what's going to happen and that he can't stop it, (by the way, she was killed in a car crash), and at the last minute he stops her from driving away and gets in the car to go with her. So basically, he's with her during the car crash and they die together. This song also makes me cry like a baby.

High School (I stole this from Jen)

Your High School's full name: Mountain Crest High School



High School Colors: Navy Blue and Orange



School Mascot: Mustangs



Did you date anyone from your school? Ha ha, need I be reminded of THAT mistake! Okay so through most of high school I dated a boy named Cameron (let's not talk about that again please...) and for the last few months I dated my friend Will and later (after High School) a friend named James.



It's Friday night where are you: Probably at a football or basketball game performing at halftime or hanging out with then boyfriend.



Were you a party animal: Ha ha, everone THOUGHT that the band members were such party animals because we always went "social drinking" after football games, competitions, performances, or just because. What they didn't know was that "social drinking" occurred at McDonald's and consisted of free water and icecream. Then we were told that we couldn't go to McDonald's anymore, so we moved our location to Arctic Circle for Junior and Senior year.



Were you considered a flirt: Apparantly I flirted without really knowing it. I just thought I was being nice, but other people thought I was always flirting.



Were you in band, orchestra, choir, or other group: I was in Band (clarinet! Yay!) and Colorguard. I loved them. Oh, and in Band I was on the Band Council as first the sophmore rep and then the Colorguard rep.



Were you in any clubs: Um, Band and Colorguard and Band Council?? (Can anyone say, geek?) ;)



Did you ever get expelled or suspended: Oh no, I played it safe. When I sluffed, I just told my mom and she would excuse me, or we would get our band director Mr. Bentley to write excuse notes for us (Thanks Mr. Bentley!)



Can you still sing the fight song: I could probably fumble my way through it, but mostly I know that I could probably still play it on the clarinet! Ha ha



Who were your favorite teachers: My band teachers, Mr. Bentley and Mr. Francis, then my colorguard instructors, Tiffany and then Bobbie Jo, and both AP Biology teachers, Mr. McMillan and the other one that I can't remember the name of...hmmm.



Where did you sit during lunch: At the band table, or when I sluffed band I would sit through both lunches with my bff Katie over by the al-a-carte line because the lunch ladies would give me the extra peanut butter squares! It's all in who you know...



Who was your prom date? As a sophmore I went with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or as my dad called him, "Speedbump", Junior year I didn't go because said bf didn't want to spend money on me, and Senior year I went with Will.



If you could go back and re-do high school would you: There's definitely things I would have done differently, like not date a certain someone ;), and I would love to be able to perform like I used to, I really miss that. Really though, I'm so happy now that I wouldn't want to go back and deal with all of that crap again.



Were you a nerd? Ha ha, please refer to the questions about what clubs I was in and you tell me if I was a nerd or not! ;)



Were you on any varsity teams? Varsity?? Hmm, Colorguard??



Where did you go senior skip day? I can't remember...I was probably either hanging out with my friends or at Will's apartment eating chips and salsa.



Have you gained some weight since then? LOL, why do you think I try not to post newer pictures!?!? Ha, yeah I've gained quite a bit of weight.



What do you remember about Graduation: Being pissed off that I had to play Pomp and Circumstance with the band because we only had 4 clarinets and 2 of us were graduating, then laughing because the drumline was sitting behind me making rude comments about all the people that were walking. Ha ha, it was awesome!



Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Depends on how good I look. ;) Just kidding! I'll probably go. We'll see.

Intolerance

So, I really don't want anyone to get offended by anything I write here - just keep in mind that I'm trying to be fair and I'm talking in general, not pointing anyone out. Also, I'm not encouraging or discouraging who you vote for this November - as I myself have not decided who I will vote for myself, I don't want anyone to think that I am trying to convince you one way or the other in this very personal decision.

Now with the presidential election coming up, of course as always there are a lot of emails going around saying "Support him!" or "Vote for him because...". I really don't mind those - everyone has their opinions on the election and as long as they are promoting the good things in the election, then I'm all for it. However there seems to be a lot more of the emails in regards to "He's a bad person because..." "He's not a true American because..." "Can you believe that he believes in...". Up until now I've been quiet and frankly have just been deleting emails without reading them if I think that that's what they are going to be saying. That is until someone in my family decided to stand up to it. She wasn't harsh or demeaning, but she was realistic. Here's what she said:

"I found the e-mail about if Muslims can make good Americans completely offensive to me and to several friends that I have that are Islamic. Yes they are allowed to befriend others. What I learned from these people is how alike we are. I gave a talk from an Ensign Article about nine years ago in Smithfield called "On Islam" (I think). This was before 9/11. The foresight of the first presidency is incredible. The article pointed out how much we have in common and the values that we cherish. I will look the article up and forward it to everyone. Hopefully we can learn a little more understanding and tolerance before we leap to judgement and political rhetoric. Calling Barac Obama out for his religion is no different than say Mitt Romney would be subject to the Prophet's every whim if president or a Catholic would only answer to the Pope. Let's try not to be absurd."

I agree with this 100%, and frankly am so glad that it was said. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or even just Christians or good people in general, how can we really support some of the slanderish emails that have been circulating? Deep down I'm sure everyone's thinking, "Well I just want to make sure that my rights are protected." That's just fine! By all means, send the emails saying "Look what this person is going to do for our country, rights and beliefs?" rather than resorting to prejudiced and bigotted opinions of people that we only hear from other ignorant closed-minded people? I'm just as guilty of this in the fact that I haven't said anything until now - just months before the election. I'm not saying that you have to vote for Obama or that you have to vote for McCain - this should be a very personal decision for everyone. Frankly I don't know who I'm going to vote for right now, but I can tell you that circulating emails that are prejudice or ignorant is not what's going to turn my vote one way or the other.

For those of you who are LDS, there have been countless talks on prejudice in the church. Here's some quotes that I found:

"In this gospel view there is no room for a contracted, narrow, or prejudicial"
-Howard W. Hunter The Gospel—A Global Faith

"It was George C. Marshall who wisely said, 'We must take the nations of the world as they are, the human passions and prejudices of people as they exist, and find some way to secure … a peaceful world.' Peace must be a triumph of principles."
-Marvin J. Ashton Peace—A Triumph of Principles

"We might deny ourselves a nearness to our Savior because of our prejudices of neighborhood or possessions or race—attitudes that Christ would surely condemn."
-David B. Haight Love All

"Prejudice is hardly new. But he also knew that until the surface features of habits and traits were accepted, prejudice would keep men apart."
-Victor L. Brown Jr. Minorities: A Latter-day Saint Definition

"President Spencer W. Kimball stated the Church’s position well: “We do wish that there would be no racial prejudice. Racial prejudice is of the devil."
-Alexander B. Morrison “No More Strangers”

These talks, while oftentimes are talking about prejudism within our own church, are just as meaningful to those not in our faith. Especially while looking at the history of the LDS church, and how our ancestors were treated when just trying to live and worship as they wanted. How can we then turn and speak of someone else in this manner?

Please, when voting this year for who will be our next president, all that I ask is that you don't vote for someone or not vote for someone based on the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, or any other petty argument. Remember when Obama first started running for president and there was a controversy over his middle name?!?!? That is just ridiculous! Don't let that sway your vote. Please Please Please Please, do your research! Vote for our next president based on his political views, not his religious. If you don't agree with either of them, then write in someone new!

Also remember that when the elections are over, regardless of who becomes our next president, that it is stated in Article of Faith #11 that, "We claim the privelege of worshiping the Almighty God according to the dictates of our own concience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where or what they may."

Again, I just want to point out that this is not aimed at anyone directly, and that if you feel that I was aiming it at you then I wasn't. I hope I didn't offend anyone too much by this, and if so then I'm sorry, as this was not my intention. I just want to be fair.

If you want a post with pictures, then there's an update on my car below - much less heated post. :)

~M.

Welding

So Jon has been working night and day to get everything together for my car (sorry that my life is so boring that I have three posts about cars in a row!) Mostly he's been ordering parts and/or tools, which surprisingly has been really hard! Because it's such a new model we can't buy a lot of the part wholesale like we usually do. For example, we couldn't get the bumpers from our usual place (Intermountain AutoParts, I think it is), so we had to buy those from the manufacturer which was so expensive that Jon decided to just get a body kit for it. That was about $800! So yeah, it's been a job in and of itself just getting parts.



Last Monday we got the new quarterpanel, and yesterday Jon got his new welder! I'm thinking that he's enjoying getting new tools so much that he doesn't mind that I wrecked the car anymore! Ha ha! Anyway, we got up early this morning to start welding the quarterpanel onto the car. It was pretty interesting to watch, but I definitely am not a fan of sparks flying at me! Anyway, here's some pics:

So this is the quarterpanel before - Looks like someone crunched some tinfoil and then tried to lay it out flat again.

Jon had to cut the old quarterpanel off, and this is what it looked like afterwords - yikes!

The new quarterpanel after Jon glued it on - did you know that most of your car is actually GLUED together?? Jon says that the glue holds better than welds, but they usually do both for added hold - weld around the edges and glue for the bulk. I thought it was a little weird, personally...

Jon getting ready to weld! (BTW, he's wearing a jersey because he went to work right after and it's ESPN Gameplan day for DIRECTV)

This is Jon welding. It took a minute to figure out the new welder and then he went to town! He's not quite done - when he does I'll probably post those pictures too! :)

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm actually going to do another post almost immediately so you can read that in a minute. :) Bye!

New Car!!!

Hooray! Jon and I finally found a car that we can buy! It's a broken little car, but that's why I'm so glad that Jon is so talented when it comes to automotive repair. For those of you who didn't know, Jon used to work for an auto collision repair shop, so he is a professional autobody repairman! It's really come in handy, because the accidents that car-which-shall-not-be-named was is were all repaired by Jon! Plus we're getting a really nice car at a fraction of the price because it's broken and he's gonna fix it! :)
So the new car is a 2007 Mazda3. It's black with black leather seats (I know, sounds like a summertime sauna!), and it has the stereo controls on the steering wheel as well as seat warmers! It needs a bit of work - all on the passenger side of the car. It will need at least new front and rear bumpers, new passenger headlight and taillight, back windshield, passengerside quarterpanel, a new antenna, and some dents fixed. When we're done we'll have repainted the majority of the car (again, I'm so happy to have such a talented husband!) which means we can paint it any color we want. After painting El Diablo earlier this year, I'm not even nervous about helping!
Anyway, if you'd like to see it (for the time being), you can go to http://www.getwwa.com/vehicle_details/5216/MAZDA/MAZDA3. I just put the deposit down today, and we should be getting our loan approved within the next day or two (takes longer when you don't work the same schedule!) and then the car is ours! Once we get it I'll post some pictures, along with our progress as we fix it! :)
Well that's all for now!