I need a site.

16. Get a website.

This is a huge, monstrous goal. See, I was reading some business article on the internet the other day (probably on Yahoo! or something), and it said that, as a resume-building, brand-enhancing, public relations-maxxing (yeah, one of those buzzword-laden articles that seem to be everywhere) strategy, people should have their own websites, sites which show off their skills and stuff.

This struck me as a good idea, because my good friend, Pat Madden, has his own website, http://www.quotidiana.com. It's an essay-themed site, since Pat's an essayist. He has essays that he's written, essays that other people have written, instruction about essaying, etc. He even uses it as a teaching tool, assigning homework from his site. And it works really, really well.

Now, it's not the easiest thing to do, I'm sure. One must worry about intellectual property infringements, posting all of that creative work up there. Plus, there are the associated fees with web hosting and web design (since I don't know how to code a website). I mean, it's a substantial undertaking. But it'd be worth it, I bet. Potential employers could look at my resume, see the website, and actually read some of my stuff, as opposed to merely thinking about how many things as written, you know? Now, maybe that would work against me, if they didn't like my writing, but I think that it would be impressive.

More resolutions

Dear all,

Well, I've been doing my part--I hope--to fulfill my birthday goal. (A side note: Right now, I'm listening to "Light Up Ahead" as performed by Fields Forever, an acoustic project by Jon Bunch of Sense Field and Derrick Cordoba of Futher Seems Forever--get it?--and it's reminding me of why I should stop living my life in musical silence.) Anyway, I have a few more things I want to learn. I don't think it's cheating if I list a few new things I've learned, since I often learn--and do--new things without posting my desire to do them on the blog first.

13. Learn to make bread from scratch
14. (Pursuant to #14) Learn to make pizza from scratch

Those are done. Nice!

15. Take voice lessons

This idea scares the ________ [fill in favorite exclamation] out of me. There's a reason why I play guitar--I'm not big on singing. I mean, sure, I sang in the high school musical and all, but that was always in character. Singing, it's like--hear you me!--you'd better be good.

My Cousin the Spy

Dear all,

So Melanie and I went to the last session of General Conference yesterday, which was, predictably, wonderful. Our seats were pretty decent (although Mel said, "There isn't a bad seat in this house," which is true) and perfectly oriented to see a few members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir come in late, working their way toward the stand through the audience. Mel and I later found out (from Mel's aunt Jan, who sings in the choir) that the late choir members had been stranded on the massive roof of the Conference Center, which is a large landscaped garden where the choir eats lunch. The lesson of the story, I suppose, is that, if you're a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, get your lunch and then get out. You might be serenading the crowds outside the Conference Center if you're not careful. (Jan, by the way, is very careful and wise. She gets off the roof ASAP.)

And it seems that she's passed that wisdom, that savvy situational awareness, that world-weary acumen, onto her daughter--my cousin-in-law--Dani, because Dani has become a spy. She's such a good spy, as a matter of fact, that she doesn't even spy for the government. No, Dani is a spy for a private corporation, which I shall not name, because I don't want to disappear in the middle of the night. That's right--Dani spies for one of those shadowy conglomerates that's always trying to achieve world domination in James Bond movies, a group of clandestine power-brokers that flies under the radar of conventional scrutiny...

Actually, I hyperbolize. Dani works for a large construction company; about the only thing they've ever staged a coup d'etat over is a pile of cinder block (even though I joke with her about her ballpoint pen really being a gun). However, she really is a spy--she goes around to competing businesses and checks them out, photographs their facilites, gets information from them while not letting on that she's from a competitor. (After all, if she waltzed up to a competitor and said, "Hey, I'm from X Construction Company and we're thinking about how we can better compete against you--or buy you out--so give me a list of your prices," about the only thing she'd get would be a snicker and a quick trip out.) So she travels around the country, doing in-depth research on her business peers.

And I think that's really cool. I mean, there's been a lot of talk, lately, about the government's sad lack of "HUMINT," or human intelligence--meaning on-the-ground, people-based intelligence about our enemies. Some people postulate that, had the government been able to amass substantial HUMINT before the invasion of Iraq, we wouldn't have invaded--but, as it was, our intelligence-gathering capabilities were focused on satellite images and recon flights and the like, and we couldn't tell whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs or not. Now, I'm not going to turn this into a forum to debate the Iraq War (Gulf War II?), but I think it's cool that Dani serves as a positive role-model for our nation's intelligence community.

So here's to you, Dani. Kudos. I hope that this blog post doesn't blow your cover.