Everybody talks

So the Neon Trees have this awesome song, Everybody Talks, with a kind of weird music video.

It started with a whisper

I'm a big fan of quietude (I'm also a fan of how awesome that word is!) I got to go camping a lot when I was a boy scout. Because I grew up right on the northern edge of Phoenix, that meant most of our camping trips involved heading up further north towards the mountains. Camping has so many wonderful facets that I enjoy, but I would have to say that high up on my list is the beautiful tranquility of nature. Don't get me wrong, I am most definitely a city-boy at heart. I love a crowded, bustling downtown; a prolific arts scene; a variety of shopping outlets. BUT, I feel like it can sometimes get overwhelming. All the noise, all the lights and the action and go-go-going can distract and drain me. When was the last time you felt the need to whisper? When was the last time you would have been able to hear someone if they had whispered to you?

The irony isn't lost on me that Tyler Glenn belts this line at the start of every chorus. The progression after it is what I think is most interesting, though. After "it started with a whisper", he jumps right next to "that was when I kissed her" and an unfortunate result: "then she made my lips hurt." I've made this disclaimer before, but I'm old-fashioned in a lot of ways. I think that one of the reasons things go sour in so many relationships is the breakneck pace which seems to be everywhere. When there's instant gratification everywhere, when you have to yell to be heard over the rush of the world, there just isn't any time for a whisper. Really communicating is becoming a lost art, and that lack of foundation can be masked for a while with physicality, but that just really isn't what lasts. It's way too easy for someone to get hurt in the world of relationships where the opposite is supposed to be the case.

It's true that everybody talks. I think we're in a time when it's amazingly easy for me to send you a text, or call you, or message you on facebook, or heytell you, or email you, or send you a snapchat, or, or, or... But what is it that I'm talking about? I go through so much communication in a day, but often I look back on a conversation or message and think, "wow. That was kind of empty." I'm making it a goal to try and say things with more meaning more often. It's true:

I never thought I'd live to see the day

when everybody's words got in the way

Titanium

I figured it'd be a matter of time until this one was stuck in my head. When I went and saw Pitch Perfect, one of the most unnecessarily awkward scenes involved this fantastic a capella duet of a segment of it and I loved it. I don't really get the music video for the song, but I still love the music. AND there are a bunch of really awesome covers for the song. My favorite is of course the one by the piano guys.
So the song is one long comparison to being as stone-hard as titanium. I decided to do a bit of research about how hard titanium really is. It turns out that Guetta did his research (or just got lucky that the societal perception of titanium is pretty close to the truth). Titanium really is an incredibly strong metal- about as strong as some steels while being almost half as dense. We've really only been figuring out what we can do with titanium since the 50s, but it's already a staple in everything from airplanes, medical implants, computers,  and firearms to paints, piercings and fireworks. It might be super expensive to make, but its lightness and strength have generally been deemed worth the cost.
One of the ways in which titanium is so much better than anything else we've got is the layer of oxide that it forms when exposed to air. So, quick chemistry recap (sorry, I'm a nerd, I know) goes like this: They mill the metal and do all the fashioning of it that they need to (see, I'm being nice and skipping over like half a dozen super-cool chemistry steps right there) but as soon as they cut it and new metal is exposed to air, the oxygen in the air starts attacking it (when you make a bar of iron, that's what makes the rust). The big deal is that the layer of oxygenated (=oxidized) metal is generally about 1-2nm thick (~8000x thinner than a hair). That means that the insides of the metal (where all the strength is) don't get affected by the environment.
In one of my classes this week, we talked about putting on armor. My teacher (who was a police officer in California for like 30 years) told us a bunch of stories about officers whose lives were saved by wearing armor (or not saved when they took it off). I remember thinking that it was kind of scary how much of you is still exposed even when you are wearing full body armor. Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a way to be completely coated in armor instead.
I feel like each of us has the chance to decide what we're going to be. Everyone gets exposed to the same environment which is going to do its best to wear you down and make you crumble. If you've got yourself a cheaper iron exterior, you'll be able to hold out for a while, but eventually it is going to weaken. On the other hand, a coating of titanium will still get oxidized in the harsh environment, but it'll hold.

Stone-hard as bulletproof glass
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

Set fire to the rain

I set fire to the rain and watched it burn.

Adele has finally figured it out. She put into the chorus of a song that is insanely catchy song (which was also insanely overplayed on the radio for quite a while) two of the things that I most love. Think about it: watching stuff burn and playing in the rain. It's genius!

I am a boy scout (I get to use the present tense because I am an Eagle Scout [by a few days before my 18th birthday] so I'm a scout for life now). When I went on camp-outs as a teen, we always did a bunch of fun stuff. I have to admit though that my favorite part of pretty much every camp-out was the campfire. I could happily sit for hours and watch fire slowly consume the wood inside the ring. It's a beautiful process. No two flames are ever the same, but the action of burning continues the same.
I am a desert rat. I grew up in the Sonora desert. It doesn't rain, except for when it RAINS. Every fall and every spring, there is always a short window of these storms that are simply fantastic. They roll in with a fury (think post-haboob storms) and the rain comes pouring down. When I was in elementary school, there was nothing more glorious than the rainy day schedule with its attendant puddles and insanity of kids cooped up in classrooms.
When I first got to Germany in April of 2007, one of the few things that I could actually do in German was to pray. When we visited people on my first day there, they asked me to say the prayer at the start of the meeting. I did so, and at the end, I looked up and saw people staring at me with puzzled looks. My heart sank as I was certain I'd inadvertently used some profanity or offended someone. It turned out that they were all just confused because in my prayer, I had expressed gratitude for the rain that had fallen that morning. Growing up in the desert, there is seemingly always a drought. Whenever any rain falls, there was reason to give praise to God for every drop. Germany is not in a desert, and the Germans found my desert rat perspective completely foreign. Old habits die hard, I still rejoice every time rain clouds roll in (I actually started this post before I knew that it would be sprinkling today!).
Those are two of my idiosyncrasies. I hope you enjoyed some of my favorite things. What are yours?

Good Morning, Beautiful

This song kind of encompasses a bunch of different themes that I've blogged about before. I wanted to try and find something new to write about that wouldn't just be a rehashing of posts past.

I blogged about sunrises heralding in a new day full of possibilities and being a comforting reminder of consistency. 

I've written (with some help) a post about the similarities between surfing and finding that special someone.

I have confessed my inner hopeless romantic.

I'm saving "the sun always shines" concept for a specific song (I've got a good portion of the post written [I just have to play by my own rules and wait for the song to be stuck in my head one morning] but this isn't the right context for it).

I know! I'll share a story from when I was in high school:

My freshman year in high school, I also started early morning seminary. At 6:30 every morning, we'd meet at the chapel across the street from the high school and have a class on the history of the church and the revelations which Joseph Smith published in the Doctrine and Covenants. I'm not inherently a morning person, but I have what I like to call consciousness-inertia. It often takes a good push to get started in the morning, but once I'm up I'm up and going for the day. Over the past few years, I've actually developed the ability to nap. Before then, I would just push through until I got to go to bed late that night.

Well, time getting ready in the morning added to time of seminary every morning ensured that I was awake by my first hour at Barry Goldwater High School. I had honors biology, and I made sure everyone knew that I was awake. I was bright and cheery. I was happy to be alive and at school. I greeted everyone and just felt generally wonderful.

It drove people crazy.

I can't tell you how many times in the course of a year I was asked why I was so happy or if I could just be a little less enthusiastic. Granted, I probably did take it a bit to the extreme, but it was a wonderful feeling. That reputation for excitement and energy definitely stayed with me and I'm pretty sure it actually helped shape me as well. When I got to my junior year, was taking a really challenging courseload, working part time, and doing the musical, I didn't have much energy to spare. BUT, my friends expected me to be sunny and happy, and so, regardless my state of general sleep-deprivation, I was.

As the wise father of one of the girls I went to seminary was fond of saying: "Fake it till you feel it." Don't let someone tell you what you can or can't do or be. If today you aren't who you want to be, then today is the day to start becoming that person.

It's a good morning, beautiful day.