Valentines Day

With Valentines Day having been coming up, I used the handy internet to look up dating ideas and options around Provo. There are many great dating ideas, and also a good bunch of options around the Provo area. We even made plans for what to go out and do. However, when it came time to do something, as things turned out, we ended up playing a couple rounds of Ticket to Ride instead. Ticket to Ride is my wife's favorite board game (or it was before I started playing with her anyway; beating her nearly every game makes it less fun for both of us).

Why did we not get out of the house? Well, when your wife is about 36 weeks pregnant, her tummy is measuring at least 47 weeks pregnant, she's 80% effaced and 3 cm dilated – when she's about to pop with twins – and she decides she would rather stay at home, you don't argue.   :)

Late Happy Valentines to everyone.    :)
Or are we only supposed to say “Happy Valentines” to romantic interests? Some random guy said “Happy Valentines” to me as he walked by, which seemed a little weird to me and made me wonder about that question.

Watching Olympic Figure/Ice Skating

My wife and I spent several hours this week (and a few last week) watching our DVR recordings of the Olympic figure skating / ice skating. It's quite entertaining to watch. So much skill, artistic talent, strength, and courage. Lots of great things. The individual men's freestyle/long program wasn't quite as good, (lots of mistakes; the winner had two major mistakes [fell twice or something], yet still won, though that was much because of his incredible world record setting/blasting short program he had already done the day before) but overall it was pretty awesome.  :)

Teaching Patience in Adversity

One of the people I home teach requested that I teach them a lesson on patience in adversity. I love how easily we can get online and look up information. On Sunday, I got onto lds.org and searched for “Patience in adversity”. The search results were very helpful. I printed a couple talks and did some reading and marking (underlining, making some notes, and such). The media resources we have make it so easy; or so easy compared to how it would be without media. I'm very grateful for the positive ways we can use the media. :)

So why do we have adversity? Summarized, and leaving out much detail, experiencing adversity (and developing patience) is a large part of why we are here on Earth in mortal bodies; we can bring adversity on ourselves through evil choices; but even without unrighteousness, we experience much adversity, not too unlike the Savior did, from several potential sources (such as from God permitting the agency of others). 
We can obtain rest by coming close to God.

(Much greater detail can be found by going to LDS.org yourself and using the searchbox to search for patience in adversity.)

Coding Brave

This week I learned through email correspondence (and a Google Doc), with my group from the class, that for our pilot movie to code, we would code the movie, Brave. I used online resources to try to get my hands on the movie. After obtaining it, I spent about ten or more hours working on coding the movie. I love how easy it is to enter information into, and organize information on, a computer. Can you imagine how much harder it would be to code, and make many edits to coding, without a computer? I'm much more reliant on computers for recording information (To-Do Lists, journal, notes, ect.), and writing, than most people are, and I appreciate having computers very much.

Coding Brave was definitely interesting. I learned quite a bit about the challenges faced when trying to do research by coding information; every shade of gray present between things we're trying to code can make coding quite difficult.

Researching Baby Names

I've spent a lot of time this week researching baby names. I think names are very important and I like to choose them carefully. For the child we have, my wife was quite set on her first name, and everything about it seemed great to me too, so that was easy, but I think I spent about 40 hours or so researching and working on picking her middle name. Too much time? Probably more than I should have spent for a middle name; but at least I won't have to regret not spending enough time on it.

The majority of my online research has been through use of babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com, but I've used other baby sites too. I love the ability to search by name meanings, yet I wish I had a site with even more advanced search options (I have certain search options in mind). For an example, I wish I could search for names that have four or more origins, each with their own meanings. I've only found relatively few of those. I also wish I knew where I stored the research information I did in the past. I was almost certain I stored it on the computer, or in an email, but I've searched them both and can't find it anywhere. I'm thinking I must have a printed paper copy somewhere, but I don't know where. Anyways, I'm sort of getting off topic.

What am I looking for in names? Many things. Names with meanings that the child will likely identify with in a way that will help them be a better person and do more good in the world; and won't likely intimidate them or cause them to identify themselves as not being what their name means. (For example, I'm weary of choosing a name that means bold, because if the child ends up shy, she might identify herself as not bold like her name means, thus actually reinforcing her shyness.) Other things I'm looking for or paying attention to in names include names that:
- sound beautiful (at least for girl names)
- don't sound or appear too much like anything negative
- people can spell when they hear it, and vice versa
- create initials that seem good, or at least that aren't bad
- are unlikely to be “replaced” by a nickname
- are unlikely to be made fun of
- people who already have the name seem to like their name
- are unique, or at least are not “overpopular” (like Jessica is “overpopular”)
- are easy to say
- are not too long
- don't have other negative associations
- my wife likes
- other things that I'm not thinking of at the moment

Mighty Quest for Epic Loot and Overview of My Video Game History

Sometimes I permit myself to play some video games. I'm rather restrictive on myself, lest I let myself get “out of control” with them. I grew up playing video games, my father owned a computer store, and with two older brothers whom I felt it would be difficult to compete with in “sticking out” in about any other area, I chose to focus on video games. I excelled greatly at them. My father loved playing me games because he loved the challenge of trying to beat me. Most games I'd win, but sometimes he would and he felt like he accomplished something when he beat me. There's a lot of background history about how heavily I was into video games. In short, I say “aside from school and homework, video games were my life” before my mission, and after my mission, my father went as far as threatening suicide if I didn't play him games (lots of pressure). Also, video games are very addicting for me, and I have difficulty playing them and/or thinking about them in appropriate moderation. What do I mean by “thinking about them” too much? Well, if I go from not playing any games (several times now I've banned myself from them for awhile) to playing just a little bit of strategy games, my mind will spend over ten times as much time thinking about the game than actually playing it. So one hour of play time equals over ten hours of time used up, because my mind is occupied thinking about game strategies. If I'm not really careful, games can easily keep my mind preoccupied from paying attention to spiritual things.

All that being said, I've spent several hours total this week playing a game (in closed beta) called The Mighty Quest for Epic loot. It got advertised as humorous and that got my attention. It's quite a bit of fun, there is very little commitment (easy to pause or leave at any moment), the strategy isn't so in-depth that I spend tons of time thinking about it, and there's a competitive aspect that I like. In the game, you attack other castles (I usually attack other players' castles) and loot their resources. You also build your own castle and put defenses (various monsters and traps) in it, trying to make it difficult for attackers to loot your own castle. So far, you can play a knight (“smash city”), an archer (more reliant on skill), and (currently costs money) a mage. (The game announced it will change to open beta before the end of February.)