Team Meeting

We did a video conference for our group project on November 26th. It was a surprisingly good experience. I highly recommend using Google Plus for any video conferencing with multiple people. It automatically expands the video of whoever it detects is talking. We didn't run into any major technical difficulties. The Google Plus site makes it easy to set up, it's done run over the internet browser so you don't have to download anything (except a plugin). We were able to work on our google docs/presentation all while chatting and listening to the conversation. Using headphones made me feel like I was in the room with everyone and the world wherever I was disappeared completely. The only small issue we ran into was that I had to close a door because my microphone was picking up other people talking close by which the other group members could hear. One of the most important things is to have a good group of people to work with, and our group happened to be excellent. I really enjoyed working with Kevin, Scott, and Scott. Way to go guys!

Forgotten Carols

Yesterday my wife and I went with some friends to see the Forgotten Carols at the UVU Convention Center. We happened to have leftover tickets since my wife's parents were going to take us but then couldn't make it for scheduling reasons. I've seen it a couple times before, but this time the story and it's moral made more sense to me than previous times.

For those of you who haven't seen it before, it's about a nurse who works too hard who ends up taking care of an eccentric older man who sings songs to her and tells her stories about Jesus. You quickly figure out watching the story that the reason the old man know about people from New Testament times is because he's John and has been alive for about 2000 years. Despite how hard she resists to keep up the shell she's built around her from the challenges she's faced in life, that shell starts to break down as the old man continually treats her like a best friend.

I had never really picked up the significance of the last song that she sings in the play until this time through. The words are "All I ever wanted, all I ever dreamed of, everything I hoped, everything I prayed for couldn't hold a candle to what I've been given. I've been given what I need."

To be honest I never really cared for this song or the lyrics the previous times I've seen the Forgotten Carols. However, for some reason this time it touched me differently. I connected better with the main character. She became a hardened person because of the challenges she's faced in life, but after John showed her genuine friendship, she realized that she doesn't need to be sad about life not turning out the way she wanted it to. Rather, God gave her those experiences and even hardships knowing that in some way she did not expect, they would bless her life and make her into a better person.

Admittedly I'm not a person who's had to face an major losses in life, but I do know that everyone faces different challenges. Responding to those challenges with faith in the Lord will make us better people.

Rootbeer

So me and my wife have become connoisseurs of Rootbeer. It happens to be our favorite soda, and neither of us really drink a lot of soda other than Rootbeer. Rather than just the stuff that comes out of the soda fountain at the fast-food restaurant or the 2-liter of soda you can get at the grocery store, we really like trying obscure brands in glass bottles. It mostly started with Barqs. We lived in Alabama for a few months for work two summers ago, and out there it was common to find Barqs in a bottle in convenience stores or restaurants. We haven't found anywhere that sells it since. We have tried many other brands and have begun making a list rating our favorites:

Barqs 10
Jones 9.8
Sarsaparilla 9.8
Stewart's 8.5
Brigham's Brew 8
Virgil's 7.5
IBC 5
Frosties 5
A&W 4.5
Sioux City 3.5
Dog and Suds 3
Bundaberg 0

One of the best parts about Rootbeer in a bottle is that the soda lasts better in bottles, meaning most companies will make the soda with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. Our ratings are usually based on taste (apart from just tasting good or not, some Rootbeers are made with a heavy taste of liquorish which neither of us likes), and amount of carbonation. Barqs in a bottle is pretty much perfect. Jones also has a great taste but needs just a tad more carbonation. Sarsaparilla isn't technically Rootbeer but is more like the grandfather of Rootbeer. We often buy Sioux City Sarsaparilla which has a great taste very close to Rootbeer. Stewarts is one of our fall back brands. It's not spectacular but meets all the general requirements and is a good 4 pack to have in the fridge when you want a good Rootbeer. Brigham's Brew we tried only recently. It could use a tad more carbonation but overall has a good taste. Virgil's is mostly cool because it comes in a really cool bottle. It's downside is the liquorish taste. IBC tastes good but is way too carbonated. Frosties is undercarbonated with a decent taste. A&W is a rather poor Rootbeer with little flavor. Sioux City Rootbeer (as opposed to the Sarsaparilla) has a very heavy taste of liquorish and we rated it rather low. Dog and Suds was overcarbonated and tasted like liquorish. Bundaberg scored a zero because it was such a bad taste we couldn't drink it and threw it away.

Provo recently opened Pop N Sweets, which has walls full of obscure brands of Rootbeer. It's sort of a haven for people like me and my wife. We've been trying new brands there and will continue to add to our list of ratings. Feel free to post opinions or favorite brands here in the comments. Pop N Sweets doesn't currently carry our favorite, Barqs. We requested it to them and expect it to be in in a few weeks. They said they'll carry anything at least once and will continue to carry it if it sells well. I expect that Barqs will sell very well and seems like exactly the type of thing they ought to have there, so we may finally have found somewhere to get Barqs in Utah. Anyone who likes Rootbeer and has tried few or no bottled brands, I highly recommend that you look into it and it might just change the way you drink Rootbeer from now on. Good luck!

Professional Dress

Today in the personal presentations for class, I saw a number of the presentations on various subjects. Out of all the ones I saw, only one used an acronym to highlight the main points, and as such I can only remember the main points on one of them. For that reason, I've decided to discuss the presentation on personal appearance for business purposes.

We were told that an interviewer makes a decision about you within about 10 seconds, most of which depends on your appearance. For that reason, it is important that we have a clean professional appearance for business purposes. The three main points to keep in mind were:

Message

Audience

Concept

Basically, we need to know what message we would like to send, who our audience will be, and what concepts to keep in mind hen decided how to appear for business meeting.

Nice job everyone today on your presentations!

Video Interview

I was assigned to do a mock video interview with Alyson Peterson and to write about my experience here.

One thing I noticed about doing a video interview is that it required a great deal of preparation. I spent a lot of time preparing my PAR stories, notes, and a copy of my resume to be prepared for the questions she would ask me in the interview. It also occured to me during the interview that I wanted to avoid the impression that I was looking at notes. The interview will be much more effective if the interviewer feels that your answers are all off the cuff, and to give this impression you must maintain eye contact and look away from the screen as little as possible.

The biggest problem we ran into was predictably technical difficulties. For some reason the microphone on my computer was not working, and I wasn't able to quickly identify the source of the problem. Rather than using FaceTime on my Mac as we had previously agreed, we had to use Skype from my iPad. Alyson mentioned in her response email that this created a very dark image for the interview and that next time I should choose better lighting.

I reallly appreciated this experience mostly because it taught me that next time I will need to test my interviewing technology beforehand, because it would not look good to an employer to be all prepared to interview me just to find out awkwardly that we would have to make multiple unsuccessful attempts at connecting and my inability to fix the technical problem.

Multi-Stake Conference

Many of you were probably at the multi-stake conference last week with Elder Ballard. My favorite two things he mentioned in his talk were these:

1. The reason the prophets and apostles don't talk about "cool" stuff more often is because we are still working on the little things, like reading our scriptures, saying our prayers, and keeping the commandments. "When you're all doing that stuff, then we'll tell you where Kolob is."

2. All of us think we're too busy to do those things. "If I could put a camera on you and follow you around with it, you'd see how much time you actually waste."

He's absolutely right about both of these things. I do frequently use the time excuse because of work, school, and homework. I do however manage to find a little bit of time in-between all of that to do things that I enjoy, like sitting and watching a movie or a show once in a while. If I really made prayers and scriptures a priority over the little things I like doing (or really made scripture study something I like doing right along with the other things) I'm sure I could find time to fit it into my schedule more often. I certainly remember being close to the scripture and prayer during my mission. Personal study was my favorite part of the day, and since then I've left a lot of project for studying the scriptures undone. I'll make a commitment now to do better about it.

On the Job Hunt

Some really good advice I got the other day from a friend of mine when looking for a job is to look on the Marriott School website and find Alumni who are currently working at the company I'm interested in. Their email addresses are listed and you can contact them to get an idea about the company, and potentially for them to even recommend you. The same advice was given yesterday in class by Mrs. Fueston. Definitely something to keep in mind while looking for jobs and internships.

Other good ideas for looking for jobs are BYU Bridge, LDSjobs.com, LinkedIn, and networking.

To be honest, I thought the mission could be really stressful and school could be really stressful, but job hunting I think beats them both. It's like you're racing against everyone else trying to get a job before you. The job you find can affect the rest of your life. My wife had the awesome idea of fasting this week, so we're going to try that out. I know Heavenly Father is mindful of me and my family at this time and I also have faith that as long as I do my part and diligently search, I'll find what's right for me.