Who would have guessed?!

At about 2am on July 16 I was up as usual. I decided to check my financial add status for UVU. As I was on my student web page I noticed something in my e-mail inbox. The words "Dean's List" stuck out the most to me and I thought to my self, what could this be? To my utter surprise I found something quite amazing. And this was what it was.

"Dear Dale(that's me):

Congratulations! You have earned the distinction of being on the Dean's List for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences for the academic year 2008-09. You should be justifiably proud of achieving a GPA at or above 3.6 as a full-time student. It is an accomplishment that reflects your dedication and determination.

Spring 2009:

This honor exemplifies your commitment to serious studying and learning. Thank you for your academic commitment as it contributes to UVU's growing reputation as a first choice institution of higher education. We hope you will continue to pursue excellence in your academic career at Utah Valley University.

Best wishes,
David P. Yells
Dean"

In a million years I would have never guessed that I would make any deans list. I was so surprised I called my mother right away. Yes she was awake. She is a night owl like unto my self. For all of you that no me, you hardly ever see me doing school work. Some how I managed to do something I have never done before. Now I'm not saying that I'm not a smart person. I am no genius, but I do consider my self to be able to comprehend a lot of things. I just have to really put my mind to it. I think I may go out and celebrate by buying my self a treat. I mean I buy my self treats all the time, but this one will be special. Yay for me!! Until next time!!

Clifton "DANGER" Chandler

As Many of you may know or not know, I am friend with a young man by the name of Clifton Dean Chandler. About a week ago he chose to blog about me on his own blog. He makes it sound like I begged him to do it, but whatever. It's been done. I thought to my self, blog about him. So to Cliff I say, "here goes nothing."

1) Danger is not his middle name. Though he wishes it thoroughly it will never happen unless he spends thousands of dollars to do so. However, he is dangerous. But not to be feared. A gentle giant he is. Only scary if provoked and even then I wouldn't go running under a rock or something. But lets just say I've never tested those waters.

2) Very few people know how to really push my buttons. Most of them being my family members, whom I love dearly. Cliff has figured out a way to do it and it drives me nuts. I can think of a few times where I have actually yelled or snapped back at him. He has this way of taking whatever situation I seem to be venting about and mock me for it. One time I remember we were playing ultimate frisbee, its hammer time, and I was getting a little frustrated with how people were playing and i was vocalizing my opinion. Well Cliff thought it would be great to mock me in the process and boy did I yell at him. Most likely later I may have apologized, but I don't remember exactly. Oh well, he and I are friends!

3) He sees everything, or so he says. Most of his friends tend to agree. Cliff tends to be pretty observant. He can usually tell when someone is not in the greatest of moods or if they aren't their normal selves. It seems to be pretty hard to keep things from Cliff. A lot of the time he uses this power for good. Mainly to help a friend feel better or just to be observant. He is always watching!! So beware!!

4) Since we have been playing ultimate frisbee together he has gotten much better. I'm no expert but almost every time we play he seems to pull off something amazing. Maybe a finger tip catch or even some amazing hammer throw that seems to make its way to the person he is aiming for. I recently taught him something amazing and I think it has changed his life forever. If you want to know what it is you'll have to ask him yourself. One of these days he'll amaze me by diving full out for the frisbee. I believe you can do it Cliff!

5) Never fear Cliff is here. There in a moments notice he will help. Always diligent to help a friend in need. Whether it be listening with his ear or pulling out one of his three knives he usually caries to serve as protection or opening up some pesky package, he's there to help.

So ladies, if you're looking for a man to spend eternity with, you don't have to look far. He is every girls dream and every mans worst fear. To Cliff I say thanks for being a good friend. I know we don't always tend to agree but we have had many more good times than bad times, to which I am grateful. Stay true Captain Danger!

That Time Again!

It's that time of year again when the city of Provo goes empty and apartments seem to be dark at night before bed time. You all probably know what I'm talking about. If you don't than maybe someday you will experience it yourself. It's that time when school is out and people have gone home for the summer or just for the weekend before school starts again. I've never liked it. You would think that after going through this so many times that I could handle it. You would think that having to do it a lot on my mission that I could handle it. But it's not true. I get to a point where I become so comfortable with my friends and everyone around and the routine I get in. Then things change and life throws you a little twist. I tend to usually handle it pretty quick, but for some reason this last departure of friends has shaken things up a bit. It was quite the interesting semester, but it was a good one. It was my second semester back at school in a while and I'm so ready to be done. Only three more finals left and I'm free to work my summer away. I've made some good friends this past semester and I hope they have enjoyed my company. I hope that we stay friends for a long time and learn to continue to grow and laugh with one another. I think this past year I saw more friends leave and that's always hard to get used to. But I know that I'm strong and that the Lord is there to help me make it through. My friends will always be my friends. I love my parents and what they have done for me. They have helped me out so much in my life. They have supported me in my times of trial and I can always count on them. My hope is that some day I can repay them for there generous and unconditional love towards me. To my parents I owe so much. I owe so much to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ who have blessed me with such great friends and family.

Let me know what you think about this time of year. Thank you all for being my friends and being there for me when I have needed you. Please enjoy this summer for those of you who are away and are coming back. For those of you who have left because of graduation or other life choices: good luck and I'm glad I got to know you and be your friend. Enjoy life and I hope to see you soon.

You have got to be Kidding ME!

So for those of you who didn't know this already, Disney owns its own city. Well not so much that it owns the city, but it established it in 1994. Celebration, Florida, the name of the city, was built as a new way of life that takes you back to the old way of a good simple life. Talk about a company that has enough money to start its own town. After watching the movie "No Logo" you really do realize what Naomi Klein was saying about how Disney has reached "Brand Nirvana". For those of you who don't know what that means, it pretty much says that Disney is so well known that you will know their brand so well. I mean, they do have their own town. Can you imagine having so much money that you establish a city? Crazy stuff! What's also amazing about the town is the fact that there are no other major brand icons there. Disney has pretty much said that all other brands/franchises need to stay out of our town. It must be killing other companies to be rejected like this.

Here is a link to the cities website for anyone who wants to check it out:
http://www.celebration.fl.us/
And here is what Wikipedia has to say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida

As much as brands are everywhere, who cares? I think it annoys me more that people are bothered by brands everywhere. Yeah product placement in shows and other media outlets can get annoying but there are ways around avoiding them. And just because I know a products logo well enough doesn't mean i care enough to do anything about it or buy there clothes. I buy stuff because I like it. And if I bought it and don't like it then I'm not going to go out and buy it again. Brands may be everywhere, but brands don't control me.

When I watch my TV shows I usually notice the product placements that are in the show. I've noticed them more as I've taken this Comms class. It's kinda weird when you look at shows from 10 years ago and notice that the products they used on TV shows were no name brands. You never saw a Coca-Cola or Pepsi can. You never heard people talk about Ikea or Bed Bath and Beyond. Show were just shows and you watched it for the content it supplied. I guarantee that a lot of shows would lose money if they didn't use product placement. You gotta wonder how much companies are paying to put there products on American Idol or The Office.

Web What?

It's crazy the society we live in. It's unbelievable to think how attached to the Internet and electronics we have become. I wonder if I will be able to participate in the class electronic fast we may have. I don't know which one of my electronics I would give up for a weekend. It's so hard to decide.

Web 2.0 is an interesting concept to think about. The fact the everything is beginning to revolve around the Internet. Will we ever be able to live without it? Like I mentioned in class, it seemed hard for my friend to go a few days without Facebook when we went to his families farm. It's not that he was suffering but I think he just wanted to know what was going on. He even used dial up Internet access. Has anyone used dial up lately? It's like pulling out bad teeth. You don't want to have to do it, but it needs to be done. You don't want to have to always use the Internet, but sometimes you just make the sacrifices needed to access it. And if that means using dial up, than so be it. I myself don't have a smart phone yet and I don't know how long it will be before I get one and that's mainly because they are expensive and cost more than I can handle right now to get all the cool features that come with them.

I love my computer. It probably does so many things and I don't even know. I use it for four things mainly. 1) to surf the Internet 2) watch movies and TV shows 3) look at my pictures and videos 4) do school work. How could I even exist without it? You can't even do your school work these days without using a computer. Everyone wants your assignments typed. And I don't own a typewriter. I might be able to find one if I really needed to use it, but finding a computer these days is so much easier.

Who Knows?

I'll be honest. I can say that I've never really that all that much about where my clothes are being made. I suppose that the problem is is that I should be more concerned. I suppose that's part of how we live in our society. We tend to just live our lives day to day and not worry about all the mundane things that are going on around us. I know for sure that I sometimes look at the tags on my clothing or other peoples clothing to see what country they are made in, but I hardly ever think about what the conditions are like in the factories the clothes are made. I guess I've never taken the time to really think about it. And that's probably a horrible thing to say. I guess my hope is that the companies I buy my clothes from are being morally right and not treating their employees horrible.

I do think sometimes about the music I buy and listen to. I'll sometimes buy a whole CD and not listen to all the songs on it because of some of the lyrics or meanings within the songs I choose not to listen to. But the problem arises that, am I still supporting them in those songs even though I am not listening to them? I'm pretty sure I've had this discussion with my mom before. I had a friend tell me once the Michael Buble is not a very nice guy and I wasn't to happy to hear that because I like listening to him and hearing something like that kinda disturbs me. My hope is that it's not true and he is a nice guy.

I feel sorry for the people who do suffer because of the businesses and marketer's who choose to exploit those suffering for their own profit and good. Why does anyone feel the right to treat other humans as less than them and abuse them. Whether you believe in God or not you should always see someone as being your equal as a human being. It's just not fair to see people treated like animals. If you watch the show "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery channel you will see that without those people who are willing to work the working class jobs than there wouldn't be sky scrapers that have nice comfy offices for some others to work in. We tend to forget that every human is important and plays a vital role in our societies existence. When we forget this principle that's when racism, sexism, or any other type of hatred fall's into play.

Livestrong!

Fads are a killer and I do my best to stay away from them if I can. It kills me when someone just wants to do stuff or buy things because everyone else is doing it or because it's the popular thing. For me, as I mentioned in class, I remember when the Livestrong bracelets came out to support cancer. They were so popular. It seemed as if everyone was wearing them as a fad. It was annoying. I admit I ended up wearing one myself, but it was because my father bought some for the family because he was into biking and actually cared about the cause the bracelets supported. The killer after that was the fact that everybody else was in the market of making those same kind of rubber bracelets. At one point I my-self started wearing the ones that said CTR on them. I haven't worn one in a long time though and I probably wont go back wearing one again unless it's for a pretty good reason.

We really need to stop letting mass media and major companies decide what we should wear or how we should act. When it comes down to it I will make the decisions on the cloths I will wear. I like Old Navy cloths because they are comfortable to me and they are sold at a pretty descent price. I'm the kind of guy who does his best to not spend a lot on clothing unless it's athletic wear. Even then I try to buy sports attire on sale.