The Happiest Place on Earth

Well it's been a while since I've posted anything, and I thought that now would be as good a time as any.  Unfortunately I really don't have anything on my mind about which to ramble on for a while.  Therefore the idea that I'm running with is just writing and seeing where my mind takes me, a dangerous adventure for sure, but hopefully it turns out to be a fun ride.  In fact that itself made me wonder why it is that just starting to write with no plan in mind gives you ideas.  It happens every time without fail.  I could sit around thinking for hours and not come up with anything that I would ever really want to write about, or I can just start writing anything and like magic a fairly decent topic comes out.  It seems to work with anything, from blogging to writing essays for school, just start and the rest will come out.  So Disneyland, it's a pretty awesome place.  Just this last weekend I had the pleasure of taking my first trip there, and what an experience it was.  I do feel, however, that I may have missed out on opportunities to go at the right age.  To my parents credit, they did take me and the rest of the family to Disney world, but that was back in 93 when I was only 8 years old.  Honestly, that was probably a better time to go than at 25, except that the problem remains that I have an absolutely horrible memory.  So while I probably had more fun with all of the childish things involved with Disney World, I can honestly only remember a very small number of them.  And that raises the question in my mind, when is the ideal time to go to Disneyland/World.  I realized this last weekend that I was too old for the majority of rides and things happening there, a lot of them were simply slow and not very exciting.  Even a ride like space mountain doesn't really carry the pizazz that one is seeking at an amusement park.  However, if you go when you're too young, then years later you can't remember the experience that well, other than it occurred and it was a great time.  Well then, when was it that I stopped being into shows like Doug or the Rugrats, and started to focus on more mature entertainment?  To the best of my recollection, which may I remind you is not very good, it was right around the time of becoming a teenager, say 12 or 13.  I think that this would be the ideal age to go and visit such a Theme Park.  In this stage you will still be excited about meeting characters, or at least people dressed up like the characters, and all of the other childish happenings which are going on, and hopefully remember it a little better.  But then again, as I was walking around Disneyland there was one thought which I had repeatedly, that it would be so much more fun to have gone with my niece and nephews.  Perhaps, then, the best time to experience Disneyland is when you are there to enjoy the pleasure of seeing someone else love every second of it.  Maybe the best reason to go isn't a selfish one of having fun yourself, but seeing loved ones eyes light up as they get to say hi to Mickey and Buzz Lightyear.  Personally I thought Disneyland was a wonderful place but now that I've been there and can remember what it's like, I'm even more excited for the day when there are little Travises (or perhaps Travi) running around that I can bring with me and enjoy their enjoyment!

Nostalgia

As I got in my car after a full day of school something strange happened, a song from my childhood randomly came into my head.  This wouldn't be so strange if it weren't for the fact that I was doing absolutely nothing that should have made a mental connection with Air Supply's Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You).  Had I been thinking about a girl that would have been one thing, but I wasn't, I was thinking about an upcoming road trip to California with some friends of mine.  So here's what I think happened, I was extremely excited about all of the plans for the trip coming together, and it was that high level of excitement that put into my mind something old and nostalgic, which just so happened to be an Air Supply song.  However, the second that song came into my head the excitement quickly turned from being about California to being about an old song that I hadn't heard in years being all of the sudden in my head.  It was stuck in there so much that even as I played other music on the way home, I was still singing Air Supply, and loving every second of it.  So the real question is why in the world was I so darn happy about an old corny love song?  Of course the answer to that question is nostalgia, it reminds me of being in the back of my parents van with the whole family taking a trip to Long Island to visit relatives, of a simpler time when responsibilities didn't really exist.  Well, I started to think, does this mean that what I really want is to be a child again, living under my parents roof without any sort of a care in the world. While that does sound nice at first, the answer is a resounding NO!  Goodness I couldn't imagine how terrible it would be to be 12 again, to not be able to just leave to do what I needed to, to not be able to just drive to the store, or get home at whatever hour I please.  When I visit my parents house for a week I start to go crazy having to check in all the time and what not.  So it's not that it makes me think of a happier time, because I'm fairly certain that I'm much much happier now than I was back then.  So what is it that makes me giddy about feeling like a little kid again when I see robots fighting each other, or think of an old family favorite song?  It's probably just one of those mysteries that we may never really know the answer to, but as a scientifically minded person, that kind of crap just isn't going to cut it. So here's my hypothesis as to why such a thing happens.  It occurs because of a blending of present and past.  As the best things from the past come into the future we start to subconsciously imagine a world where childhood and adulthood blend together with all of their individual magnificences.  We briefly, but truly, live in a world where we don't have any responsibilities holding us down, but at the same time we have all of the freedom which we could ever hope to have.  The nostalgic effect is merely the mind blending all of the good it has ever known into one temporary reality, and it's absolutely awesome!

Mulligans

To anyone who plays golf casually, mulligan is about as beautiful a word as any.  For those who aren't familiar with it, it is basically just a fancy way of saying a do-over.  The great part about a mulligan is that you get to take another swing and it doesn't count against you.  A mulligan is the epitome of a second chance, as it basically erases the existence of the previous stroke.  The reason that mulligans are on my mind in the dead of winter is that I was recently watching a TV show and that particular episode was entitled "mulligans".  The show had the golf reference because the episode took place during a golf tournament, but the true reason behind the naming of the episode was that in the end a son forgave his father for having left him and his brother as children, after having sworn that he would never do so.  Essentially he gave his dad a mulligan.  Interestingly enough this got me thinking about a certain friendship with someone that didn't end on great terms.  While watching this show I started to think about how things had ended and about second chances.  Then, later that night, I received an E-mail from that exact same person, apologizing for the way things ended up.  To be honest, had I gotten that message a day earlier I probably would have just dismissed it and been frustrated, thinking to myself that there is no way this person deserved any sort of second chance.  But it didn't come the day before, it came that exact same day, just as this issue was on my mind.  I mean c'mon, there is absolutely no way that something like this happens purely out of coincidence, right?  So I decided that I needed to follow my gut on this one and give my old friend another chance.  What happens in the end, I honestly have no idea, but there is one thing that I do know, such things don't happen by accident, and the best type of do-over is a mulligan, where the first time is completely erased from memory and the record books.  Give it up for second chances.

Cross Country Skiing

Exciting news in the life of Travis Zurcher, I have now learned a brand new sport, cross country skiing!  Granted it's not the most exciting sport of all time, but when you consider some of my other favorites like golf and baseball I guess it kind of fits right in with what I'm all about.  Anyways, finally something that got me outside and enjoying the snow for the majority of the day, not an easy task, I must admit, but definitely accomplished.  So now the question is this, could I be convinced to become a winter person.  A very interesting thought indeed seeing as since as far back as I can remember I've never been a fan of the snow or winter.  Sure as a kid I would make snowmen and snowforts, throwing snowballs at friends and having a good time.  But I always remember suffering through winter to make it back to the glorious days of summer.  In fact many times I recall people at the end of summer saying that they were excited for winter and were done with all this hot weather for a little while.  I also recall thinking to myself that such a thought was ludicrous because summer was in every way better than winter. "But you can always put on more layers in the cold, you can only take off so many", someone would say to me in defense of winter.  Right, because there's nothing I love more than putting on two shirts, a sweater, a jacket, scarf, gloves and a hat just to be "comfortable" outside.  And I also am skeptical to the fact that such amounts of clothing is in fact comfortable, because to me shorts, a t-shirt and some sandals is the ideal amount of clothes.  Too hot?  Try going inside in the A/C for a little bit, or maybe you can take a dip in a body of water of sorts.  Here's an idea, in the summer the shade is much cooler, relax in it while sipping a nice lemonade.  So what's the point, well at first it was to analyze whether finding enough fun winter activities could change my mind about loving summer so very much more, but now it seems quite obvious to me after my rant about how much better summer is.  No amount of fun winter activities will ever change my mind because summer is just that much better, period.  Even if I were to discover a plethora of fun filled wintery stuffs, the absolute best solution is a week or so out of the year where I visit somewhere cold, and then head back to some hot wonderous desert where winter is only a fairytale.

Assumptions

Today during Econ 110 Professor Kearl started off by making an assumption in order to simplify economics.  This, to me, seems like a perfectly reasonably thing to do since I know very little about economics and to attempt of study of the most intricate details right off the get go would be nothing but futile.  However, it appears that many other people were not able to grasp this very simple concept of making assumptions to simplify a system, even if this assumption is not entirely true.  In this instance, the assumption was made that people were self-interested and would therefore ultimately act in the fashion that would help them to acquire as much as possible.  While this assumption is obviously not 100% true, it is, in general, a very good guideline as to the roots of people's behavior.  That's why it's an assumption, and not a rule of economics.  But for some reason every couple of minutes or so someone would come up with some hypothetical situation of people not acting in a self interested manner.  While this was quite frusrtating to me, the fact that people couldn't understand the purpose of the assumption he was making, it was also very entertaining.  This is because every time someone gave a situation where people were not acting in their own self interest, Professor Kearl showed them why they were in fact wrong every time.  A mother staying at home with a child, not self interested?  Why yes it is.  That mother is staying home because it would cost more to hire a full time nanny than she would be able to make going to work.  The best choice for her is to stay at home to take of the child.  Point Kearl.  The industrial revolution, people went into terrible working conditions, this most certainly was not to their benefit, right?  Wrong again, no one forced people to leave their farms, they left because in the end it was a better decision, certainly not the best but obviously better than farming, or they wouldn't have left the farm.  Point Kearl.  This continued literally the entire class and was fascinating to see people continue at it, when time and time again, the point when to Dr. Kearl.  In the end, this made me think about other classes where similar assumptions are made, and I realized that they are all technical and science classes.  So it must be that all these people have not had many, if any at all, science classes, or this concept would not seem foreign, but instead blatantly necessary.  At first I thought more people need more science to understand this concept better, because making assumptions to simplify things that are occurring in life is a very useful and helpful tool.  But as I continued to ponder on the outcome of this solution I realized something very important.  If more of these liberal arts type people are in my science classes, then I would have to deal with the stupidity all the time, and not just in one class.  So in the end the current system is probably the best one and I'll just sit back and enjoy Dr. Kearl making people look stupid.

The Science of Religion

I just finished reading a really great article by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  It was an excerpt from a speech that he gave about a year ago at Harvard Law School in which he outlined three fundamental premises of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It was an absolutely fantastic article and I recommend you give it a read, you won't be disappointed.  The cluster of truth, as he called them, that really got me thinking was the threefold sources of truth about man and the universe:  science, the scriptures, and continuing revelation.  To me this is very interesting as the general concept about the interaction between science and religion is a negative one. Most people see science as a way to show that religion is incorrect and that we do not truly need religion in our lives, that they are inherently in opposition with one another.  However, as Elder Oaks explains, this is not the case, but they in fact work with each other in obtaining more knowledge about life.  It is my thought that, despite popular belief, God himself must obey the laws of science, that is to say that he must follow them.  Please note that I am not saying that God is not all powerful, because he most assuredly is.  What I am saying is that as a song I learned growing up says, knowledge is power. Since God is all knowing, he has a grasp of the sciences much more advanced than anything we claim to be able to understand or to model.  With such great knowledge he is able to take advantage of the laws of science, and use, not circumvent, them to accomplish his great design.  It seems to me that the more we learn about science the more it truly proves just how amazing God is as he is able to use the laws of nature to his benefit.  But if we truly think about it, what we do as humans and science is the same thing.  As we understand science better we are able to accomplish things that people even only 100 years ago wouldn't even be able to fathom.  For example, how would you be able to explain to a person in the 1800's the concept of blogging, there is no way they would be able to grasp such a concept of a virtual connection allowing people to post their thoughts and opinions in a forum where people from around the world could have instant access. My guess is that if you were in the right place and time you would probably be burned at the stake for being a witch for talking about such ridiculous things, although I suppose that would be more considered the wrong place and time.  So imagine what an all knowing God could be able to do with his understanding of the laws of nature, things that we can't even begin to understand how exactly they work.  Some of the biggest things I can think of are the resurrection and the atonement of Christ.  How one man can suffer for all of the sins and sorrows of the world doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever, but that's only because I have an imperfect knowledge of the science of the universe.  What I have come to understand though is that God does understand how it all comes together in the end, and that's why the other methods of learning are so important.  If it weren't for the scriptures and revelation we would not be able to figure out that there is a resurrection after this life.  Thankfully such wonderful knowledge has in fact been revealed to us along with many other things that will help us with our eternal salvation.  It is my belief that as our understanding of science improves, so will our understanding of God and religion because truth is truth regardless of the source.

The Epic Battle of Good Versus Evil

A couple of days after Christmas I went with some of my family to watch the new Gullivers Travels starring Jack Black.  While it was a fantastic movie, that's not what most caught my attention, nor what I plan on writing about today.  The thought that crossed my mind was the epic battle of good vs. evil.  Generally, if you were to ask someone what colors represent good and evil I imagine the answer would most often be that white is good and black is evil, and I doubt anyone would refute that as a certifiable fact.  However, this particular movie decided on using the colors of red and blue to reference evil and good respectively.  Where the people who were portrayed as peaceful except to defend their country from attackers had an obvious blue theme, while the other civilization was a war mongering nation bent on taking control over the others, and donned red clothing and a red flag.  Interesting, not really a brand new revelation or anything earth shattering enough to blow your mind, but interesting to me.  It made me ponder on and search for instances where red was used for evil and blue for good.  The first instance I came against was that of the light sabers in Star Wars.  As if it wasn't enough to dress up Darth Vader in a black suit, they also gave all of those who embraced the dark side red light sabers.  In comparison, the Jedi Knights had a variety of different colors, but rest assured that blue was among the dominant colors used.

 Still not convinced, lets turn to a more historical reference, the cold war.  What color was used to represent communists I ask.  That's right, it was red, and I doubt any would dare to argue in defence of communism.  (That being said I in fact know multiple people who would, in fact, defend communism, not out of an actual belief that communism was right of course, only for the sake of being able to debate, so no need to prove me wrong with your communism was a good idea propaganda, thanks).  Lets look at another example, Tron.  The original creator and those who are against the new reigning tyrant all have blue glowing lines.  Those who are against and oppressing these poor programs, orange.  Granted, orange is not red, but it is quite similar, and if nothing else it at least provides another example where blue is depicted as being good.  If there is anyone who would read this and still feel the need to disagree that blue represents good and red evil, simply google it, and see what results pop up, thats what I did.  The only other specific example I could find was in a game called infamous, apparently blue xp is good and red xp is evil, I honestly have no clue what that even means, other than the fact that it supports my rantings.
 Well, it's time to get down to the real purpose of this article, and I would guess that by now it's probably not too difficult to imagine where this is headed.  Anyone living in Utah understands that there is a heated rivalry between two Universities, Brigham Young University and University of Utah (Utah State get over yourself, you're not anyone's rival, you're more like the handicapped little brother the rest of us all feel bad for).  Any true battle, for it to be of worth, should be one where good and evil go toe to toe and fight it out.  Therefore, it seems necessary, in order to give validity to the rivalry, to label one as good and the other evil.  Many points could surely be made in putting either as good or as evil, but what it really boils down to is this; when seen on the playing field which pulls the emotion of good and which pulls the emotion of evil.  No doubt anyone who attends these schools would surely say that the other is the evil, so we must put aside emotion and preference to determine this.  Lets leave it up to a friend we all love and rely on, the media.  As previously proven, the media has claim on red being evil and blue being good, and who are we to argue.  There must be a reason why these colors have been chosen for their purpose.  So BYU, as it's proud blue denotes, must therefore represent good, and Utah, with it's deep red denotes evil.  And remember, this is not simply my interpretation as a BYU fan, but rather the cold hard facts using an unbiased perception.

Blue and White, Gotta be the good guys!

Red with quite a bit of black.  Right like I'd believe they're not evil