My brother was working on a class project and they saw Donnie Osmond on campus at BYU. Donnie thought it a noble cause and did what he could to help.

A while back a group of friends and I did this in the fine arts building at BYU, it was tons of fun.

Today I give you Flaming Pringles Man Mustache. Yes, breathe deeply. It’s a tribute to everyone’s favorite snack chip of ambiguous origins. On fire!

Enjoy

I got some new software that I’m mega pumped about. And it’s about time. I have a macbook which I really like that I used to run windows on. My hard drive was getting full so I had to get rid of the windows part, which also happened to have my design software on it.

Luckily microsoft just came out with office 2011 for mac so that part doesn’t have me at a total loss. I was, however, design software-less for a while and it took a toll on my sanity. I realized just how often I use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, etc. Good to have it back. I took this picture with my phone and used a nifty app called instagram to put a filter on it and blur everything except for the words on the box. It’s on my desk at the office. Normally this stuff costs $1800 but a friend of a friend got the hook up for $124 from an Adobe employee.

So today I realized that since I signed up for this credit card in early 2008 I haven’t used any reward points at all. Now there’s 25,000 to be redeemed for like $250 in cash. Booya! That helps business a little.

Eric and I just got back from the gym. As un-fun as exercise sounds sometimes (especially when it’s lazy time) it always feels great afterward. We go to 24-hr and like it.

So our ward is having a video contest for each home evening group. Our video is going to rock!

Here’s a video I made with my ward way back in Spring 2008 of the same origin:

Werd. Improvements in the biz. Today was Boston’s second day at the office and it’s been going really well. He is all about Parker Planners and owns his work. He showed up today with a whiteboard and markers to help keep track of things. Rock.

Here are some pictures I’ve been sharing on Twitter lately. Sorry to those who aren’t friends with me on facebook or follow me on twitter, they wouldn’t see this stuff. It’s kind of a lazy man’s way to blog. When I post something on twitter from my phone it automatically goes to my facebook feed, too.

I got another key for my office made today and met the owner of this vehicle in the key place. It’s also a mid-1980’s VW diesel contraption. Front-wheel drive, weird.

My office now has a second person, a second desk, and some cool stuff on the walls.

Eric and I went to the BYU vs UNLV basketball game. Jimmer Fredette did it again by silencing a critic star player on the other team and proving he can pass the ball, too. 29 points but also 7 assists and 2 other team members scored 12 points or better.

This is a hilarious and amazingly long discussion on facebook about “The Jimmer”. It made it on ESPN.com.

The ESPN article: here

The amazing facebook thread: here

Mike and I went to a BYU Volleyball game recently, they’re ranked 3rd in the nation. Great to watch.

I’m on an intramural soccer team. This is my coach, he don’t take guff.

Thanks for reading.

Ethan

My first semester of real accounting at BYU I had Doug Prawitt as a professor. He is easily one of the best educators I have ever come in contact with. The class was difficult but it was apparent he wanted us to succeed and did everything he could to help that happen. So many teachers want you to suffer through school just because they did and to them it’s a sort of demented rite of passage that is perpetuated by small minds.

Dr. Prawitt regularly puts a new quote up like this. I dig it. And I dug this one so I wrote “word up”

Enjoy!

Ethan

Eric and I went most of the BYU game yesterday. It was good to see us lead early at 16-0. We have had a rough season. Wyoming then picked one off and ran it back for a TD which wasn’t fun to watch. We ended up winning by 5 points and barely pulled it off.

Janie just called me this morning, I treasure every time we talk or get to visit. She wanted to remind me to come get the tickets from “Janie’s Will Call” i.e. the top of her piano in the front room. For the 4th year in a row she’s giving me front center tickets to the BYU (Homecoming) Spectacular. It’s a great show every time!

For an explanation of who Janie is, see the “Janie” category on right side of this blog. I feel like I need to write down everything that happens between us because she won’t be around forever and she’s such a special person. In today’s conversation some highlights were “I can’t see anything these days, but I put my glasses on so I could hear you”. Man she is so hilarious. I love the way she says goodbye on the telephone, too. It’s so abrupt it caught me off guard for a long time. She just says “goodbye!” with a very cheerful voice but you can never predict in the conversation when it will come haha! I love it. I wish we could all be a little more like that, happy, cheerful, not all in a huff about formalities and all that.

Janie has set me up many times, she’s great. I think I’ve been on a date with all her grand-nieces that ever went to BYU.

I just got back from visiting her today. Janie amazes me all the time. She just told me a story where she was over in Europe performing with Tony Bennett for the troops and at one point Mickey Rooney was leaning over the piano she was playing and made a comment about they lyrics of the song she was singing. It caused her contemplation and decided that she would only sing lyrics that had an influence for good.

You heard it here first. In the future all computers will be replaced by elaborate systems of beetle shells stuffed inside our pockets like a handful of peanuts. Just ask this BYU student.

In all seriousness, go BYU research.

I’m starting this post now because these games rock too much not to.

BYU FOOTBALL BEGINS HOY

This was kind of a crazy game. We won almost on penalties alone. Also we switched players in and out like crazy. It’s not often you see a team change quarterbacks over 6 times in one game.

We went to the BO (Brick Oven) afterward, good stuff. As we were waiting our homie Molly noticed that the table cloth was checkered so we had to play. Eric and I tore up white and red pieces of paper and began a checkery bout. One BO worker came up and thought it was pretty cool, he had never see customers play checkers on the table cloth before. His only question was  “how are you gonna do King Me?”

Don’t get the buffalo chicken pizza; pretty gross. It was recommended to us by a friend who worked there so we ordered one. It made Eric and I feel sick after just a few bites. Celery and feta don’t belong on a pizza with buffalo sauce, I don’t know what they were thinking. So our friend got the manager to come over and talk to us about our pizza. She asks Eric “so what seems to be the problem with the pizza?” Eric says “ummm, the taste”. Ha ha. Funny guy.

They gave us a new one! Entonces we went home with a garlic chicken of goodness instead. El fin.

My first retail customer for Parker Planners was the BYU Bookstore. Pretty lucky because the BYU Bookstore is in the top 5 in the nation in both floorspace and sales. I visited with Paul this morning and he told me some interesting stuff. He’s been in the business 28 years. He said of the hundreds of people who have come to him with small mom and pop products only 3 have succeeded and I’m one of them. Whuh? I had no idea. I have a lot to be grateful for.

Last Saturday BYU broke the world record for the largest water balloon fight! I went and got a free t-shirt. It was awesome. 120,021 balloons!They fed us afterward as well!

It’s hard to stay positive. They say attitude is altitude and I’m a firm believer in that. The other week I went to sacrament meeting in the room where the BYU Cougarette dance team practices. They have won many national championships. Most people would think the really positive stuff they have on their walls is cheesy, corny, etc. It’s great stuff! I love going into that room because I can only imagine the great attitudes of happy champions much less the person who teaches and leads them. Way to be excellent, you dancing people.

A guy in my econ class had this on, it’s pretty impressive. Made of real 7up. He let me borrow it for a picture.

That’s the BYU Marketing Association. I’ve been a member for about 1.5 months and it’s a great club. Very impressed with their events and people (especially because 2 of them work for me!). Today they had a closing social with a “yacht” theme. Pretty fun stuff, some sweet outfits.

One BYUMA event 2 weeks ago was a major executive for eBay, he came and taught us all about resumes. Turns out there is A format to follow. It’s what the top 10 business schools use and some call it the “Chicago” format.  Good to know. Here’s the thought of the day:

Every year in Spanish Fork, UT the Festival of Colors graces the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple. Sources say it’s a time for people to “bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind“. It was a ton, ton of fun. Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been to a concert and a really long time since I’ve helped someone crowd surf. What a great event! There was a live band that played Indian music and encouraged us to hug a stranger. Ha. Many of the people there were college students, many from BYU. I went with my best good buddy Nate. For your viewing enjoyment:

Even security man is chalky.

This is us before we got chalky

That bag of chalk the person has in their hand is what we all threw at one another. It was like $2 and there was plenty to go around. When it came time for everyone to count down and toss their chalk there was so much in the air that it actually blocked the sun. Nate and I were in the middle of the whole thing and we couldn’t see a thing (or breathe really) but it didn’t last long

Jim Lovell came and spoke at BYU today. Tom Hanks plays him in Apollo 13. He was very personable and funny. This is what he looks like from far away. I was impressed by his spiritual views on life. He surprised us with his easy-going attitude.

Rex Lee was president of BYU and argued dozens of Supreme Court cases. He was also a marathon runner and US Solicitor General. He died of cancer and every year there is a 5k/ 10k to raise funds for cancer and remember Rex. I’ve always wanted to do it and this was the year. I went with a buddy that is a runner so I got to learn lots of cool running facts and things, too.

Stanford is a hub for innovation and every year they have a “Mystery Object Video Contest” of sorts. They announce a random object and then you have 5 days to create the most “value”, documented by video. The value could be humor, service, fund raising, etc.

Many of you probably don’t know about this, but 2 years ago Parker Planners sponsored this same contest at BYU. It was a ton of fun and we even got Deloitte the accounting firm to sponsor us! These groups of students had only 5 days to think up, write, direct, film, and submit their videos. Great job to them says I! We had about 9 submissions, here were the top 2 and then an honorable mention. The winner got $500.

#1

#2

An honorable mention

Last week Benjie and I worked at the annual Omniture Summit where top marketing executives from fortune 500 companies gather to learn more about internet commerce. It was lots of fun and we learned a lot.

I unapologetically post this food:

It was delicious and filled with two varieties of wonderful chocolate and vanilla mousse. Wow. Lotsa good food at this thing.

There were lotsa signs like this. It was in the Grand America Hotel, pretty sweet venue. The Killers played on Wed night.

Here’s Benjie and I in front of a kiosk thing. Omniture tells companies how many visitors on the web they get and also what people do when they get on their websites and buy things. Some of their customers are Walmart, GM, AT&T, and MTV.

Adobe purchased Omniture for $1.8 billion recently so their name is on everything. Here’s the first mobile devices (Palm Pre, Nexus One Google Phone) with Flash implemented and working. This will come out in about June. Cool! Apple doesn’t want flash (internet application that allows animations and online games) on the iPhone because they think it will do away with their free app game market. Silly Apple.

BYU has deer. They live on campus. Caught these two on my walk home.