This is my American Heritage TA. Way to get into your job, man. Today he played the role of Washington in the Constitution debates. Our class was divided into States and we debated representation and presidential election. This scene is depicted in the movie “A More Perfect Union”. Good stuff! One a side note,ever seen Mr. Smith goes to Washington? It’s a must see, what a great flick.
Mike and I bowled, we were both around 100. We played at the BYU games center, they have free pool, too. He does a lot of ballroom dance and football. Rock on. Mike got a spare and I got 2 strikes in a row!
Today it was my friend Mary’s birthday. I randomly saw her on campus at the Wilkinson Center so I started singing “Happy Birthday” to her in the hallway. She liked it, but wanted me to rap for her. Odd request? Yes, but she has also witnessed me perform 2 birthday hip-hopanonymous stomp-clap renditions for a good friend and also a good brother. Very sadly, I don’t have those videos. I’ll have to redo them or make more.
So Mary wanted a rap, and I needed a beat. She thought she’d need help stomping and clapping so we recruited one of her friends. This is attempted rhymes on the spot, be kind.
This video was taken by a phone, forgive the sound & picture.
Today I brought my lunch to campus and after class decided to sit at a table with some people I didn’t know. I said “cool if I sit here?” and sat down. The guy across the table from me said “sorry this table is for black people only”. Ha! That’s great. He then said “I’m just kidding I’ve just always wanted to say that”. His name was Theo from Chicago (unique name, yes) and I also met his sister Helen and other friend Paulina who was wearing a Black History Month t-shirt. Fun people, nice to talk to them.
This week’s home evening was sweet. We decorated cookies. They tasted good.
Afterward I gave a guitar lesson to my friend who I used to home teach. He’s in the BYU marching band and several other groups, which goes along with being a percussion performance major. He’s phenominal on anything pounded and wanted to learn some guitar. Learns fast, I’m impressed. We also broke it down severely at home evening with beat-boxing and improv rhymes. Lotsa fun.
Cookie Friends
Cookie skills
This has to be the weirdest piece of art ever made. The dude had a spiritual experience killing a bird? The display was a long sloping white platform with a big white dead turkey laying there. What . . . the . . . odd?
This is exactly why we made this.
My friend Jeff Harmon recently was made CEO of a start-up company with a product called Orabrush. They have some pretty silly videos advertising it. I was Jeff’s counselor in our Sunday School presidency 2 years back when we were in the same singles ward. Impressive how it’s up to 3 million views now.
hooray wacky new products!
Jeremy Hanks of Doba is a cool guy. He was an accounting major at BYU and after an internship in audit with Arthur Anderson he decided that he’d do just about anything to get out of public accounting (I didn’t need to do an internship to figure that one out! I just had to looks at the overly forced half-smiles of recruiters talking about how they “loove” their work). Jeremy dropped out and started Geartrade.com. It did really well and he sold the business to some guy and they sold it to backcountry.com. Pretty cool. Then he started Doba.com.
Doba charges people a monthly fee to help them be a drop-ship business. They’re pretty cool and are doing well; all over the INC 500. He came and spoke at BYU one time so I emailed him through his blog and asked him if we could meet and talk entrepreneurship. He was on a plane to France at the time but emailed me right back and invited me to have breakfast with him at Kneaders in Alpine, UT. Way cool!
It was a ton of fun to meet him, he’s definitely your stereotype can-do-everything very kind and energetic entrepreneur type. I was impressed at how much attention and consideration he gave me considering his success in business. Cool guy. He eventually went back to BYU and finished his degree, changing to business management because they waived some classes.
Parker Planners now has 3 displays up at the BYU Bookstore!
This one is upstairs by the textbooks. My friends keep texting me pictures of it. Ha! Thanks!
Last August I practice graduated by walking at commencement without having all my classes done. First day of school was today! After deferring a semester it really feels like I’m coming back to some kind of friendly organization after a long distant vacation.
American Heritage was very impressive today. It was so humorous and well-rhythmed that it seemed rehearsed. Dr. Pope started off the class with the scene from Wizard of Oz where Dorothy accidentally melts the wicked witch with water. Sweet. He said it taught the principle of freeing captives or whatever. The flying monkeys are now free!
After introducing himself the professor asked the students if they had any questions – one girl asked “aside from family and professional accomplishments, what are you most proud of deep down and personally?” Wow. That was a hilariously good question with an answer to compliment it. His answer was that he and some friends in college beat the BYU “college bowl” (knowledge bowl thing) team and their name was “those darn quasars”. Nice.
BYU is a great place. Country dance is going to be fun.
Ethan
I went to a choir concert Sunday night. It was a community choir that a few of my friends were in. I was surprised at the quality of performance considering they only practice once a week and they’re volunteers. One song, Carol of Joy was my favorite because we sang it when I was in Men’s Chorus.
Men’s Chorus was a big thing for me at the time. It’s an auditioned choir at BYU that practices five times a week for an hour and performs every month for usually two nights in a row. The time commitment was like a part-time job. It was so rewarding, though, because of the stellar attitude of the choir’s director, Rosalind Hall. She knows the power of positive thought and good works. She knows the influence a person can be on another’s life. And her Welsh accent is super sweet.
Sister Hall is definitely one of those people I stand in awe of. She has a command and mental discipline that I respect more than worldly accomplishments or position. Being in her choir was a big deal for me because I had never really sung in a choir before. To prepare for the audition I took a choir class and had my musical prodigy friends coach me. It helped and shockingly I was on the list for basses fall semester of 2007. Men’s Chorus changed my life.
That’s the logo from my sweater.
I may have mentioned Zinch in this blog before, but if not, they are a big inspiration for me as an entrepreneur. I was in one of the founder’s wards (geographic area of LDS church members) last summer, Brad Hagen. This last March I stumbled upon his younger brother’s blog; Mick Hagen. Since then I think I have read every post he wrote since 2006 and ate it all up.
He dropped out of Princeton to start this company and had no assurance that it would succeed other than faith and talent. There have been naysayers, but it will likely grow into something really big, multi-millions. He’s just someone who lives for the right reasons it seems to me, and he’s fearless. www.mickhagen.com is the blog.
So until recently Mick didn’t know I was blog-stalking him and we had never met. Since he’s opening an office in San Fransisco and moving away on Friday I decided to visit the office and meet him. Today Mick told me the gist of the Zinch story and answered some questions I had written down. Very cool and very intelligent young man (25!) as I expected him to be from reading about his life. We exchanged business cards.
Here is a “tweet” he wrote just a little while ago. Nice to be acknowledged by those you admire. I hope to be the same way when people approach me about business. Especially those with companies not as developed as mine (believe it or not that’s happened to me with my biz Parker Planners once or twice).
Love,
Ethan
Its decided. I’m out of here. Time to get a BS in Accounting from BYU and let it all be over including overweight female vocal performance (ain’t over till the fat lady sings). I was going to get a Spanish minor and drag things out until June or July or who knows when. Nay. No Longer. I’m pumped to move on to the next step and focus my energies on new things.
Parker Planners or bust.
Wow, what a day! Today was wonderful on many levels. Temple was good, Benjie and I are going to take over the world, and I saw an ice sculpture. It was at a big cool thing called Freeze Fest put on by BYU. Totally rocked. Ice skating, hot choclate, broom hockey, and shaking your groove-thing. My groove thing shook.
Service, too. We made a stocking.
Here we are just after Andrew George scored the game-winning touchdown in overtime against the U of U. Everyone rushed the field and it was a good time. The most considerate mob I’ve ever been a part of.
The Eric and I ran (literally to beat the crowd) to Brick Oven for some pizza. Wow, I must say they have some quality stuff. Go go BO! And Cosmo the Friendly Cougar was there.
Today H. David Burton gave the devotional address to BYU. He said that it’s better to be a “learner” than to be “learned”. Don’t you love talking to people who live as though they don’t know everything and love to learn?
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Will Durant
Ask yourself the secret of your success. Listen to your answer, and practice it.
Richard Bach
What if we actually did this? I think we all want personal revelation. I think we all want an experience where we meet some celestial being that knows every detail of our life, loves us, and gives us the solution to our most pressing present problem. However, how many answers are within us already?
A friend I served with as a missionary is an owner of a real estate investing firm and played hoops for BYU in his youth. He said that about every three months he gets up around 4 am, makes sure he is awake, sits at a desk all by himself and closes his eyes and rests his head on the desk, waiting for inspiration. When it comes he quickly writes it down on the blank sheet of paper in front of him and then puts his head down again.
The information that comes is not always pleasing to him, but he knows when pure knowledge has been given and follows it anyway. This is not something many people do. Then again, many people do not love as completely, listen as well, give as much, and accomplish as much as this man. It’s about finding your own sacred grove, though, this is an example specific to one person.
A fellow entrepreneur wrote some good stuff, I’d like to quote it. from here
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. -Jim Rohn
Holy Shnikies! That’s a big deal. That’s a big big deal! Who are those people for you?? Ahhh! Makes me want to spend a lot more time with my mentors and choose my friends even more carefully. Sure, serve the people who need you, but do NOT let them influence your life decisions and attitudes.
This may be crass, but oh so true! 
>>
[ignore] “good or bad opinion of others“. When you’re 21 people are going to tell you you should “build your resume”, “get a full year of experience with a big company” or (my personal favorite) “be a doctor or a lawyer” (apologies to all my doctor and lawyer friends…God bless you and the world most definitely needs you!). These people (often your family and closest friends) have good intentions. They want what they think is best for you. But while their advice often comes from a pure place it also is very often misguided.
I like stuff like that. We really should all hope and pray for the absolute success of others, even if they achieve more, differently than us!
Love,
Ethan
Sometimes I feel like school will never end and Parker Planners is struggling to survive. They will both blossom.
Parker Planners