This is mine.

This is my buddy Dave, he rocks at bass. He’s played with Young Ambassadors, BYU’s Synthesis and here he is with the band at a basketball game.

What does that mean to you? To me it’s being humble in the light and true in the dark. “Tell me what a man is thinking when he doesn’t have to been thinking and I’ll tell you what kind of man he is”. When I was a missionary in Oxnard California I had that quote posted on the back of my bedroom door. I could only see it when the door was closed in the mornings and I was alone studying the gospel and Spanish. Again:

“

Tell me what a man is thinking when he doesn’t have to been thinking and I’ll tell you what kind of man he is.

“

Jon Huntsman said last Tuesday: “be a person of integrity; it is totally up to you and no one else how your life evolves”. He went on to say that many of us look to others as a place to shift responsibility for our future.

Who are you when the lights go out? Can you be trusted? Are you hiding anything important from people close to you or denying a fact about your own self? Do you make decisions promptly and stick to them? I would say that integrity is more important than performance. I would hire someone who always told the truth over someone who always left you guessing. I’d rather surround myself with people from whom I never had to worry about whether I was hearing the whole story.

It is always the right time to tell the truth. It is always the right time to confess our faults, to clearly communicate with others.

I attest this is true. People ask me about my attitude and wonder how on earth I can be so positive. It’s Christmas Day! That’s why! Didn’t you hear? Today can be the best dang day of your life if you let it! Just ask, seek, and knock for the positive and I guarantee it will flood to you! If you look for reasons to form a long and painful story about how life punished you today, then I also guarantee you will succeed in that endeavor.

Man moves in the direction of his current, most dominating thought. Why let the devil tell you it has to be sad or negative?! Take charge and think positively, call me and wish me a Merry Christmas when you do.

your friend,

-Ethan

Here we are before the big night. It took a few hours to find all the pieces to the costumes, but way worth it. We went to a big party out in nowhere-ville (Wallsburg) Utah and people were dancing it up in a big barn thing.

There are usually a couple jokers on campus that have great costumes, here are a few.

The tin man

Scuba Steve and Jerry the Mouse

Good ‘ole Ghangus Khan

And me with a real-live Tetris piece!! It even had the Tetris music blaring from it.

Ha ha.

Yup, this is my roomate Mike and I. We are GQ material, no question. Well, at least he is.

Today we sold Parker Planners door to door and laughed all the way to the bank. It was really fun, and freezing! I was surprised that we actually sold some. I don’t remember why we thought it was so funny, but we had a great time.

In the days of environmental over human supremicy, we thought we’d do our part by detroying an old piece of furniture by tossing it off the third floor of our apartment complex. Our manager gave us a new dresser, so this one will become firewood.

I hiked to the top of Y mountain this week, it was nice.

This is a pile of rocks at the top, it means you’re at the top

Here is my stuff.

This is what the Y looks like from the top.

Since Monday Eric has been on a Pumpkin kick. His new creation- the Halo-ween pumpkin. Halo is a video game and the silhouette is of the main character guy for you non-gamers out there.

This is another one of his pumpkins

Ethan Parker and Thanh Nguyen. That’s who this picture pictures. He’s rad- a native of Vietnam and a convert to the LDS faith. He helps interpret for general conference. This morning we decided to volunteer at the food bank. It was lots of fun.

This sign was hard to obey because of the picture below:

Look at all that cheese! Yes! Don’t you love cheese?

I just got off the phone with my bestest buddy over the age of 87 and she asked how I was doing. I said “I’m doin’ ok” to which she replied “sounds like you’re still your ‘ole sexy self”. Oh man, that was a crack up! My life is now complete. I haven’t laughed that hard all week.

Janie is giving me some tickets to homecoming spectacular at BYU! 4 to be exact, she likes my brother Eric to have a date, too sometimes. This will be the 3rd year she’s given me tickets to this particular show. The first year she gave me tickets (Sept 2006) I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I didn’t have a date and it was Tuesday. That’s a little pressure. Tuesday became Thursday, that’s a little more pressure. Well with classes and being brand new to Provo Thursday became Friday at 6:45pm and I still didn’t have a date for the 7:30pm show!

I made a decision. I was going to the show, and it wasn’t going to be with another guy. I got my good-lookin’ duds on and walked out the door. On the way to the Marriott Center I passed through campus and kept an eye out for a pretty girl. As I was passing the atrium of the Harrold B. Lee library a nice-looking lass caught my eye and I decided that she should come to the show with me.

Turns out she wasn’t only not dating someone, but didn’t have a date that night! We went to the show; good times.

Ethan

This post is from the Arizona trip I just took, but it requires special attention because of all the solar fun. There’s a lot of sun there and they take advantage of it. Check out this parking meter thing you can pay with a credit card at, solar powered!!

Next up is a crazy trash can on campus at ASU that compacts the trash into neat blocks, or something.

The super sweet solar biz my brother-in-law started and currently owns and operates is called “Secure Source” and this is one of their solar-powered security camera units. They have patent-pending technology that rocks the house and I’m in the process of making a simple informational website for them. Here’s me and Cooper. He’s got a sweet beard.

Here is a link to the beginnings of the site. Whaddaya think of me work?

We carved pumpkins for what the LDS culture calls “Family Home Evening” in my singles ward (when you’re all singles they call it ‘home evening’). It was pretty fun stuff, I got to take out the guts of a pumpkin with my hand, which was really satisfying.

Here’s Eric and I at the football game. Whoo hooo!

The TV was trying to say that it was a rival game. ?? I don’t have any idea why, but what-eva.

The game was really fun and I arm wrestlted a guy afterward. I got him the first time and he won the second.

This post is going to be a lotta what I did today. Luckily I had the trusty phone camera handy to catch it all.

Just before heading out with my super business partner to take care of you know what, my brother Ammon called from Afghanistan. He’s so cool. I don’t get to talk to him too often.

Here’s our planner display in one of our retail locations! This morning Benjie and I dropped by to refil an order.

Mike, my new roomate and Parker Planners Sales associate. Good man, good man. He’s got business cards and everything. Mike went out to battle the world today. Brave soul.

Ye olde Ferrari and Lambo right were they were a year ago. Benjie used to detail both of these cars, so we checked ‘em out on campus per a rumor. This year’s SEOY-Student Entrepreneur of the Year- award will go to the coolest student business. Final event takes place Friday, Oct 2 on campus at BYU. The cars belong to one of the Co-Founders of Ominture, a former BYU student.

Poor Chadder’s. An In’ n’ Out copy surely going to sink to a watery grave after the real thing opens in Orem. Food’s not too good. Eric said he doesn’t like those darn fries because you have to eat 8 of them at once to get a decent fry bite. “I hate those darn fries. Darn those fries!” said he.

I had high hopes before I ate the burger. Eric agreed with my analysis above after munching sub-par fries.

This leafy leaf bug brightened up the day. Looks like a leaf, huh? Also looks like the moon’s surface behind him.

Eric and I saw some music on campus with a couple ladies tonight-pretty fun! We then took some silly pictures and texted them to each other as we roamed around. Coldstone was next- we got to finish off this gift certificate I had along with using Eric’s Starving Student card discount thing. We basically got a 1/2 gallon of coldstone goodness for about $4. Sweet!

Fun day!

I don’t know why its called that, but its a fun place by Utah Lake along the Provo River. Here is a picture of me jumping to catch a ring, it was cool! They put you in a harness, you climb a tree, jump to get the ring, then lower you to the ground and you think about how cool it was. The BYU 4H mentoring program through Utah State University did it for us. Its the thing I mentor Mike through.

Here is a hat you don’t see every day. We got it for her birthday along with a pound of fudge from the BYU Bookstore. Mmmmmm. My mom has degrees from both schools! You’ll never guess how old she is, lookin’ good, mom!

They took us to a sweet Thai Restaurant called “Thaifoon” and it was yummy, even days after. At the restaurant I ate a super hot pepper that caused me to respect peppers a little more. I drank like a gallon and a half of water. Gateway Mall is really nice.

Every year BYU does a spirited activity involving wholesome young people and large amounts of blue foam. This year was no exception and it was a blast! What mucho fun! They had two enormous slip-n-slides set up with blue foam being constantly poured on them. At the bottom of the hill there was a moat of 2-feet deep foam you could play in. Eric and I wrestled and slid in it a lot. Oh yeah!!!

Our skin was dyed quite blue afterward but we got hosed off and joined the community shower afterward.

Here we are in our blue foam glory.

You know how sometimes you see a piece of art in a museum and you say to yourself “hey, I could do that!” and wonder if you really could? Well, we did. For our group activity in my singles ward, we decided to make a group art piece. Everyone brought a random object and we all worked together to be as creative as possible for about 25 minutes. Here is the result!!!!

Here is piece # 1. It’s playful, fun, and juvenile. That’s why we put it near a bunch of kid’s drawings. Maybe it won’t get taken down as fast?

Here it is up close. As you can see, the action man is parachuting down to safety atop the CD coming out of the milk jug. It symbolizes Utah’s heritage of fearless pursuit.

This next one is called “Hope”. Let’s just hope no one notices that the tag says “Harrison Fine Arts Center” rather than “Harris” oops. It does inspire hope, though, look!  —–>

Here it is in all it’s glory. One person brought X-ray paper, another: CDs. Another: a frisbee (the base) and yet another: a flower and one more brought pot holders. It’s mystery is only exceeded by its power.

On a serious note I do think its kinda cool! The CDs are growing, then break (tragic moment to be overcome) then it gets higher and becomes a flower!

Normally I wouldn’t embed rock into my blog, but this is quite appropriate at a time like this.

This is my neighbor’s work here at BYU. He loves Incubus and painted this stuff on canvas, then sewed it together. This is a lyric from the song “I miss you” by Incubus. Pretty darn impressive, I like it. The words glow in the dark, too!! We can all learn from this kind of passion and talent. What is most important to us? Is it on our wall?