This picture is on my grandma’s wall by the kitchen. I imagine my grandfather put it up there because he had that kind of humor. They have lived in the same house since I have been alive, so this picture has sort of been a constant for me. It makes me laugh but also makes me think. Maybe it’s where I get my entrepreneur tenacity?

“No” is never the end unless you give up. I say that all “no” means is that you got their attention. The second “no” means that you might be serious, the third one means you actually want it, the fourth “no” means that you’re determined to get it, and the fifth “no” means that you understand persistence. There usually aren’t more than 5 “no’s”.

Choke that bird!

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.

What’s this doing at BYU?

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

Wow, Kentucky, you ARE really that friendly. Smiliing face-sun and all.

Look closely

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.

Mick’s blog has 3 pages of dang sweet charts/diagrams. It’s time for one of my own.

Hello ya’ll readers of Being Happy, Living the Dream.

I’m back from vacation time and its on like Donkey Kong blogwise. Just got back to Provo and its time to kick-start a new year. I love govt. grants and interest-free student loans. Beautiful things.

I may abandon windows. XP is getting a little dated for me. I’m typing to you from Leopard a.k.a. OS X (operating system like windows, vista, etc.) from my macbook right now and its nice I must admit. I’m getting into the habit because when Adobe CS 5 comes out I’m going to install it on the Mac side of my computer.

CS stands for “creative suite” and it’s adobe’s bundle of design software. Rumor has it that the new Flash version can program iPhone apps right from the graphic interface so you don’t have to know the Objective-C programming language to make apps! Way way rad.

I’ll fill in some pictures from the break. Welcome back!

Ethan

This is mine.

picaboo

We saw this in the front of an abercrombie store, ha ha.

Yes, its a toaster. Yes, its a toaster-oven. Wow. I want one.

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

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?

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?

as suggested here

This painting was done in about March of 2008. A neighbor needed a model for a painting so I volunteered. In the real thing I was wearing a shirt. Could I fit into a “Flying Asians, Hidden Plot” movie?

Love,

Ethan

My business partner Benjie is getting married next month so he and his fiance asked me to help with the invitations. It was a cinch to cook this thing up in Illustrator and get some printed out. Design software rules.