I was able to see him perform last Sunday, it was awesome. Truly awesome. He’s one of the best musicians I’ve ever seen live. Very fortunately Jan 15 was the version of Music and the Spoken word just before Martin Luther King, Jr. day and they did all spirituals and gospel music. So much fun, it was great. I’m not able to embed the entire show, which is a shame but I found one of the songs they did on you tube:

And here’s another that was kinda fun:

Also I sat by a guy from BBC! He was there because they were covering Mit Romney and wanted to know more about the Mormons. I asked him if he knew Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear and he said “I see him around the office”. Ha! Oh man I want to go to a filming of Top Gear so bad.

Snowboarding y’alls. It’s mucho fun. Especially when it’s fresh snow. I didn’t get to go a lot last year so it’s pretty great to already have gone twice. Gusta.

Paid Guy on a Buffalo is doing well. gotta love that

The beemer can only handle 2 boarders right now but it’s pretty great that it still can. Very fun to drive in the canyon. If some time I decide to get a roof rack it could do 4.

Feliz año nuevo!

Yeah. And it is! My new year’s started slow but got more fun as the night went on. First my roomie had an amiga come over that has a few lessons to learn about trying to see the sunny side of life. We’ll leave it at that. So my beloved and very cool roomie was trapped with said amiga but I was trying to wait it out in my room listening to music and writing 2012 goals so he could come to this party with me. I couldn’t take it no moar so I done left.

On facebook lots of my friends said they were coming but few showed. Booo. Made new friends, danced some dancing, and drank some drank. Now it’s new year’s time. The clock is ticking, there’s like 5 min left. Who am I going to kiss? I’m not totally sure but I think I’ve only had like 1 new year’s kiss and that was with a high-school girlfriend. Lame. This year would be different.

Come 30 seconds before midnight I found myself standing next to the cute blonde from the dance floor. I work up the courage and ask for a new year’s kiss. Denied! Lame! What kind of new years partier are you? She was game for a new year’s hug. Psshhh. How depressing is that? The night only got better from here. Maybe it was the huge beard? dunno.

Then we lit off a bunch of fireworks which rocked.

Then we went back to my friend Jennifer’s house and made breakfast. Gooood foods. Bacon, pancakes, eggs, OJ. Yeuh. Next it was time for sharing our new year’s resolutions while I just happened to be cuddling with a cute roomate of said friend. And got a new year’s kiss. Ha! And then we went for a spin in my new ride. Fist pump! 2012 is going to rock.

I’m definitely going to the beach at some point.

This post is about the people who have shaped who I am. If I could be more like the following list of wonderful people I would be some kind of all-knowing super hero that shoots lasers out his nose into the sky, illuminating the world and spreading baby unicorns and peace roundabout the land, for the good thereof.

Here they are in order of appearance; besides the last two

Ammon Parker

My older brother has been my hero pretty much since I can remember. He’s never been afraid of anything and is always looking for his next adventure. As kids we were all over the place. We sledded of our roof, mooned innocent bystanders, caught snakes, grasshoppers, and praying mantises. We built countless model airplanes and cars, we blew these models up with illegal fireworks, set stuff on fire, and were never afraid to discharge a firearm whether doing so was a smart or thought-out thing. Home-made silencer. Enough said.

Ammon has always been such a baller. he lead the way on all these adventures and sometimes I felt a little like Chuckie from Rugrats thinking “I don’t think this is such a good idea” but as long as Ammon was there I pretty much felt safe and wasn’t worried.

Teenage years brought a little more gusto to the mix. By this time we had motorcycles that would triple the speed limit. We used to drag race them which was awesome. He then went into the Army to find some more adventure. I didn’t go with this time but I thought it was cool that we were fighting battles simultaneously, I was on a mission and he went to Iraq. While in the Army Ammon ninja threw a huge black guy trying to beat the crap out of him on his birthday, and did a cage fight. A little later he rode a bull. Yup. Here’s the cage fight:

Holy crap that video still gets my adrenaline pumping. He’s the one that wins. Chokes the dude out.

Two days ago Ammon and his wife had their first baby and Tate the Tank was 11lbs 4oz. The doctors said he was pretty strong for a baby and he already thinks he can roll over and hold his head up ha ha.

Hugh Gregson

In the Missionary Training Center Hugh was my branch president, or bishop. He is 6′ 8″ and not small in stature. When I first got into the MTC he said “Your mission has STARTED” and everything changed for me. He finally made being active in the church cool for me. For some reason I never really felt I had met a compelling example of gospel obedience up to that point. People in the church always seemed pretty nerdy or two-faced to me. Hugh was different. He had loads of self-confidence and knew exactly who he was and what he wanted at all times.

Knowing him caused me to re-evaluate what I wanted out of life and make some changes. I decided that I was going to be active in the Church and live what that really meant. I decided to read the scriptures which I had never done with much consistency up to that point. I felt that this was such an important thing that I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning pretty much my entire stay at the MTC reading. I finished the Book of Mormon then read through the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and the New Testament for the first time. It was great. I really felt like a new man.

Hugh was part of the biggest turning point in my life up to now.

Janie Thompson

Janie is one of the most amazing, talented, hard-working, inspirational, loving, listening, aware people I have ever met. She is simply a wonder. To know that people like her exist really makes me feel better about the planet and life itself. It’s also motivating. I have a whole topic on this blog about her. Here’s how we met. She started BYU’s Young Ambasadors and Lamanite Generation, now known as Living Legends. Early in her life she sang with Tony Bennett and personally knew Mickey Rooney. She also served on the Young Women’s General Board for 16 years.

Seriously one of the coolest people ever. She called me today and it was so great to hear from her, I usually go visit a few times a month. I have so many great memories of Janie since I’ve lived here in Provo and consider her one of my closest friends.

Rosalind Hall

I met sister Hall in January of 2007 when I was fresh off the mission. I saw Men’s Chorus do a dress rehearsal of some Disney songs and it totally rocked. 200 very talented guys rocking it out and having tons of fun. I tried out for the BYU Men’s Chorus. After getting past the graduate student screening it was time to meet my maker, the Welsh-accented lovely sister Hall. I was nervous about auditioning so I had my friend Kip give me a crash course 2 days before. Under “experience” on my application I put “one hour with Kip from Singers” to which she replied “what makes you think you can sing in the Men’s Chorus???” ha ha. I looked her square in the face and said “because I want to”. She said “do the University Chorale (an unauditioned choir class) and come see me in the fall”. That’s exactly what I did. Oh yeah and did I mention I was extremely sick for that first audition? Yes I was.

Men’s Chorus was an amazing experience I wouldn’t trade. I got to hear from her 5 days a week which was like a motivational speaker mixed with an LDS general authority every day. I also got to sing in General Conference in April 2008. Look for the guy on the end with a wicked sun burn from snowboarding. Men’s Chorus totally rocks. Here’s them doing a flash mob. I wasn’t part of this but you get the idea.

Nerd power. Men’s Chorus rocks, if you’ve never been to one of their shows it’s a must.

Mike Zevallos

Winter semester 2007 I was taking a Spanish class and a couple kids came in asking for volunteers to mentor kids. They espcially needed people that spoke Spanish to help out with the kids whose parents spoke Spanish. I was feeling really lucky at the time because I was able to quit a crap telemarketing job because of some financial from my sister. I needed to study extra hard so I could get into the accounting program at BYU. I decided to be a mentor.

I worked with a kid over the summer then got paired up with Mike in September. He was 9 years old and super cute kid. His biological father left when he was 3 and passed away in prison when he was 7 years old. His step father who pretty much raised him had three more children with his mom and they split up when Mike was 8. You wouldn’t know it from getting to know Mike, though. He has always been a very happy, smart, and motivated kid. I feel lucky to know him.

We try to see each other every week and do something fun whether it’s play frisbee, soccer, get Jamba Juice, go to a football/basketball game, or go on an unexpected crazy snow hike. Mike has greatly enriched my life and I’m so grateful for him. He’s the closest thing I have to a son and he has made me look very much forward to having children of my own.

Last and anything but least are my parents, Don and Tish Parker.

They are amazing. I can’t imagine what it would be like to raise 6 children. Three boys, three girls, and we’re all doing great raising our own families or preparing to do so. My mom and dad are super cool. They have certainly allowed me to make my own mistakes and be free but at the same time have given much-needed guidance at the right times. I owe them a ton. They always paid for sports I did as a kid and came to all my games. They paid for me to serve a mission, too, which is something not all parents can do. Since I’ve been at college they always came to my choir concerts and come down here often to do fun stuff or take me out to dinner and buy me groceries and things like that. It’s awesome. Couldn’t ask for better parents in college. It’s kind of nice that they moved up here to Utah from AZ, too. And nice that my dad introduced me to the joy that is late model BMWs, ha ha. Theirs is way cool and they let me drive it a lot when they first bought it. Yea, even to LA where my brother and I left for our super sweet cruise last summer.

I shant leave out my other siblings. My younger brother Eric has been my best friend for a long time now. We share a ton of interests and no one can make me laugh like him. We were in a band together, rode motorcycles together, and have been roomates for the past 3 years. Eric rules. It’s his birthday soon! My sisters rock, too. Emily is fun because we can talk about BYU and music and stuff. She’s brilliant and I love her personality, she funny, too. Ahlena is like Yoda. She’s a great listener and she’s always very interested in what you are doing and what you have to say. If she gives advice it’s always from the heart and is timely and usually needed. My youngest older sister Anna is super cool, too. She owns a dance studio and is always lotsa fun. Her daughters are super funny and I love hanging out with them. I got to go there earlier this year for a trade show, soooooo nice to stay with them and see them instead of staying in some lame hotel. They might be moving out west some time soon which is super exciting!! It will be awesome to have Anna and her family nearby.

You ever made one? It’s pretty fun. If anyone has a cartoon of a tie dying send it on and I’ll post it. It was our ward’s opening social.

# 1 It brought my Dad and I back from my mission. It was lovingly given to my by my 2nd cousin who lives in Valencia, CA. They drove it to Ventura where the mission home was and we drove it back to Kaysville, UT.

# 2 It was purchased by my great uncle in Cedar City, UT brand new in 1986 and has been owned by family members ever since.

# 3 This is the first car I’ve ever owned and also my first vanity plate: “PLAN IT”. I get a lot of laughs and compliments about that. I figure it’s motvation to succeed with ma business.

# 4 This is also the car I gave my first ride to Janie Thompson in. I can end a sentence with a preposition if I want to. Lotsa memories, lotsa memories.

# 5 The Jetta has prevented me from marrying a gold digger. I go to pick girls up and they have to love me for who I am

# 6 I took it on a 3,000 mile road trip in the summer of 2007 that completely rocked. It was Provo to Phoenix (sister) to LA to Santa Barbara and Santa Maria (mission) to Sacramento, CA (cousin) to Portland (grandparents) to Jerome, ID (mission buddy with many moo tows) to Kaysville, UT (parents). I found out on this trip that a) I’m kind of crazy in a car by myself as evidenced by the crazy videos I took b) the car can do 515 miles on one tank of diesel and c) I ain’t afraid of road trips and doing what I feel would be fun/good.

# 7 Some value other people’s possessions very highly as evidenced by the $2,225 price right now on eBay. It’s still got 1 hr 50 mins at this point. Kelly Blue book is $750.

Here’s the little you tube video I took to help sell it:

The title of this post are famed words from our beloved Rebecca Black. One day the unsearchable mystery that are her lyrics will be revealed to all and the world will rejoice.

So I auditioned for BYU’s sketch comedy group Divine Comedy. It was pretty crazy. I underestimated people’s preparation and talent. To those who got in it would seem like comedy is something they have deeply ingrained in them and it wasn’t their first time ever auditioning for something comedic or theatrical in their entire life.

Here’s the cast:

Yes while that silhouette could have been me I lacked the practice and polish to really pull it off. It’s ok, though, it was super fun and people laughed a good one at my stuff.

You might remember a couple people from this crew in the super popular (for mormon culture) video spoofing Katie Perry:

Kudos to DC for actually being funny, I’ll still go to their shows fo’ sho’.

Also Eric and I have been watching lots of 30 Rock lately. That show is freaking hilary. Yes, hilary is a new term for hilarious. No one uses it yet. I’ll stop using it when it becomes too mainstream. Tina Fey is one funny cat and Alec Baldwin is the quintessential business man. He’s truly amazing in that role and even reminds me of one of my old roomates .

Here’s the Gaye cover:

Tonight my ward had an activity where Eric and I made tie-dye shirts. This is what they look like in a plastic bag. We’ll see how they turn out in the morning!

On an unrelated note Eric and I went and played some basketball tonight and after getting packed twice by this 6′ 5″ dude I scored on him with a fadeaway jumper. Take that tall dude.

On a car note I have decided what I will buy in the coming months. A BMW 328xi. Yes, folks the B’mer of balance. Fast, reliable, 4 doors, good in snow, bump in stereo, chick magnetism, FREAKING AWESOME. And not too outlandish. If you’ve never driven a late model BMW I assure you of their ability to alter your opinion on whether nice cars are worth it.

This picture made me laugh:

Maybe it’s because you eat dessert when you’re stressed, or making dessert stresses you out, I’m not sure.

I went to Phoenix last week with my brother Eric and we had a great time. My dad let us borrow the BMW again which made the trip super great. On the way back we stopped by my brother’s place in St George and went for a hike.

Ethan