it's no fun to be the man

Hmmm. Was not aware I was supposed to give a going-away announcement and, as such, did not. Fortunately, I post so infrequently now (as 'Brozy keeps me acutely aware) that one can't really tell I'm gone. Anyway, I went to Ambrosia's family's home over the weekend.

First things first, though. Board writer party Wednesday. Katya discovered that I am ridiculously gullible; she probably could have convinced me that boyfriends are not allowed and sent me on my way. Talked to Conrad for a good while. Pleasant fellow and Wikipedia enthusiast. 'Brozy suggested we leave, after which we discovered that we'd both been fairly uncomfortable near the end. Maybe she's the ideal social gathering companion.

Met with the boss Thursday morning to discuss my interactivization of the firm's site. He bought me pizza, which was both delicious and packaged in a convenient drawing board (his idea--laudable practicality). Don't think it'll be too tough; I'm using far more time studying current industry standards for login implementation than I expect to spend in actual coding. (This is why I would not feel comfortable charging by the hour. Gotta get experience somehow, I suppose.)

Thursday was date night; we had dinner at La Dolce Vita (tortellini = amazing) and saw Batman Begins. Man, that movie rocks. Were I female, I'd be crushing like mad on the Scarecrow; he's so captivatingly creepy. Also, apparently there's a $30 Red-Robin-and-a-movie-for-two deal at the Towne Centre malle. Yum. 'Brozy rolled down the ridiculously steep hill afterward, spinning more and more quickly toward the tree at the bottom as my jaw dropped in horror. Fortunately, she stopped herself just before it knocked her head off like something out of a school bus driver's safety lecture, leaving only burned arms and an headache. Note to self: I know you think it's really cool how you remain calm in scary car situations. However, standing silently as something dear to you nears catastrophe is no nobility. Please catch falling glasses and shout at runaway girlfriends.

Worked on the firm's website a lot Friday. Well, got little done, but spent a long time figuring out Gmail's login implementation. (LiveHTTPHeaders is the best reason I've seen yet for web developers to switch to Firefox. Install it now.) 'Brozy asked me to suggest something for dinner, and I suggested fajitas after a few moments' convincing myself that microwaved cheese sandwiches and spaghetti are only good for Braden to make for himself for dinner. (Not sure about handing such a clearly gerundized verbal an object. Does "a few moments' convincing myself" sound natural to native English speakers? Discuss.) They turned out well; we used lots of peppers and some yellow squash, and 'Brozy dumped on loads of chili powder and paprika.

We then headed into Orem to meet some Blue-Beta people (Cinderella, Saule Cogneur, jessicabenet, and Lunkwill) and their friend Shaun. Lunkwill is basically the coolest guy ever; we hit it off from the moment we exchanged physics jokes. He also takes a great red, for how much he bashes on purple. Shaun regaled us for an hour about homeopathic medicine; I nodded earnestly while laughing sooo much inside. Summary: symptoms of disease are your body's efforts to heal itself; you want not to stifle them but to resolve this. To do this, you find a natural product whose effects mimic that of the disease. You want an emotional healing, though, not physical, so you distill it many, many times; it's uberpowerful once not a single active molecule is in the solution. There's powerful new technology to match symptoms with symptom-inducing ingredients, but the AMA is a bunch of Nazis blacklisting anyone who goes against rational science. Nice guy, though.

We went on a nice walk to harvest plums Friday night, then drove up to Ambrosiaville Saturday. Her family's basically splendid; I have remarked before to 'Brozy on how much I admire her patient, lucid teaching, and I now see it's a family affair; even in teaching the dog to play dead, they were quite affirming and methodical. (Sigh nice dogs.) Apparently it pays off, too; when I took S4 around at the fair, I was continually amazed at her self-sufficiency, announcing her choice of rides and toddling off to present the correct number of tickets.

The fair. I came up on the coolest weekend EVER; 'Brozy county was having a fair where if you run 5k you get hundreds of dollars in prizes. No, seriously. Everyone who ran it. Also, each runner had, like, a dozen bagels to himself. Commas, I, Braden, think, are, perhaps, enjoyable. That would be cool if you could prime commas to denote nesting level, as follows:
"Commas, I,, Braden,, think, are, perhaps, enjoyable." Would also have said "Her family's basically splendid; I...see it's a family affair;; even in teaching [the dog, they r0x0r.]" It would present problems, though, with things like, "In case of disaster,, such as fire,,(,) scream." Be frightfully helpful for machine parsing, though.

Then they had a cowboy parade; lots of Little Miss Buckaroo Princesses rode by throwing candy, and they played many country musicks. I was very excited, even though I didn't pick up any candy. The fair itself had scones, which apparently means an Indian Flatbread with butter. ('Brozy just explained that there are British scones too, but they are yucky. I was very confused; the fair scones looked bad for tea. More like poor scones, bizzow. Well, actually, it was delicious, but that's beside the point.) 'Brozy and I watched S2-S4 as they despoiled piggy banks, which was pleasant. Great grass on the fairgrounds. They grow alfalfa and sheep in Ambrosiaville, which make it sooooo pretty. I took 'Brozy to a chiropractor, since she found the homeopathy lecture amusing, but his rhetoric instead left her in seething grumbliness.

Her ward Sunday rocked; they had gorgeous stained glass windows (three, specifically: the Holy Ghost, the scriptures, and the sealing power--hurrah, Peircean pioneers) and huuuuuge pictures of John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Brigham Young, and Joseph and Hyrum Smith in the chapel. ("Andand Joseph andandand Hyrum," perhaps.) The talks were also very good, though organizationally bizarre. (I honestly still have no idea how any of the first talk's material connected to the topic.)

The second talk, though, inadvertently raised an issue I've been pondering for a while. He told a story about working at Apple in 1985 on a disk drive project that was eventually scrapped, being directed to put the thousand-dollar prototype he'd been using in a briefcase to sneak it out of the company on the last day before everything was scrapped. With a weekend to think about it, he decided that, even though the drive would be wasted, it's still not worth a thousand dollars to steal. I'm coming to realize that, although I wasn't aware of alternatives to utilitarian reasoning until I met Lacie, it's actually the minor ethics in the Church, generally viewed as a tool of rationalization.

For example, as I read Alma 42 to gain a better understanding of the doctrinal basis for guilt, I saw in verse 18 that remorse comes from understanding that you have broken a just law, not that your behaviour has effected injury. In my perspective, this is red ethics: in the complete triangle, VenerableRyo's "feelings of gentleness, goodness, faith, mercy, etc." guidance stands at yellow, command/rule-based morality takes red, and cognitive utilitarian ethics fills blue (categorical imperatives, etc. would do equally well). I suspect, however, that most Saints would put the laws of doctrine as blue truth and my squabbling over real-world impacts as red, and they're quite possibly right.

He also talked about how he had to learn to make free throws for a PE class at BYU, and how he'd been excited to make one, then realized that making seven for ten was a tesseract harder, and has since come to see that the Gospel's like that: it's not as often that we have to accomplish some Herculaean task as that we have to be consistently perform. Sensible, if somewhat saccharine.

'Brozy's family lent me a copy of Harry Potter VI. Enjoyed it, though I much preferred the Bill-Fleur romance to the Ron-Hermione or Harry-Ginny. Oh, um, spoilers. But yeah, horcruxes were cool and such. I love a naturally yet surprisingly unraveling plot. Batman Begins and Harry Potter both pull it off marvelously.

Went on a walk around Ambrosiaville after dinner with her maternal grandparents. Discussed her family's ten-place triangle. Also talked about what we each want out of relationships. On my part, I have to differentiate between things needed from relationships and things needed in relationships; intellectual conversation is, of course, a must, but not why I want to be in a relationship, so it often feels like icing on the cake. In fact, as I realized, my ideal friendship state, one of basking tranquilly in the glow of one anothers' minds (with Halo and pizza in evenings), actually makes me sort of grumpy in romantic relationships; I crave active problem-solving, because apologies are to me a warped criterion of emotional closeness (in fact, I suspect that, when bored, I semiconsciously sow problems).

Drove home. I had become immensely annoyed with the runny nose I'd had all week, and was in a rather foul mood by the time I arrived home to find an Asian in my temporary room explaining to me in broken English that they'd moved my stuff out. (Intolerant, sure. I was grumpy, and it was inconvenient.) Moved all my stuff out of the bathroom and fridge, then wandered around my old apartment fruitlessly seeking my drawers. Went back down, found out that they'd moved it into the apartment next door. Apparently it was my fault anyway, because they'd left notice I was supposed to move back. Smiled and thanked the landlady for moving it for me, fuming inside. Was also very sad from assuming that Katya's new policy on the blue-beta book club was in veiled reproof of me, and had basically decided to throw away everything good in my life. (Quit book club->Lose blue-beta friends->Lose employment reference through Dr. Manning->Never write for the Board->Lose girlfriend.) Signed on to do so, found a nice note from Katya encouraging me to join them in this month's discussion. Yeah...thanks, Katya. She wrote a second, even nicer note when I explained this and thanked her, and I felt sort of bad for sending her on a guilt trip over my own insecurity. (Yay, green! Angst all around!)

Helped 'Brozy pack last night. Found it sort of amusing that I was carrying heavy things and she was doing my laundry. Decided not to post it here, since last time I tried to hold a door for Katya when she was holding a dozen things and my hands were free, I was accused of chivalry. Bloody difficult not to be a patriarchy around here. Made her omelettes today for lunch, so it sort of balances out. (I am *so* amazing at making omelettes now.)

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