The End of an Era

Congratulations to the Florida Gators! Representing our now home conference, the SEC, the Gators beat the Oklahoma Sooners yesterday in a wonderfully thrilling BCMess Championship Game. It was nice to have a competitive final game to end the college football season, something that hasn’t happened in a while. However, the bowl season is always a letdown for me because I know that it could be so much better. Wouldn’t it be great to have a 16-team tournament throughout the month of December, culminating with an actual championship game on January 1? Then we wouldn’t have 48 people voting Florida #1, 16 voting for Utah, and 1 voting for USC. We would get to see if Utah could keep up their winning streak, maybe get a Texas-Oklahoma rematch, and nobody would get hosed because they didn’t have enough name recognition. It won’t happen because of greedy college presidents and their lame reasons lies like “preserving tradition” and “keeping academics first.” They are all very bad men. I will resume this gripe one year from today.



Jarom got his new calling this week….Elder’s Quorum Secretary. He was thrilled, because he was thinking it would be something much more time consuming. This should actually be quite easy. And Alixa is very happy with her new primary teaching partner. She is a mother of five, so knows how to deal with the little rats well. Alixa is learning a lot from her.

Jarom is also trying to find a job. Last semester he realized that grad school isn’t that hard, so he should contribute something to the family account, even if it is only part time. He has a few leads and interviews set up. It isn’t anything exciting, but we are poor, so he needs to do something. In the meantime, he took advantage of some sunny weather today to play a round of golf. It took him a few holes to remember how to hit the ball, but he enjoyed himself immensely.



Since school ended in early December, he has filled his free time with a fair amount of reading. He has chosen a variety of genres, from Teen Vampire Romance Novels (he read all four Twilight books in about 2 weeks) to Business (Panic by Michael Lewis) to Psychology (Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl) to Fantasy (The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, and this month's Book Club selection) to Self-Help (Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell). All were good and all are recommended, although most people won’t enjoy all of them. Mr. Frankl’s book is especially interesting, with some very powerful commentary on the human spirit and agency, set against the backdrop of a WWII concentration camp.



Alixa’s exciting development this week was the continuation of her birthday, which began in November and will probably run until mid-March. She got a new digital camera from her favoritest parents-in-law. It is 10 megapixels, which is oh so much nicer than our old, 4 megapixeler. It is also Charger powder blue, which pleases both Jarom and Lix. Unfortunately, there may not be many presents on her actual bday, February 2, when she will turn very old.