They just don't make them like Jimmy Stewart anymore. Maybe it's just because I know a bit of the pain of losing a loved one, or maybe I'm just a sap, but this poem has brought me closer to my heart as I've watched it a few times over the past couple of weeks.

Oakwood Cafe
Hayes Barton
Five Star
Waraji

My colleague Jordan chastised me today for being an image leecher. I make no excuses and I offer no denial to this claim. My only response is to post a leeched image of Mario Lopez:

Mac and I have a reservation for brunch at the Commander's Palace in New Orleans. Be jealous. Now.

For those of you asking yourself if Daisuke Matsuzaka is really worth what the Red Sox paid for him -- $51 million to the Seibu Lions as a buy-out, plus his actual $52 million contract -- your question can be answered by simply watching this video. The first few pitches are relatively normal, but pay attention starting at around 45 seconds in. Have you *EVER* seen movement like that?

While preparing to start on a web project that Mac and I have been discussing, I decided that this tool would be the perfect excuse for me to learn Ruby. The last thing I really need is another programming language, but the fact is that Ruby is possibly the most concise and simple language I've come across, yet it contains a wide range of features and appears to be pretty robust. I'd toyed with it during Christmas break of 2005, but fell away from it once I got back to Utah and had to continue on with other languages. Now I'm taking it back up, though.

Here are some links if you're interested:

Ruby - the official web site of the Ruby language
Ruby on Rails - the most popular Ruby web framework
Aptana - a great Eclipse-based (and therefore cross-platform) IDE for developing Ruby on Rails apps
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby - "why" is perhaps the foremost developer of tools, libraries, and documentation for Ruby, and it's always done in with great personality and humor.
RedHanded - Why's blog
WhyTheLuckyStiff.net code - Why's code repository

and now, for my favorite starting points, the one I've been spending the most time with lately:

Camping - a Ruby-based web microframework. Amazing, Amazing, Amazing. The most simple Model/View/Controller framework I've ever come across.
Polzer.goes Camping - an excellent tutorial on getting started with Camping

It's an amazing book. In the chapter "Missionary Work and The Atonement", Elder Holland addresses missionaries in the MTC. While he speaks specifically to missionaries, I've tried to apply his words to my own quest to improve every day and to overcome this trial that I've passed through recently. Even now that my emotions are stable again, now that I'm fully looking forward with a cheerful demeanor again, I'm not allowing myself to get comfortable with my personal situation yet. I have more growth to achieve before I allow that yet. Anyway, here is Elder Holland talking about struggle in the context of missionary work. See if you are able to apply it to other situations like I've been able to.

Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn't it go better? Why can't our success be more rapid? Why aren't there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don't people just flock to the font? Why isn't the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convince that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy.... How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never easy for [Christ]? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

He goes on to say that he believes that missionary work is not easy because it "is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our souls." Then he says this, the point that hits me hardest:

If you wonder if there isn't an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn't an easier way.

The reason my pain and loneliness has taken me three weeks and countless daily prayers to begin to overcome is because I have to earn the peace I seek. Sometimes we have to earn the answers to our prayers through patience. Bitter, long, drawn out patience, wherein however each day our path becomes easier and our burden lighter. At the end of that road, though, we are stronger for it all. We are closer to Jesus Christ when we take steps that lead us down the paths that he has walked on.

This book is amazing. I read it on my way to and from work each day while I'm sitting on the bus.

Tonight I went with some friends to the Durham Bulls game. Very fun. Here's the logo of the Durham Bulls:



Here's a picture of the movie poster from the movie "Bull Durham":



I'm sad to report that neither Kevin Coster, Susan Sarandon, nor Tim Robbins was in the house tonight. I am happy to report, though, that on this freezing evening (I thought I'd left sweaters and jackets behind in Utah, but Ma Nature decided to introduce us to what she calls a "cold front", and a very cold one indeed, this weekend), the Bulls came back from a 5-4 deficit to surprise us all with a 5-run 8th inning to win the game 9-5. Very entertaining. Delicious bratwurst, too.

I think I enjoy pretty much every John Cusack movie, but can anyone tell me when was the last time that he played a character besides the standard "John Cusack" character? May actors of guilty of one-dimensional acting, but John Cusack is perhaps the single-most defined example.

I still enjoy his movies, though. Especially "Say Anything".

I have no idea what the title of this post even hopes to emulate. Ozma is a great band, though. One of my favorites. They broke up a few years ago, then re-formed last year after realizing they were worthless without each other. I saw them with the Rentals last year, and it pretty much just their old songs, but it was still great. Now they've announced the release of their next album, "Pasadena".



All I can say is that I'm pretty dang excited about it. They've got a new drummer who's brought a whole new angle to their music. I've heard three full songs, which they have on their MySpace (ugh, how I hate MySpace!), and clips from several of the other songs. Overall, it's a lot of the same catchy guitar/keyboard rock, but they've gone and incorporated a bit more of an electronic feel to their drum tracks on some songs, which is very apropos given the current musical trend. I'm excited about this album.

So I took the bus to work this morning. I planned to pick up the number 11 bus at the corner of Boylan and South streets, about a half-mile from my apartment. It goes directly to Varsity Drive, where I work. The other option, which I'll try tomorrow, stops right in front of my apartment, but requires a switch to the NC State Wolfline, which then stops right in front of my work. So I took the number 11 and walked the last couple of blocks to work this morning. A total success. And free!

While I waited for the bus I continued to read "Trusting Jesus". This book is excellent. I mean, really, really good. Elder Holland is a masterful speaker and writer. The fourth chapter is "Teaching, Preaching, Healing", and while it speaks to teachers in the Church, many of its words carry across to all members:

Let me be a little more specific. Rather than just giving a lesson, please try a little harder to help that blind basketball star really see, or the deaf homecoming queen really hear, or the privately lame student body president really walk. Try a little harder to fortify someone so powerfully that whatever temptations the devils of hell throw at her or him, these students will be able to withstand and thus truly in that moment be free from evil. Can you try a little harder to teach so powerfully and so spiritually that you can take that student -- that boy or girl who walks alone to school and from school, who sits alone in the lunchroom, who has never had a date, who is the brunt of every joke, who weeps in the dark of the night -- can you unlease the power in the scriptures and the power in the gospel and "cleanse" that leper, a leper not of his or her making, a leper made by those on our right and on our left and sometimes by us?

Amazing words that really apply to me and to each of us who believes in Christ. I have growth opportunities around me on a regular basis, chances to help the weak become strong, and because of my human nature I often prefer to ignore those opportunities in favor of my own personal wants.

I enjoyed General Conference this weekend. Several of the talks were gifts from the Lord to me. Elder Scott's talk about prayer helped me re-focus my desire to converse with the Lord instead of continuing with the rhythmic prayers I often give. One Elder -- I don't have my notes in front of me here at work -- quoted his former Bishop in saying something like "Priesthood means service; bearing the Priesthood, I will serve." Elder Eyring gave us a personal promise that no matter how bad things are going in our lives, if we serve today, the Lord promises that tomorrow things will be at the very least slightly better than they are today. Powerful lessons that were timely in my life. I can only express gratitude to the Lord for the gift of a testimony, and for the blessing of having inspired leadership to guide me through my life.

I realized late last night that, as I mentioned in my previous post, the fine technician from Time Warner Cable is coming to install my cable modem service this afternoon. If I had taken the bus to work this morning, I wouldn't have been able to get home quickly for the installation. So, the Tim Boisvert First Week Of April Transpo Strategy will have to wait until tomorrow to be initiated.

Between sessions of LDS General Conference today, I decided to take a walk over to the Cameron Village Regional Library, roughly 1/2 of a mile from my apartment. Sundays have been pretty chill for me since I got here, and I was running the risk of sitting in my apartment for the entire day today. Rather than suffer that fate, I decided to return a book that I had checked out from the library a few weeks ago.

As I made my way to Cameron Village, I formulated what I shall refer to henceforth as the "Tim Boisvert First Week Of April Transpo Strategy". This week I will not drive my car to work. As an employee of a business located on NC State University's Centennial Campus, I have free access to CAT (Capital Area Transit) buses. The bus stops in front of my apartment and down the street from my work. After work I'll take the NC State Wolfline (a series of buses around NC State campuses that are free to the public) to the Institute building for FHE. After that, I'll walk the 4/5 of a mile home to my apartment. While I walked to the library, I thought that it would be convenient if indeed the library were open today so that I could get a bus schedule. You can generally get these things at libraries, right? I haven't been able to get my free wireless configured at the apartment, and the cable internet isn't being hooked up until tomorrow, so I had no idea how I would find a bus schedule. There was no way a public library would be open on Sunday, would it?

Yes, it is open. I am in it. Typing this message. Posting on this blog. At a public library that is open on Sundays. I must be living in the land of heathens or the Twilight Zone or something... a public library open on a Sunday, people!

Side note: The other day as I drove to work, I saw a student riding a bike on campus. I assume he was a student, that is, since he looked the right age and he was wearing a backpack. The funny thing was that he was only using two of the fingers in his left hand to hold on to the left handlebar. The other two fingers were holding his cigarette. Ah, North Carolina, how I love thee! There's no better way to start your day, I say, than with a nice healthy bicycle ride to school and a hearty cigarette to help you start the day on the right foot.

So, I will take the bus to work tomorrow. And I will like it! I figure so much is changing in my life these days, I might as well change my obsession with driving to work. I've long supported public transportation, but mostly in theory, or on paper. With the exception of my fascination with trains, I've done little bus riding since my mission.

*QUICK EDIT*: I should mention that I decided to turn down the April workout contract.

Anyway, I'm almost out of time. I'm actually now late for the final session of conference. Thank heavens for Tivo. I have a 15 minute walk home.

I'm doing a bit better, by the way. Still not over it, probably never will be. But I'm still sure that I followed the answer to my prayers, and that it truly has been painful, but that the Lord is extremely mindful of my pain, and he will bless me for my struggle. That's the faith and the hope that I have.