I met a guy who knew a guy named Mitt once

Working as a carpet cleaner in Salt Lake in 2005, I was sent to a job in Park City, my boss handed the order to me directly and said "this is a big one, make sure you do a great job!". The order only contained a name whom I didn't recognize at the time and an address that put the house in one of the most expensive areas of PC. These jobs usually came with potential but sometimes had baggage to. Working in the homes of the wealthy was common for me, these jobs usually had large commissions, but the price of these opportunities were dealing with snotty folks who were at times, extremely difficult to satisfy. My assumption in my boss emphasizing the importance of the job was the opportunity to add additional services as the order was very basic, clean 3 bedrooms and a hall way.

Upon arriving at the job I could see why my boss was so anxious, I wasn't cleaning a house, I was cleaning a mansion! IT WAS GINORMOUS, if I remember correctly the home had 7 bedrooms, each which had its own private bath. Gigantic living rooms, complete with wool rugs and a TV that came out of the mantle, I'd only seen anything like it on MTV cribs. We were met outside by a man who looked to be in his 50's introduced himself as the properties caretaker. To be honest, I hated dealing with hired help, they usually were very tepid about adding additional services. As he let us in and showed us the areas that they wanted done it turned out they wanted the entire upper lever of the home done, which included all 7 bedrooms! I was ecstatic, it would be a large jump in commission for us. He then left us to our work and we went about cleaning this monstrosity. After about 6 hours of labor, we were finished and met with the caretaker to settle the bill.

While going over the service and totaling the bill for him I became fairly nervous, I knew the bill would end up in 1000's. I had had an experience before where a nanny had us to add a bunch of services and the owners got upset and refused to pay. As I showed him the final total ready to provide a breakdown of the charges, and preparing for a possible reaction, the man didn't blink and pulled a very large roll of 100's from his pocket, I had only ever seen that much cash on one person except for in a movies. He counted out the cash, and then handed me and my partner an extra 100 each saying "Mitt wouldn't be happy with me if I didn't tip you guys". Shocked, and after many thank you's,  I asked him, "so who is this Mitt Romney guy anyways? His name sounds familiar." The man looked at me like I was nuts, and said, "You don't know who Mitt Romney is? He was the one who saved the Olympics when it was here." He proceeded to tell us all about Mitt, he couldn't stop glowing about how much he loved (yes he said LOVE) the Romney family. From what I can remember about the conversation he had been a family friend of the Romney's since he was a boy. And his only job, "they pay me fifty grand a year to watch this house and take care of it when they aren't around. They bought me a little house in town (Park City) where I live. I only have to come up here a couple of times a week. when they aren't here." I asked him where Mitt was at now, and he said, well son, he's the Governor of Massachusetts and he's going to be President someday!

I was impressed to say the least, I had seen a lot of beautiful homes of the wealthy, but I had yet to meet paid help that considered himself family. He considered himself family because he was obviously treated as such. There was no one there but us, he would have been free to say what ever he wanted about Mitt. I didn't pry much about Mitt and his family, the man was so honored and proud to be a part of their family that he willingly gushed about his employer.

That's the day I decided to vote for Romney. Romney won't make a great President because of what he knows. He'll be a great President because of whats in his heart, he IS truly a good man.

If you have a personal story about Mitt, let me know and I'll gladly post it.

An Economics Expirement in Socialism

I saw this posted in the comments of the article I posted on Facebook regarding President Obama's State of the Union address. I can't tell you the origins, or if this actually took place. But I think the story is intriguing and makes a valid point....

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

This example whether a true event or not, displays the danger of socialism, and clearly demonstrates why socialism will fail. Removing reward and consequence removes the desire to achieve, thus destroying ingenuety and prosperity. I don't believe any one has a "right" to a certain standard of living, they must pursue it and earn it.

Occupy VS Tea Party, who ya got?

Pa Olsen showed me this chart comparing the Tea Party with the Occupy movement. It seems Dems/Libs want to try and compare the two. Well I'm glad someone took the time to create a side by side comparison. Here is a big high five to who ever put this together.

REPORTED	OCCUPY PARTY	TEA PARTY
ARRESTS	4149+	0
RAPES	12	0
DAMAGE	$10,000,000.00	$0
PUBLIC DEFECATION	YES	NO
ANTISEMITIC RANTS	12	0
COST TO TAXPAYERS ( by 11/9)	$19,327,487.00+	$0
PUBLIC MASTURBATION	3	0
MOLOTOV COCKTAILS THROWN	10	0
FIGHTS STARTED	YES	NO
CHILDREN EXPLOITED	YES	NO
POLICE CARS DAMAGED	2	0
PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS	YES	NO
DRUG POSSESSION ARREST	YES	NO
CONCEALED WEAPON ARREST	YES	NO
DRUG OVERDOSE	YES	NO
THEFTS	YES	NO
BURGLARIES	YES	NO
VANDALISM ARREST	YES	NO
TRESPASSING ARREST	YES	NO
NON FATAL SHOOTINGS	1	0
PUBLIC URINATION	YES	NO
URINATION ON OTHERS	YES	NO
ISRAELI FLAGS BURNED	2	0
AMERICAN FLAGS BURNED	1	0
AMERICAN FLAGS DANCED ON	1	0
AMERICAN FLAG DESECRATION	25	0
FELONY ASSAULT ON AN EMT	1	0
HEAD/BODY LICE OUTBREAKS	1	0
TUBERCULOSIS OUTBREAKS	1	0
MURDER	1	0
SUICIDE	1	0
SHOTS FIRED AT WHITE HOUSE	1	0
SCABIES OUTBREAKS	1	0
OBAMA ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
PELOSI ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
CAIR ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
SOCIALIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
NAZI PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ENDORSED	YES	NO
COMMUNIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
BIDEN ENDORSED	YES	NO
HUGO CHAVEZ ENDORSED	YES	NO
BLACK PANTHERS ENDORSED	YES	NO
HEZBOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
MARXIST UNION ENDORSED	YES	NO
9/11 TRUTHER ENDORSED	YES	NO
BOLSHEVIK ENDORSED	YES	NO
IRAN GOVERNMENT ENDORSED	YES	NO
AYATOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
NORTH KOREA ENDORSED	YES	NO
FARRAKHAN ENDORSED	YES	NO
NATION OF ISLAM ENDORSED	YES	NO

Confessions of a Closet Nerd

For those of you who are closest to me know I am an obsessed Star Wars nerd, I won't spend time on the why's, as it is a long rant mingled with philosophy and scripture. As a result, I'm a big fan of all things nerd, I've seen every episode of Star Trek the next generation, I own all of the matrix movies including the AniMatrix (I figured it out the matrix while watching it) and much much more, so naturally I play a lot of video games. ESPECIALLY Star Wars video games.

Up until about 5 years ago, I stuck to a steady regimen of Madden, Halo, and Star Wars Battle Front. While playing battle front I noticed an add for another Star Wars game named, "Knights of the Old Republic. It wasn't a typical game I had played before, it was a "role playing game" or in gamer speak, and RPG. The style was quite different, I wasn't just running around blowing stuff up and shooting storm troopers, the games starts the player as a Jedi padawan and through the events of the game you gain experience and gear to level your character into a full on Jedi master. Yes you even have your own R2 unit and a space ship to call your own.

The game developer released a sequel, to Knights of the Old Republic, and it was just as awesome, needless to say I fell in love with the franchise. About 3 years ago it was announced that there would be a new Old Republic game released! But to my dismay I found out it was going to be in the same style as another very popular game, that to many at the time seemed, UBER nerd, it was going to be a "Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game". Basically, just like World of Warcraft! I WAS LIVID! I wasn't going to play that! MMORPG's are for virgin's living in their mothers basement. I never saw myself playing it, I was bummed, there was going to be a new KOTR and I wasn't going to play it. Because, I am not ONE of THOSE nerds...right? Or am I.....

Fast forward a year, I find myself on the internet checking out the KOTR website, looking at what content had been published so far, I was drooling. I knew I was going to want to play this game, no matter how nerdy it was, it was Star Wars and that is all that mattered. But I had no clue how to actually go about playing an MMO, so after reading other readers comments I saw some readers had started their own guilds, and were starting to recruit! So I decided I better learn, but how? Play WOW? Nah, I couldn't that would make me a loser...but my desire to learn an MMO was greater than my fear of becoming a nerd. So I found an free trial for WOW and started a Human Paladin (that was the closed thing to a Jedi, as far as I could tell). And here I am a year later with 2 level 85 characters or "toons" and a hand full of characters between lvl 30 and 50.

So there it is, I PLAY WORLD OR WARCRAFT, and guess what, it's awesome! I love it, its more fun than any game I've ever played. The player versus player, and co-op play is the best. It's like playing on a football team, every player has a job to do, and if one guy can't do his part, the group fails. So there it is, laugh if you want, shake your head if you desire.

So why am I telling you this, well, when I have fun with something, I like to do it with my friends, with Star Wars the Old Republic releasing in December, I wanted to start playing with people that I like and know. So here is a call to all you other nerds out there, closet or otherwise, come play SWTOR with me, I even started my a guild NinjaJedi's, because there is nothing more bad ass than a ninja, except a Jedi. I have it listed as Player vs Player guild but I'll be doing all the PVE (player versus environment) content as well.

If you want to get started learning the ways of the MMO, start a toon on the Uldum server on WOW and let me know, here are the links to my two 85's a Paladin and a Death Knight, I'm currently leveling a hunter and a druid as well.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/uldum/Jaykahn/simple

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/uldum/Arhnold/simple

If you want to start let me know we get bonuses if I "recruit a friend"

if your not sure if you wanna try it, there is 10 day free trial,

On 12/20/2011, I'll be starting a Jedi gaurdian and a Smuggler, check out all the info at www.swtor.com

There I got it off my chest...now you know

My goggles are very very blue right now

Fall Camp starts Saturday, so here is what I think we will see from my Cougars this year.

As a former football coach and a student of the game I try to keep my opinions and projections with in the bounds of logic and common cents. I've read a lot of break downs on BYU's upcoming season but I just wanted to throw in my two cents as well and provide some analysis from an experienced coach/player.

BYU fan's goggles are bluer than I've ever seen before, I have to admit, mine are getting bluer than normal. I've seen some articles from some stating there is to much kool-aid drinking among fans. Here is why I believe that its safer than normal to let your goggles tint a little more than you would normally let them.

#1 Jake Heaps, I won't get into it, its been covered, he has all the tools to be great just needs to prove it.

#2 Our O-line could be one of the strongest in the country, one thing that a lot of folks in the media haven't given enough emphasis to is how strong we will be at this position. Any coach will tell you, your team will only go as far as your o-line will take you. Matt Reynolds returning is HUGE, just his leadership and knowledge aside from his skill are invaluable. It has been an absolute pleasure to watch him go about his business, in my opinion most dominating O-Linemen we've had since Bronco took over, will most likely be a top ten draft pick in next years draft.

#3 Bronco calling the D, He's a master technician when it comes to calling plays, now that he has charge of the defensive game plan don't count on seeing those gaping holes in the middle of the field kill us like they did before, Hill's play calling was mediocre at best. We will see sophisticated blitz packages that will eliminate much of the frustration fans felt with Hill.

#4 Combine Bronco's play calling with what could be the greatest front 7 BYU has ever seen. With Four legit NFL prospects at LB, and a beast nose tackle, most teams will find it very difficult to run against us or get on the edge. The cougars have seen a lot of screens and stuff over the middle in years past to deal with BYU's blitz scheme. I believe a Bronco coached defense will make up for the mental errors on screens and draws, the middle is the middle, in this style of D its sort of what you give an offense in order to stop the run. The trick is getting to the QB before he can make the throw, and with our backers and D-lineman I think we will win that battle more often that not this year.

#5 Doman at OC, while the jury is still out, many may not realize he was heavily involved with play calling last season, and in his senior year under Crowton called most of the plays him self. The guy is a offensive savant, and I'd bet he's is going to do a masterful job at doing something Anae was simply atrocious at, making adjustments and tailoring an offensive package to the specific strengths and weaknesses of both his team and his opponent.

#6 Our WR's are perfect for Doman's style of offense, they will stretch defenses like we haven't seen since Collie. Our TE's are still a question mark, but as long as there is at least one who is a good blocking TE in the run game it won't matter as much. Doman's offense can make use of a great tight end or be adjusted to compensate for a mediocre one.

#7 RB's in the passing game, I can't wait for the dink's and dumps to JJ/Juice, they are going to drive defenses crazy.

#8 RB's in general will be dominate behind a steam rolling o-line.

#9 Run to set up the pass, will allow Doman so many options in the passing game he must be giddy,

#10 Ben Cahoon as a WR coach, tired of those awful routes and dropped passes last year? Well say good bye, Cahoon is a surgeon, our WR's will be back to precise route running and will stop using their chest to catch a ball on a rope.

So that sums it up, When I can sit here and list good thing after good thing I know we have something special, I would feel sorry for any football fan who doesn't pay attention to BYU for the next two years, they will do some amazing things.

Areas of doubt and concern:

#1 DB's as always, but there could be hope, we won't know until fall camp and or Ole' Miss, but it won't be such a glaring issues as I expect the front seven to create so much havoc for OB's the DB's jobs could be done for them many times.

#2 slight concerned about RB's if Juice goes down,

#3 who will be our solid pass catching TE???

#4 full back, lead blocking was crucial to Anae's run offense. Not sure if Doman will be relying on one, or using the same schemes for that matter, options with in his scheme will allow him to implement or employ other methods.

#7 Lots of new young coaches....I've drank the koolaid and decided they are all awesome, but the coach in me remembers that experience counts,


I truly believe 12-0 is possible, if we lose it will be to Ole Miss, UT, or TCU, the Utah game is a lock IMO this year, they are so dwindled I almost feel sorry for them, and chow's offense won't be clicking until he gets his recruits in there. Hard to run a pro style O with players that were recruited and coached to run the spread. USU, I can't wait to chew you up and spit you back out and send you back to red headed step child land.

final shot... best case BYU 12-0 worst case 10-2 with loses to either UT/TCU or Ole Miss/TCU

oh and Jake Heaps will place 2nd or 3rd in Heisman voting this year