We opened Jake’s mission call on Thursday afternoon and he is going to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He reports to the Brazil MTC on September 1, 2010.  We are all so excited for him. We know that is where the Lord wants him to go and that he will be an amazing missionary.

Thank you to everyone who participated in guessing where his mission call would be.  We had a fun time talking about everyone’s guesses and thinking about where he could go.  But enough about that, it is time to announce the winner.  Erik Hulme (my brother-in law) won with a guess of Cordoba Argentina.  The distance between Cordoba and Rio de Janeiro according to Google Maps is 2760 km a 1 day and 9 hour drive.  That is a drive I definitely don’t want to make, and luckily we don’t have to!  We will be sending Erik two movie tickets so he and my little sister can go on a date!  Congratulations Erik.

Feel free to leave comment with advice or congratualations for Jake here on the blog and we will be sure that he receives them.

Mission Call

My little brother Jake  just received his mission call but we will not be opening it until Thursday since we will all be together for my little sisters graduation.  So the speculation begins.

Please leave a comment with your prediction. You may guess one foreign mission and one domestic if you’d like, per Jake.

There are two prizes up for grabs.  The winner can choose the prize they would like from:

• Two movie passes to AMC Theatres
• Two Dallas Symphony Orchestra tickets to Franck’s Symphony in D Minor on May 1 2010 at 8:00PM

The winner will  be determined by distance to actual mission in miles.

What are you waiting for?  Go leave a comment with your prediction, a free date awaits!!

If you need ideas, this document has all of the missions listed: List of LDS Missions

This doesn't look too bad!

OK, so yesterday I heard from a friend that it was reported that the government spent an estimated $360,000 for that “Photo Op” debacle which had the President’s 747 flying low over New York City (good plan!), escorted by a fighter jet (luckily the President wasn’t on board).

I heard what they wanted was a shot of Air Force One (of course, it’s only called Air Force One if the President is actually on board, so we’ll just call it “Big Blue and White 747″) flying over the statue of Liberty with Manhattan in the background. There were probably more cost efficient ways getting that image, and so in literally less than two minutes I hacked together the composite you see above in Adobe Photoshop CS4, using a background from iStockPhoto.com and an official White House shot of “Big Blue and White 747″ from their web site.

Now, here’s my plea to the White House. Rather than spending $360,000 somewhat foolishly (wink, wink), whatdayasay we work out a deal?

I’m trying to raise money for furniture and household appliances for an orphange in Kenya (run by Americans), and I’d be happy to actually take 90 minutes (or more; whatever it takes), and really do the compositing job right, and all you have to do is buy a freezer for around, say $360. You can keep the other $359,640 or give it to GM.

Anyway, by next weekend my schedule will have freed up, so if you’re interested just drop me a line here or call my cell phone (you know the number).

I will spare you my thoughts about how this is another example of the current administration spending our money for absolutely ridiculous things but just know I am mad about it!  At least Scott Kelby thought of a good way to look at it, and his picture looks pretty good!

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work–including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule–our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.”

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated “The US only had two major victories–Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by head-to-head contests–they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event.”

German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said “Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks.” Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn ‘style points’ to enhance Germany’s rankings. Hitler protested “Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces.”

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented ” France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2.”

Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.

I know that we cannot do a playoff, due to school schedules and other various things, but this BCS stuff is ridiculous.  Why is Utah #6 playing #4 Alabama when #3 Texas is playing #10 Ohio State?  I would think that #3 would play #4, but apparently not.  Go Deutschland!

Also you may notice that $2.17 is for 87 octane, not that oxygenated 85 octane stuff they sell in Utah.

Go ahead and leave a comment with how much you are paying for gas.  It will be fun to compare.

Having hauled in a record $208,333 every hour of every day last month — $150 million in all — plus a few more unreported millions so far this month, Barack Obama is worried that he might come up short in the political money war with the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket.

Just to relieve himself of that $150 million before the polls open, Obama will have to spend $12.5 million a day.

Are you kidding me, 12.5 million dollars a day, that is crazy!  Does Obama honestly think that his campaign spending is helping Americans? Although he claims to want to help everyday Americans by putting more money in their pockets,  he sure appears to be more concerned with taking it out of their pockets! Apparently, he thinks that he will spend more than 12.5 million a day because he is asking for more.

…according to an e-mail plea to supporters, tonight’s the absolute deadline to donate $10 more and receive your special edition Official Obama-Biden car magnet.

Having now collected more than $605 million altogether, the freshman senator shows no concern over the appearance of buying the presidency. Imagine for a moment the national political conversation that could be going on now if rich Republicans had raked in that much loot for one campaign.

Wow, yesterday I read an article about how there was a whole hoopla about Sarah Palin, and how she has spent $150,000 on clothes since the Republican National Convention.  $150,000 in two months sure seems like an insignificant amount compared to 12.5 Million dollars a day.  Don’t worry, at least the Obama campaign explains why they needed more money.

“We have to make our final, tough decisions about where to fight and how strong we can make our team. And those choices will depend on the financial resources we have.”

Apparently, the Obama campaign has to have money to make decisions.  Intersting…  I wonder what will happen when Obama is the president, and he has to make a tough decision, like about a financial crisis?  Perhaps he will just ask us for more money to help him decide.  I don’t know about you, but I do not think that would help us get out of the crisis.

I wish this election had actually been about issues that will affect me.  Not just about what color, gender, and religion you are and how well you can spin the media wheel in your favor.  I guess we can hope for a better election next time.

PS. You can read the whole article here.