BYU Football 2008 Preview COACHING

Here is the weekly layout of BYU Football fall preview. I will begin this week by discussing coaching and giving a grade of the unit. The question in most football minds is what makes a good coach? Many elements go into coaching and I for one do not know them all, but winning makes a good coach in my eyes. Yes back in the growing up days of little league and grid kid football, winning wasn't the most important thing, but at the college level you have to win. Some argue that coaching isn't what wins football games but its the players. I feel both play a role in the winning. Coaching is critical for football especially in college with the role they play in recruiting and the motivating of the players to play at the highest level.
Bronco Mendenhall has been a answer to our prayers here at BYU. After three horrid years, the man has changed the entire state and reputation of the program. Trust me, that isn't easy. Takes a lot of time to do, it is not done overnight. The speed that Bronco has done it is remarkable. The players went from getting arrested for rape to giving Friday night firesides before the game. All this and when we look back and see he wasn't our first choice, kills me. I guess we can still come back to the phrase, "Thanks Kyle, Seriously." You can buy the shirt on cougarfan.com. The university and athletic department may not judge a coach on wins but no matter what you say, all of you want to feel and have to feel the excitement of winning. Why do we get all upset when they lose if we didn't care? I crave wins and want wins and thats what Bronco has brought me and rest of you. We have the longest winning streak in the nation and one of the best records the past 2 years with 22 wins only four losses. I judge coach on wins and thats how it will always be. Its kind of like on my mission, when you really knew if elders were working by baptisms, yes you looked at contacts, invites, discussions, families at church, but in the end the final goal is baptisms. This may not be true for all missions I know but in mine, we wanted baptisms, that was how all of us were judged. No matter what you say, if your team is not winning than your just not that good of a coach. Bronco is winning and that makes him a great coach and will be for a while. At BYU its a little bit different. You can't just win but you represent the church in all that you say and do. Instead of hiding from it like Crowton, Mendenhall has embraced the church and used the spiritual aspect to his advantage. The only thing I can think negative about him is the crazy words he uses, but I feel that reflects his vision and mastery of his players. Will all these praises continue to be said about him? Time will tell as the season progresses, but my vote is they will. How can I not give him a big fat A

BYU FOOTBALL 2008

I recall back in January of this year after the last football game depression of an entire summer with no football. Usually my summer is filled with excitement of pennant races but when your team (Seattle Mariners), is the worst in the whole MLB I find it rather difficult to rant and rave of their success. So enough of the baseball talk, its time for byu football, let me repeat that, ITS TIME FOR BYU FOOTBALL BABY!!!!! This blog will start a succession of blogs of probably outside my wife and the Lord the most important thing in my life (sorry father but I can't hide my true passions). Much excitement is boiling through my veins with the fans here in Provo in what could be one of the greatest years in BYU football history. This is no guarantee but will require skill, hard work and some luck. For the next five weeks I will be previewing my opinions of each unit (offense, defense, special teams, coaching) and will finish it with my preview for each game this season beginning with Northern Iowa at home. For the last few years I have only been one game off so you all better listen in. I also advise you to read Jarom's blog (see link below on my friends). He will add many if not better insights than I will.

My patience is being tested!

Well today and yesterday have been extreme tests of my patience. In both incidents I felt like my head was going to burst because I was SO mad (and rightly so) and ended up crying instead because that's what happens when I get really mad. The tears just come and there's NOTHING I can do about it. It's kind of funny actually. Anyway, I need to vent, so here are the stories:


1. The Car
So this story starts out with me taking the car to All Tune and Lube to get our timing belt fixed because when Jeff called around for quotes, they were the cheapest. Here is the list of frustrations that we encountered:
-The day I took the car in the guy told me it would be $430 instead of $330. Um, big difference! Not knowing what to do, I called Jeff who called the store and was luckily able to get them to stick with the originally quoted $330. Alright so far, but it gets worse as we go along.
-After picking the car up an hour later than they told me it would be, I drove to Jeff's work to pick him up. On the way, I noticed a strange sound. Something was wrong. We called them and they told us to bring it back in as soon as possible.
-I brought it back and waited for an hour for them to fix it. After leaving, there was ANOTHER DIFFERENT sound this time. At this point we were very annoyed.
-So once again I brought it back. I sat and waited for half an hour before the guy came and said we would have to come back when there was another mechanic around. What's that about???
-Yesterday was my millionth trip back (and my last EVER as they totally have lost our business) and I was quite annoyed to be there. However, throughout this whole ordeal, we both kept our cool and acted very rationally. So I'm sitting there and the guy says that I'll be out of there in half an hour. "Okay," I think, "That's not bad." Well 45 minutes later I was still waiting and decided to ask how much longer it would be. This is when I got mad. The guy tells me that the part is not there yet and he doesn't know when it'll get there and then it will be another half an hour after that until I could leave. I had to get up and walk out of the store to stay calm and I called Jeff who helped me relax. I was furious! Seriously, who has to go back to a freakin' store 4 times for them to get something right?!! Although I so wanted to give him a piece of my mind, I was as nice as possible to the guy in the store and just let the tears flow once I got in the car. IT WAS SOOO RIDICULOUS!
2. Okay, I'll make this story a little shorter since I've written so much already. Back in December I got an Ipod Nano and for my birthday I got Nike+ shoes and the Nike+ adapter (it connects the shoes to your ipod and it's like a GPS/coach in your ear as you run--way cool). I've loved it! The ipod was working fine until about a month ago. It just stopped working for no reason. I took it to a Mac store in Orem and since they didn't know what was wrong, I then took it the Apple store at the Gateway. The people there were horrible. They told me that my ipod had been "exposed to large of amounts of water," and told me "sorry, we can't do anything about it." Excuse me? What? Large amounts of water? I think not. I am more than 1000% positive that my ipod has NOT been exposed to ANY water let alone "large amounts" of it. Yes 1000% positive! So I finally got around to calling someone about it last week and got nowhere. I called again today and with all of the How to Win Friends and Influence People principles in mind, I was still getting nowhere. But I refused to let it go because it's ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS that a $150 product can all of a sudden stop working and when I try to confront someone about it, it's all of sudden my fault. Bogus! I was on the phone for over an hour (most of it was sitting on hold and writing this blog entry) talking to three different people and feeling like it was a lost cause...but guess what? I thought this entry was going to start negative and end negative, but it's not! I just got off the phone with a wonderful person named Chad who is going to make sure that my Ipod is fixed free of charge! Can you believe that?! Even though that's what I expected in the first place and that's what I deserve, I'm still shocked! I seriously have had a trial with patience lately and I feel like I have just past the test!!!

I Swore I'd Never Be One...But I'm a CNA Now

I finally got a job (yay!) as a CNA at a nursing home and I started this week. Here are some highlights:

1. Feeding a lady who randomly screams "WAHOOOOO!" and wears a bright pink t-shirt with the word "SEXY" in huge glittery letters.

2. Showering a 400 pound woman. Enough said.

3. Taking a patient outside to smoke (I have no idea why they allow this) and not knowing which end of the cigarette to light.

4. Suspecting ghosts in an empty room where a lady died just last week and the call light keeps turning on randomly (and in the room two doors down) when there is NOBODY around or in the rooms. Everyone on our shift last night was pretty spooked. I'm normally not one to believe in that kind of stuff but when I went in the room alone last night to turn the call light off, I got a cold sweat. Still not sure what was up. Oh, and even the big 45 year old male nurse was scared...

5. Having the classic CNA experience: Think of the worst bathroom experience possible. Now multiply that by ten. If you're having a hard time picturing something, it was basically like 5 massive cowpies in a row. Now imagine the rotten smell as you wipe it up and it just keeps pouring out all over the patient, the bed, the sheets, and everything else for twenty-five minutes straight. I know, you're jealous. But now imagine trying to eat dinner right afterwards...

Even though I come home exhausted, I really feel like I've already had some great experiences in learning how to care for patients. And I'm getting paid to do it!

THE DARK DARK NIGHT

VS



















Well all those fans which read this wonderful blog know that I watch a lot of movies. My wife and I try to see about one a week (beauty of the dollar theater) and I swear every Monday and Friday people at my work ask me two questions: What movie did you see? and What movie you going to go to this weekend? Not to my control, I did wait for a whopping week before I had the chance to see The Dark Night. I was getting a bit nuts. Everyone I was talking to loved it, saying it was incredible and I the movie guru, who has his own movie review on a blog, hadn't seen the movie of the summer. I called it to be the movie of the summer back in April and it did not disappoint. Us fans make it so hard for these blockbusters to live up to the hype we give them and The Dark Night did. The last movie to do so in my opinion was Transformers. I feel that a great movie no matter the length makes you want more. After two hours and thirty minutes of amazing storyline and great action with a little mentally ill Joker (whom I loved) I still wanted more. Heath Ledger was absolutely amazing and was so clever at playing his part you felt like the Joker really existed and he just pissed you off. Batman, as always played by Christian Bale, was great. I really enjoyed the, in fact I thought it was awesome when I think back on the movie. I highly recommend it for everyone thats 13 and older. Not a movie to take a child too unless your crazy, but great great film.

JULY 4TH BABY!!!

Can you tell its in the Denny's parking lot.

Just before the fireworks and after some dang good food.

My wonderful sister and her family, (notice Ava plugging her ears)

My Camera's attempt to Capture the Great Lights of Idaho Falls

My wonderful and beautiful wife drinking the Mormon Party Drink Water Baby!!!!!

Nieces Sadee and Ava Best Parents in the World

I do realize that its been 2 weeks since the fourth and apologize for the delay in posting these wonderful pictures and video. My wife and I have been swamped and really haven't had time. We went up to IF for the fourth and partied with the family which you just can't argue. So a little history about my father. He talks a lot of the talk a lot of the time. I remember (and my sister Kari can relate) when he took his whole family to test drive an Audi. What are a couple of teens going to think? He talked like he was going to buy it the whole entire time. He plays with your mind. For a while now he has bought some property to build on but never started to so when he told me about a house he was liking I was very, very skeptical. Well I was wrong and they will close on the house tomorrow. To start things off my father and mother will be moving and we had to go see the wonderful house (it is amazing to say the least). I guess you could say its a step up from the house my siblings and I grew up in. They will be moving into the huge mansion first of August. (My mom just might kill me for saying that so if I cease to exist check with her). No seriously, it is large and almost as luxurious as our apartment in Provo. I for one am very excited for the projection screen downstairs with state of the art surround sound to enjoy many movies and BYU football victories. It will be really nice to come home and have upgraded the house facilities. My dad has worked his freaking butt off and deserves some reward so props to him. We also went and saw the new movie Get Smart (see movie review column) the new Steve Carell movie and enjoyed it. The fourth in Idaho Falls does not get the recognition it deserves for everyone that grew up there and has seen fireworks other places, there just not as good. Our seats were incredible, the best I have ever had so we sat on the grass and watched them launch from less than 100 yards. The nieces Sadee and Ava were great to be around and fun to play with. What a great fourth of July!!! Here's a Video of the finale, ENJOY!!!!

THE DAY I BECAME SHAQ

As many of you know, my height has never been one of my strong points and so I resorted to playing sports with my brain instead. In basketball I played point guard and gave the ball to others to score which I had no problem with. But there comes a weird time in a man's life that he just wants to know how it feels to dunk the ball. After this desire, hoops came with adjustable levels to lower it to seven feet which allowed me to play for hours with my buddy's in the front driveway. Well Saturday I decided to just live one of those dreams and grab the rim on my old hoop (it's about 18 years old). I don't know if I became Shaq or what but I recall jumping up and grabbing the hoop and then the entire hoop came crashing down onto my back. No injuries were obtained from my short body but it was probably one of the funniest events. Where's the camera when you need one? It was nuts just plain nuts--the hoop snapped in half cause of the years of rust.