Cali, Cali, Cali

So I am sorry to all my faithful readers for not updating this week. I have been staying in this posh resort and the only place they have free internet is the lobby. Needless to say I don't do well with men wearing capris, hearing french, or large groups of loud people consuming alcohol.

This week has been sweet. I came down a day early and spent Monday on the beach with some friends. It was awesome, the first time I ever went to the beach and swam in the ocean. It was cold but well worth it. I was even taught how to hunt sand crabs. It was a lot of fun. I stayed that night in Irvine, thanks Matt, at about 5 AM I woke up with the second worst tooth ache I have ever had. The number one was on my mission when I got an infection and I had to get my tooth pulled. I was ready to go get on a plane that morning and have been ready ever since. If they didn't want $300 to change my flight I would have hurried this trip right up and got home. So I have been living on IBprofen all week it has helped and I am doing alot better since then.

So I have been working down here this week and it has been fun. There has been a lot on my mind. A lot about my life, career, and future. I don't really know what I am going to do in the fall, where I am going to live or where I am going to work. It is kind of frustrating because I hate leaving things to the last second. I really want to get it taken care of in the next couple of weeks before work ends so I can go and enjoy my hunts.

So that has been on my mind. A LOT.

This week my hotel has been on the beach, to the East of our hotel are the Los Angeles docks in Long Beach. They load the big containers like on Gone in 60 Seconds. It is really cool to see the boats moving in and out and being loaded and unloaded. I love it here, and for some reason when I look at these machines I am inspired. I doubt when they built the docks down here they imagined such massive machines being used. I am a capitalist, and to me these machines represent hard work, a sharp mind, and a desire to become a more effective business.

I read Atlas Shrugged, (if you haven't I would recommend it, it is very applicable to our current economic and political climate) and in it the protagonists are hated by everyone in society for being driven by a profit. Yet they aren't driven so much by a profit as they are by the desire to create something better. Profits come because they used everything they have to make something better instead of just being content with mediocrity. Capitalism at its finest is a pursuit of something better. It isn't as much about the profits as it is about creating something better, more efficient, that makes people's life easier.

One closing thought. When I was on my mission there was a missionary who was half Italian and half Brazilian. Obviously we made fun of him for being so ignorant and stuck up. He had a unique accent also and there was a talk in General Conference by a Brazilian he knew and he use to always quote it. I remember it more for the accent than anything but I am glad I remember it. The quote is, "Life is good, if we live in such a way as to make it so."

Good night Cali I can't wait to go home tomorrow.