Alanda

These pictures are very disturbing.

The Weekend

I did well on my New Testament Final on Friday. Saturday we didn't end up going to Salt Lake due to the large amount of snow we received. Instead, Braxton and I hung out and did some Christmas shopping and then saw "The Pursuit of Happyness" with Will Smith. It was really good. That night was the concert/party thing at our apartment. I thought a pretty good number of people came. It was fun. Sunday I went to church, did some home teaching and just hung out.

I'm not in a very good mood right now. I woke up at eight and wasn't tired, but It's ten thirty and I'm still in bed. I had a few changes in my policies. I broke up with P-dub. She seems to be okay with it. I also decided to accept the fact that Councilina and Bret are dating, and Alan and Amanda are dating, and they all seem pretty good together. I'm not going to try and break them up any more. What I've done is eliminate the distractions and barriers that I have put up around myself. If I take away the fake relationships and worries about other people's dating lives, it means I have to start worrying about my own. So far, it isn't very fun. I want more distractions. I don't want to think about my life. I just want to ignore it until it finally leaves me alone. Maybe lunch with Braxton will cheer me up today. Bye.

Answer Key

Good job everyone! Next time I'll make the game a little bit more difficult. Just so that there isn't any confusion, here is the official answer key.
1. Chelsea
2. Cannon
3. Pottawattamie
4. Chazlyn
5. Lashley
6. Whit
7. Councilina Bluffs
8. Heather
9. Kyle
10. Alan
11. Amanda
12. Council Bluffs
13. Gavin Pants
14. Big B (Braxton)

Today I'm excited about taking my New Testament final and selling back my freaking Microbial Genetics book. Then tomorrow I'm going to Salt Lake with Braxton and Mary, but we'll be back in time for the Park Place 8 and Devin concert. One last item of business. Cannon has a blog. It's http://www.feasible.blogspot.com .

Windows to the soul.

"These eyes have seen a lot of love, but they're never gonna see another one like I had with you."

--The Guess Who

Do you recognize any of these eyes? See if you can identify their owners. Hint: Most of them belong to members of F6 and R22, but not all of them. Good luck!





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A little too late (Childhood memory)

I kept looking at my watch, wishing time would go by faster. Why did I ever volunteer to be a crossing guard? I remember sitting down in my 5th grade PE class and raising my hand along with a few others. What was I thinking? Well, whatever I was thinking, there I was in a bright orange vest, holding a bright orange flag. Earlier that day Garrett was challenged to a fight. "After school. In the alley". Garrett asked me to be there to back him up. I told him to try and stall since I had crossing guard duty till 3:30.

My reputation as a fighter was pretty good. At one time I would lose control and beat up anyone who got me mad, but prior to this day I changed my ways and developed talents of a different nature. I could talk myself out of any situation. I was willing to fight if it came down to it, but I could usually end a fight before it even started. Garrett's reputation as a tough guy was better than mine. He'd pick fights and make everyone mad, and there I'd be to back him up every time.

Three thirty finally came and I ran back to the school to put my bright orange vest and bright orange flag back into the closet. Trying to get to the school was like a nightmare. The school was close, but it felt like it was miles away. The harder I ran, the further I had to run. I suddenly felt an even more extreme sense of urgency, so I ran to the alley as fast as my 10-year-old legs could go.

I came up to the alley and heard laughing.

"We kicked his *&@#!!!!!"

"Yeah! Did you see his ear turn blue?"

"I bet I broke his ribs!"

"He was crying like a baby!"

I was furious. After screaming a few select words that I no longer feel comfortable saying, I stared them all down. I walked by Andrew, and then Justin, and then Max, and then I approached Micheal. He was the unofficial leader of this group.

"Wow! Do y'all think you're great? Four against one? Is that the only way you could take him?"

That made him mad. He grabbed a hold of my shirt and pushed me against the fence. Then he got in my face. It was on. I was ready to avenge Garrett. I was ready to take on all four of these punks. I was just waiting for young Micheal Delgado to make his move. Andrew spoke up though. "Hey! Kyle's cool. Let him go." Micheal listened. He let go of my shirt and I walked off until I was out of sight, and then I ran to find Garrett to see how he was. On the way to his house I kept repeating. "I was too late. I was too late. I was too late." Why did I volunteer to be a crossing guard?

His ear was blue. One of them kicked him in the head while he was down. Luckily he wasn't seriously hurt though. I felt guilty for a long time. A very long time. Up until a few years ago I would be angry at myself whenever I thought of it. I wasn't there for Garrett. I swore that I wouldn't let a friend down again.

What if I had the power to go back in time and do it again. Should I do anything differently? What if I skipped my crossing guard duty to help Garrett, but some 1st grader got hit by a car. I had to be where I was. At the age of ten I learned the pain of letting someone down, and almost ten years later I learned how to forgive myself. This experience was a turning point in my life.

Love Stats

Warning: Do not read this post unless you truly have nothing better to do. I mean, if you have to write a paper or do some reading for school, do that. If you need to catch up on some correspondence, I recommend you do that before reading my post too. How about your ceiling fan? When was the last time you dusted it? Why don't you take care of that also before saying you have enough time to waste on this post.

I started to think of some things yesterday as a result of my study of statistics and a conversation I had with the great Smith Field House janitor/philosopher Lafe. When you test a hypothesis and decide to reject or accept a hypothesis you either get it right, commit a type I error, or commit a type II error. A type I error is rejecting the null hypothesis when it is actually correct, and a type II error is not rejecting the hypothesis when it is actually incorrect. You can always interpret the stats in such a way that you decrease the chance of committing a type I error, but that always means increasing the chance of committing a type II error, and vice versa. You just have to decide which error has the worst consequences and decrease the probability of making that error. In the justice system the null hypothesis is "The person is innocent". A type I error would be saying a person is guilty when they are actually innocent, and a type II error would be saying a person is innocent when they are really guilty. In this case our government says a type I error is worse. Putting the burden on the prosecution to prove guilt and having well defined laws as to what will and will not be allowed as evidence means that fewer innocent people are found guilty and more guilty people are found "not guilty". That's a trade off that we're willing to accept in this nation.

Now on to the topic of love. The null hypothesis that a person can have is "I'm not in love". After getting to know a member of the opposite sex well, it is common to test to see if this original hypothesis is still true. After the test is made that person can either be right, decide they are not in love when they actually are (type I error), or think they are in love when they actually aren't (type II error). Which error is worse? I asked a number of people and it was interesting to hear their responses. Some people said that a type I error is the most tragic while dating, but that if marriage is a very real possibility, a type II error would have the worst consequences. Others said a type II error is always worse.

I believe that we all define "love" in such a way that we avoid one of these errors while increasing the probability of committing the other. People with a very broad definition of love want to avoid the mistake of not thinking they are in love, only to realize it later, when it might be too late to do anything about it. People with very strict definitions of love want to avoid thinking they are in love, only to later realize that what they felt wasn't love, and have to get out of whatever situation they're in. But, on the other hand people with broad definitions run a higher risk of committing a type II error and those with very strict definitions run a higher risk of committing a type I error.

Let's present these two different types of people with the same difficult situation where they just can't decide if they are in love or not. The person avoiding type I errors will say they are in love, because if they say they are in love, they are either right, or they committed a type II error. That's great. There is no chance that a type I error could be committed. The person avoiding type II errors will say they are not in love, because that way they are either right, or they committed a type I error which they consider to be less severe. No type II error could be committed.

Of course if we think things through, the probability lies in us being correct and not committing any error. I hate to make it sound like we will always be wrong and we must choose which type of mistake we want to make. Okay, that's all. If you followed any of this rambling, congratulations.

Marriage

So, It looks like me and Pottawattomie are engaged! When I heard about Chelsea and Council Bluffs getting engaged, I went into a jealous rage followed by a jealous coma and then jealous rehabilitation. I wanted to go with CB on that honeymoon package! Who does Chelsea think she is swooping in like that and stealing my vacation. ARRRGGHHH. Well I decided to go ahead and get married too so I can go with them on the honeymoon. I chose to marry P-dub for a few reasons.

1. She was online and the most easy to get a hold of.

2. I'm tired of dating.

3. Pottawattomie Vaughn has a nice ring to it.

4. Kyle Vaughn and Sara Riehle score a 94% on the love calculator.

We'll get married whenever Chelsea and CB tie the knot, as long as I make some brownies.

Hide and Seek

Garrett's little brother would always want to hang out with us, so we'd ditch him. It was the same tactic every time. It's amazing that the little kid would never catch on. "OK, let's play hide and seek, Ryan. Count to 60 and then come look for us."By the time he got to 20 we were out the door and on our way to a friends house. I always felt bad about it. I would imagine Ryan looking for a good half hour and then crying another half hour when he realized that we did it again. Poor kid. I told myself that it was Garrett's problem if Ryan cried. Ryan was HIS brother after all. Why should I care? I did though. One time we were ready to do it again. This time Garrett promised we wouldn't leave. Obviously a lie. Ryan looked at me and said, "Kyle, do YOU promise you won't leave?" That statement had a big impact on me. I promised, and when Garrett was ready to go I told him, "not this time. Let's play with him." I can't remember where I ended up hiding, but when he found me, the look on his face was amazing."You didn't leave! You didn't leave!"He was absolutely thrilled. Ryan had a tough life. His parents were divorced. His Mom was nice to us, but never stopped being a hippy. She owned a New Age store, did drugs, and had a new drunken abusive boyfriend every week. His dad also had his own vices( mostly pornography and alcohol) that resulted in a home completely void of that safe feeling a home should provide. After Garrett moved away, I took Ryan under my wing. Eventually I lost contact with the members of that family. Garrett would often tell me, "It's good that we're friends. You keep me from being too bad, and I keep YOU from being too good." We adopted the yin and yang as the symbol of our friendship. One of us was the black with a spot of white, and the other was the white with a spot of black. After graduation we had already been apart a number of years. I left for BYU, and he left for rehab. I don't know what's happened to Ryan. I think he'll be graduating either this year or next year. Wow. I hope things are better for him.

P.S. COUNCIL BLUFFS FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!