The time has come for a mass update. Let’s dive right in.

I solved the headphones problem from my prior posting. I picked up a cheapo $10 pair of headphones at Wal Mart. They are the kind that cradle the ear. The advantage of these? The cradle keeps them in place even when the actual piece is not inside the ear, allowing me to listen to quiet music without blocking ambient sounds. It’s an interesting situation since it feels like I just have a soundtrack to my life. A soundtrack that never syncs up. That’s probably a good thing, though.

I’ve recently begun listening to the Harry Potter books on my Ipod. Yes, it’s finally happened. After years and years of being bugged about not reading them, I’m now listening to them. I finished The Philosopher’s Stone (I got the U.K. audio books) and am onto Chamber of Secrets. It makes for some rather funny moments when I fall asleep while listening.

I spent this past Wednesday night at Wong’s. I only had a few chapters left of the first book and started listening, but zonked out. I woke up in the middle of Harry’s confrontation with Voldemort (should I not even be typing the name?). The reader really goes all out with some character’s voices and for Voldemort, he uses a high pitched sort of nasal voice. In a groggy, confused state my eyes slowly open and I hear “Kill him!” scream loudly in my ears. I started looking around in the dark room thinking “What? Kill Who? What’s going on here?” It took about five seconds for me to catch onto what was going on. It wasn’t fun during those seconds, but after it was.  Oh Voldemort, don’t tell me my business.

This past weekend was my ward’s annual river rafting trip. We go up to Alpine Junction and ride down the Snake River multiple times in two days. There were six total runs with three rafts in each run. I was able to work my way into four of the trips. We usually go later in the year, late July or early August, so this year was a totally different river with the Spring runoff still pouring in. The water level had to have been at least seven feet higher than usual since some familiar areas were completely submerged. The current was also running about twice as fast it seemed.

Aside from a couple precarious moments, including one of the rafts hitting a class five whirlpool dead on which knocked two people out of the raft (one week earlier a scout leader died in that very spot link ) the trip was a blast. I thought the river was far more exhilarating because of the speed and danger, but for those very reasons the ward won’t be going this early in the season in coming years.

And finally, the end of the world is approaching. I made a Facebook account. There are a couple reasons I made the leap. I still think the concept of Facebook is silly, but I’ve also come to accept it’s little quirks for what they are. After all, what’s the difference between someone posting small thoughts very frequently and that same person posting larger thoughts less frequently on a blog? I’ll tell you the difference, generally less passion appears in the blogs. Oh, it happens. I’m guilty of it. But when someone writes out a couple of paragraphs they tend to calm down and think about what’s going on.That happens a lot less when someone writes out a single sentence and posts it.