Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

"People can misinterpret almost anything so that it coincides with views they already hold. They take from art what they already believe."

-Stanley Kubrick

Now that school is out and Rebecca has been waiting for her advisors to get back her thesis draft (with comments), we spent this week working on our personal projects. It seems like almost every night I was editing my film and watching and re-watching it until late in the night, while Rebecca absorbed herself in writing a graffiti writing recognizing program, like what was used by Palm handheld devices. She was able to complete this project by Thursday evening, whereas I'm still working on my film.  read more »

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?

-Theodore Seuss Geisel

I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.

-The Life of Pi

Yay! This week was momentous - Wayne finished his last classes and last finals ever here at BYU (of course he will have teachers and books...just at a different school....), and I finished my first draft of my thesis. Definitely a cause for celebration this week. Plus, we were finally successful at making ciabatta bread. Yay.  read more »

Rebecca is still trying to convince 25+ people to take her survey. Unfortunately, close friends and relatives shouldn't take the survey because they might give "biased" results; but you could tell all your friends to take it! :)  read more »

A guidebook to Judaism, by Herman Wouk.

There are a few books that every cultured American should have on their shelves. Ghandi's autobiography is one. This has been added as another to my list. Written around the same time, Wouk's explanation of Judaism is completely comprehensive and inspiring.

Herman Wouk is a devout orthodox Jew who has written several plays and novels. His writing flows and makes this study on Judaism clear and enjoyable. If you have any interest at all in Judaism, this is a great resource, as are your Jewish friends. I miss Josh Palay.

This book opens with the declaration that it will make you believe in God. [Or something like that. Rebecca picked it up and when she reads a book, she gets really into it so I'm not going to bother looking up quotes or anything.]

Everyone I know has read this book and enjoyed it. We finally got it from the library and while Rebecca was out of town, I read the whole book. Couldn't put it down.  read more »

I picked up this book because my friend, Dave, recommended it to me. He's given me some really good recommendations in the past that I was impressed with, so I spent the past half year trying to hunt it down. More exactly, he said I'd really get into this book, it was right up my alley.  read more »

Let's see...this week we went golfing for Wayne's class at a nearby golf course. Who knew the executive course was the easy course!? At any rate, I walked around with him, and he did the executive course for one of his PE classes. We'll have to do it again twice tomorrow so he can get full credit on that assignment, but at least we know the course now. It had started to rain when we first went out [read: pouring], but true to Utah's weather patterns, we waited under shelter for about three minutes and were able to go out after that, even though it was insanely windy.  read more »