Some Random Pics...ya know, for the kids someday

Mommy and Daddy just married!

Driving through Zions
Rafting the Colorada with some friends

Gettin a good readin in of the Daily Herald with your dad's friend, Kyle.

Hikin through Arches
On the bridge between Omaha and CB.

Grand Re-opening!

Welcome to the new and improved "Council Bluffs' blog!" I've made some changes as you can see and this first entry is going to explain the changes.

The colors: yeah, I know they're different. I don't particularly like the white background, I'd rather it be light blue, but I couldn't find another template that I liked much. I like the red, blue, and black lettering.

The addition of a scripture or quote: I hope that everyone will read this. I guess this is my way to share what touches or inspires me and why it does.

The addition of a slideshow: I really like these sunset pictures, I'll probably change it to some other pictures someday but for now we'll stick with the sunset. I'm a sucker for nature pictures, they really relax me.

The addition of a survey: This'll keep things fun...and democratic.

The addition of links: I'm not trying to take traffic away from Becca's, Chelsea's, nor Cannon's blogs. These have been my hubs in the past, but this way people who visit my blog can visit the blogs of my friends and get to know them a little bit. I think readers of my blog should pretty much just open up all these links and read what I read everyday. I don't think I need to explain why I added those particular links, to find out, just click them.

The addition of a picture I really like: Also to keep things fun.

The addition of a news feed: President Hinckley said that we should find out what is going on in the world. In case readers don't click on the news links then maybe they'll get a brief summary from here at least. It's pretty cool, though, I can add different words and google will find articles related to the words. So I have: politics, Council Bluffs, BYU, John Beck, and Romney. You can click on those words and see the most recent news about those items. If you want me to add items, leave a comment on my latest post.

The addition of a google ad: I don't honestly think I'll make money from my blog, but it doesn't hurt to make a couple extra sense here and now. Maybe someday I'll be able to buy 3 del tacos from my google revenue.

The reason for change: A couple reasons: 1) I got a little tired of my old format. 2) This might help me climb higher on hits for "Kasey Beck." 3) I also now look at my blog as a way to spread the Gospel a little and do my part to improve the world. I'm not sure if this will mean that I'll post more often, but I am trying to get more people to visit the site and maybe interest them a little and do what I can to help out people. You never really know if you helped some random person on the internet have a better day or come closer to Christ. The notes to the article at the end helped with this too.

We had an awesome trip to Council Bluffs for P-dub's wedding. Here are some pics that somewhat tell the story:

Friday morning when we were driving, we hit a big snowstorm in southeast Wyoming, so we had to go down to Denver and then take I-76 back to Nebraska. At the Flying J in Julesburg, Colorado there was this awesome sunrise.


The sun was doing some weird and cool things Friday morning.

It was a weird sunday on a Friday.

Maybe I thought too much of it.

It was just awesome, though.

K, last Friday morning sun picture.

The good ole Midwest. You can't really see it, but there were lots of birds in the sky and there was a lot of mist coming from the ponds to the side of the interstate.

Here's a picture of the Winter Quarters Temple at 12:15 PM, I think, Saturday morning, while Sara and Justin were getting married.

This is the Sealing Room I think they were in. ETERNITY!!!!!

We had a lot of fun with the cameras at the reception while we were waiting for the food.

We had a lot of fun when we got the food too. This is the chocalate covered Budha strawberry.

Alan saw the strawberry and lost it.

I don't think I've ever seen him laugh so hard.

I thought the chocalate covered alien strawberry was funnier.

It's almost creepy looking.

On the way back I was driving and this huge semi jumped the median, came onto our lanes and played chicken with me. I won...and got a picture of it in the process.

I've always wanted to get a picture of this. It's at about mile 32 in Nebraska.

What's this supposed to even mean?

You can kind of see the bent mile marker. This is where the mile marker sign used to be until Trishy tore it up. I went off the road about 30 feet.

Fencing

This just cracks me up. Facebook has two purposes: to stay in touch with friends and to entertain. It is a toy.

The Daily Universe had a really good article about blogging. Here are some excerpts:

The foundation receives its name from Joseph Smith, who stated that Mormon meant "more good." The goal is to provide a non-authoritative voice that promotes LDS beliefs and encourages members to share their beliefs with the world. Richard Miller, executive vice president and BYU business graduate, said people often don't want to believe leaders or authorities but they will believe regular people. "I think members can provide that non-authoritative voice," Miller said. "I think the church membership can add a lot of credibility for the church by speaking about what they believe." The More Good Foundation decided that the Internet was a prime way to encourage discussion and to improve the image of the church. The foundation already has 80 different Web sites online; some of them are major projects. Lds.net, started about three months ago, is one of the foundation's premiere sites and already has nine thousand members, Miller said. This online network combines blogs, chats, forums, photos, and videos. Richard Miller said it is similar to myspace.com but isn't trying to compete with it.
Curtis, who is on lds.net and has his own blog, said he thinks the web is an easier venue for members to share the gospel. Even students can be sharing the gospel, he said, even though most of the people they live with are already members. With the web, students can reach out to people everywhere.

Another important project that the foundation is working on is Christ.org. This site will be solely about the man from Galilee, his life, ministry and doctrines about his importance.
The More Good Foundation also hosts Mormonwiki.com, the free online encyclopedia for people to read about the LDS church and find answers to questions. The site already has over one thousand articles in English and has hundreds translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and other languages. This site is a dot com and not a dot org because mormonwiki.org is an anti-Mormon website.

The More Good Foundation also sponsored the LDS Facebook application and over 20 thousand people have already added it. With this application, members can share their testimony, favorite scriptures, and also check up on the latest in church news.

While the More Good Foundation started working with the Internet years ago, recently, several apostles of the church have encouraged members to use online media. Elder Russell M. Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve encouraged BYU-Hawaii students in December to use new media to promote discussion of the church. "May I ask that you join conversation by participating on the Internet, particularly the new media, to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the Restoration," Elder Ballard said. "Most of you already know that if you have access to the Internet you can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true."

The grass is greener, the air is fresher, the flowers are prettier

That's right! Finals are over. Of course they always kick my trash, this year I had three study guides to memorize: they were 56 pages, 33 pages, and 30 pages. So yeah, that killed me, but it's all good now. The last week of last semester I was walking and I heard a guy yell real loud. I asked if he got an A, he said that he didn't care cause he was done forever. When I'm done forever I think I'll do that too. Finals is definitely one of the "three F frustrations of college!"

I got 5 shots today: polio, tetanus, menigitis, typhoid, and yellow fever. I still need to get pills for malaria. The downside is that I could still get those diseases and still have to watch what I eat. My arms are really sore right now and I'm starting to feel a little sick...just like the nurse said. I was supposed to get the yellow fever shot 10 days before I go. The nurse said they might not let me into Uganda for 2 days. That would be kind of cool actually, if they wouldn't let me into their country...I'm like a rebel or something. Maybe I'll get lucky they'll put me in some podunk prison. I wouldn't mind torture either. As long as they give me a cool souvenir so I can prove that I'm a rebel, cause I am.

We're leaving for Council Bluffs tonight. I'm really excited. It's going to be carefree, lots of eating, having fun, burning our school stuff, good relaxing time. Dyads will definitely be strengthened with everyone there (see the Jo for definition of a dyad).

I saw two businessmen on segways today. Wow, that was funny!

I have hardly eaten this week. Pretty crazy. Usually I can't do anything without food, but I haven't had an appetite at all.

I studied Humanities for like 4 hours today and actually I really enjoyed it. It was a good class that made me realize literature, art, and music are just as important to the world as politics. Well, almost as important as politics. One thing that hit me was what Emerson said about art. He said that art is not the creation but the process. And that it is a form of expression. Of course I've heard that art is expression several times but it also said how we all what to be understood- art helps. I don't think anyone can fully understand someone else, and that makes life exciting, but understanding one another helps out so much. Last semester in my political philosophy class my professor said something that disturbed me and has made me think a lot about. He said that if words can't describe what we're thinking, then we're not really thinking. I should look over his argument again but that can't be right. There is so much that I think and feel that cannot be described by words. Of course I try and sometimes make an idiot out of myself in attempting to describe my thoughts and feelings but that doesn't mean that my thoughts aren't thoughts. I've written lots of poetry, some is funny, most was written to export a certain feeling I had. I think that other people's art can explain our thoughts and feelings as well. And sometimes it doesn't, but you just enjoy it.

"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." - Frederick Douglass
"It is not chaos or death- it is form, union, plan – it is eternal life –it is Happiness"
-Walt Whitman
"You can appreciate a single blade of grass for its beauty but it all comes from the same soil."
-Walt Whitman
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - Thomas Jefferson
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." -Founding Fathers

Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin Church have become two of my favorite artists. My last uploaded pictures didn't really turn out that great, but here are some of my favorites:

Church:
Church:
This paintings are Cole's empire series. They go through the development, pinnacle, and fall of an empire. The unique thing is that nature remains. The mountain is in every single picture:
Savage State:
Pastoral State:
Consummation state:
Destruction state:

Desolotation state:

Cole, two Indians paying respect to the Niagara Falls:
Neither one of these images came out that great
Church:

Church:


Cole, again, notice the little person in the center:
Church:
Church:

I might find some time to write in here before I go to Uganda. I'm not really sure what my email/letter situation will be like in Uganda or Holland. Hopefully I'll be able to get on here once awhile and give an update of my travels and experiences.

I'm going to go play Mario Kart 64...or Risk on Cannon's computer.

Robson Elementary School!

So I'm getting really excited for a lot of things! One of those things is the Council Bluffs trip. But yeah, maybe we should make sure not too many people come. Here's the tentative schedule of events.

We'll leave the night of the last day of finals which is the 25th. People could leave earlier that day if they don't want to drive through the night, but part of the fun will be all of us roadtrippin together. On the way we'll stop at Rusty Cannon Motel in Northern Colorado. We really don't have anything we need to be home to, so we can take our time and see things and stop at places along the way to CB. Thursday will be a chill day. We can just chill at our's and P-dub's homes. We can play pool, fuseball, tetherball, jump on the trampoline, play football, etc. It'd be fun if we play werewolves later and then we have the girls do their thing at P-dub's and the guys will stay at our place and we'll play Risk all night.

We have lots of room in our basement and our grandparent's basement (they live nextdoor), but it'll probably be warm enough so people could camp out in our backyard, or sleep on the trampoline. Friday we can sleep in, and then go to the Winter Quarter's visitor center, the Kanesville Tabernacle, we can drive through the bluffs, go to Dream Park at Lake Manawa, and make our own pizzas at Papa Murphy's. Later we'll go to the wax slides, then walk around and eat at somewhere in the Old Market. We could go to Heartland Park, and then go home, play steal the flag, and then tp the Evans' house.

Saturday we'll go to the Church, play dodgeball, basketball, and nine-square in the parking lot. We could have a water fight at home, and then just chill the rest of the day and do what we want.

Sunday we'll sleep in til 1, go to Church til 4, eat a nice Sunday dinner with P-dub's parents and sister, maybe play more games, and then some of will leave at 6, others can stay if they want.

Anyway, Council Bluffs really isn't that exciting, but it's Council Bluffs people!!!