John Colton's blog

My sister Marci sent these out a while back, and I meant to post them on my blog. But I didn't get around to it until just now. Funny stuff!

One cool thing about working at BYU is that interesting people come to speak. For example, both John Roberts and Harry Reid are giving colloquia this semester.

But more interesting to me, was Pres. Hinckley giving a devotional yesterday. I hadn't listened to him first hand probably since I was a student here. I took some notes, so here's some of what he said: (not by any means complete, and no guarantee on the quotes being entirely accurate; for two other, perhaps more accurate treatments, see http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/65345 and http://www.harktheherald.com/content/view/237839/)

___begin Pres. Hinckley___

It is a grinding experience to earn a degree here, but the result is something of which you should be proud. [Colton: I quoted this to my students, and told them that I would feel disappointed if my class was not part of the grinding experience. :-) ]

Article of Faith #13: "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

We believe in being honest... there is nothing more honest than good hard work.

[quoting someone, missed the reference] "...talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. No one is great without hard work."

We believe in being true... [quoted the entire hymn, "True to the Faith"]

We believe in being chaste... the Key Bank building in downtown Salt Lake City was brought down via implosion in 3 or 4 seconds, even though the construction likely took a year or two. That is the story of many lives.

...but in its place will be constructed a new and beautiful building. Similarly, those who have transgressed can repent.

You *are* being "chased"--Satan is chasing after you and you'd better run as fast as you can!

We believe in being benevelent--literally means, "doing good". On an individual level, we can be pleased that Utah is at or near the top in charitable giving. On a church level, we manage humanitarian efforts across the world--helping people most of which are not members of our church. And on a level close to home, your own education here at BYU is heavily subsidized by members of the church.

We believe in being virtous; this doesn't mean sexual morality, since that was covered under "chaste". Rather, it means having the strength to do whatever needs doing. "The strength of a man is measured no by his spiritual exertions, but by his habitual acts", Blaise Pascal. These habitual acts should include paying tithing, keep the Word of Wisdom, etc.

We believe in doing good to all men. This requires mercy, self discipline, determination, and the ability to extend forgiveness to those who despitefully use us. Joseph Smith was an example of this in his dealings with Anthony, a former slave. Anthony had violated the law [by selling liquoud on Sunday], and Joseph as mayor was called upon to render a judgement. Anthony explained that he had only been doing it because he needed money to buy the freedom of his son, who was still a slave in a southern state. Joseph said, "I am sorry, Anthony, but the law must be observed, and we will have to impose a fine." The next day, however, Joseph personally gave Anthony a horse to purchase his son's freedom.

As another great example of this, we have the life of Norman Borlaug [see this wikipedia article for more info]. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, and more recently the Congressional Gold Medal at the age of 93. I have never met him, and probably never will, but what I know of his life is inspiring. The Wall Street Journal [incidentally, Pres. Hinckley quoted the Wall Street Journal several times during his talk. I was surprised] said, "He has arguably saved more lives than anyone in history... perhaps as many as one billion."

Borlaug was an agricultural scientist who first developed disease-resistant wheat to help Mexico's food supply. Then he turned his research to rice to aid Pakistan, India, China, etc.

The whole world is in his debt.

Now I am in my 98th year... I know that the 13th Article of Faith provides important guideposts for our lives.

___end Pres. Hinckley___

My new home made national news today. Hmm...

___

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070918/ap_on_fe_st/odd_lousy_lawn

Woman pleads not guilty in lawn case

OREM, Utah - A 70-year-old woman arrested in a dispute over her brown lawn pleaded not guilty Tuesday, then stood by as a Los Angeles lawyer waved handcuffs for the cameras outside court.

"I ask the citizens of Orem: How many of you would like to have your great-grandmother taken from her home with bruises and blood and placed in handcuffs for failing to water her lawn?" Gloria Allred said.

"Let's bring sanity back to law enforcement," she said.

Betty Perry is charged with resisting arrest and failing to maintain her landscaping, both misdemeanors.

She was arrested July 6 after failing to give her name to a police officer who visited her home.

During a struggle, Perry fell and injured her nose. She spent more than an hour in a holding cell before police released her.

The mayor and City Council apologized, and the police department said the incident could have been handled differently. But the city attorney still is pressing charges against Perry.

She pleaded not guilty and will return to court Oct. 11.

Allred is a noted feminist who has been involved in several high-profile cases, including representing Amber Frey, the girlfriend of Scott Peterson, who was sentenced to death for the murder of his pregnant wife, Lacey.

A state investigation found Officer James Flygare acted properly in arresting Perry after trying to get her to cooperate.

Perry's water had been turned off for about nine months, at her request, although she was living at the house at the time of the arrest. Orem has a shut-off policy for people who are away for extended periods.

We went to the state fair with Grandparents Bobby & Phil last week. A lot of fun!

One of the first things we saw was a show by Marcus, "Funny man who does tricks". I really enjoyed him--a talented juggler with a dry sense of humor.

Emily, of course, got picked to go up on stage.







He didn't juggle Emily, but he did juggle while *holding* Emily. :-)


This was an impressive trick--doing a hula hoop with his leg, while doing a paddle ball with one hand, juggling with the other hand, and balancing a top on his tongue!


We got to see a 700 pound butter sculpture. That's a lot of butter!! (It was kind of creepy, actually.)


On the way out, we even got to meet and talk to a robot.


The main reason we picked that particular day for the fair, was to catch Terry Fator's performance. He is the best ventriloquist I've ever seen, and he has his puppets do impressions of other singers. It's amazing--check out the youtube links below if you haven't ever seen him before. He won the $1 million prize from the show "America's Got Talent". Emily, Leslie and me were right up front on the first & second rows.




This one was very funny--he got an audience volunteer and made him dress up and sing like Cher.


Here are some clips from the AGT show. He did all of these songs at his Utah performance. (And a bunch more--his performance lasted about an hour and twenty minutes.)

After the sheepdog trials, we stopped by Midway, where they were holding "Swiss Days", and saw the Swiss Belles, a female bell-ringing group.

I thought this was cool. From wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same_color_illusion



The square marked "A" and the square marked "B" are the same color.

Don't believe it? (I had a hard time at first!) Make a small hole in a piece of paper, so you can look at each square without the surrounding pattern, and you will soon be convinced.

I was talking to someone today about the "senior study room" that existed for Physics majors when I was a student. My favorite memory of the senior study room:

I was in there working on a long homework assignment. All of a sudden, two Asian grad students started having a heated discussion with each other (in Chinese). They started really going at it and their voices grew louder and louder. Finally, in disgust, one of them marched over to the board, where he grabbed a piece of chalk, and wrote: "49ers 20, Cowboys 10".(*) Then he stomped on out of the room. Completely cracked me up.

(*) Teams and scores may not be completely accurately remembered after all these years.

I told my students today I planned to approach this physics class the way Steven Brust approaches fantasy writing, and I shared the "How to write like Steven Brust" quote from below. Here's the quote, along with Brust's two theories about literature.

___

From the author’s note in Brust’s novel, The Paths of the Dead

How to write like Steven Brust

Steve has two theories about literature and one set of instructions on how to write it.

First theory: “The Cool Stuff Theory of Literature is as follows: All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what’s cool. And that works all the way from the external trappings to the level of metaphor, subtext, and the way one uses words. In other words, I happen not to think that full-plate armor and great big honking greatswords are cool. I don’t like ’em. I like cloaks and rapiers. So I write stories with a lot of cloaks and rapiers in ’em, ’cause that’s cool.”

Second Theory: “The novel should be understood as a structure built to accommodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff.”

How to write like Steven Brust: “It’s really simple. What you do is put up a sign on whatever wall you face when you’re writing. The sign says, And now, I’m going to tell you something really cool.”(*)


(*) Steve adds that he got that last one from Gene Wolfe.

I had to supply some background info for a "new faculty directory," so I figured I could post it here:

Background: By the time I was 6 years old, I had lived in Missouri, Connecticut, Maryland, and Vienna, Austria. My family stayed in Vienna for five years, after which we moved back to Maryland. I completed junior high and high school in Maryland—this is where I consider myself to “be from”. I served in the Munich, Germany, Mission from 1989-1991. I received bachelor’s degrees from BYU in Physics and in Mathematics, in 1994. I received my PhD in Physics from U.C. Berkeley in 2000, after which I began a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. I became an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 2003, where I taught for four years before coming back to BYU this semester (Fall 2007).

Research: I am an experimental solid-state physicist. That means I study what goes on inside solids, using many different experimental techniques. Specifically, my research career has focused on semiconductor materials, related to the types of materials people make LEDs and laser pointers out of. I typically use optical methods to study the properties of electrons in these materials—for example, I often shine lasers at bits of semiconductor and see what happens with the reflected or otherwise emitted light. My current experiments are probing the “spin” states of electrons, which will potentially yield useful information for people trying to make “quantum computers” out of such materials.

Other: My hobbies and interests include (in no particular order) table tennis, singing, computer games (when time permits), science-fiction/fantasy books (even when time does not permit), and the Utah Jazz. I have two daughters, who are both in elementary school, and a very supportive wife.

Well, my lecture went just fine. The students seemed to laugh at all the appropriate spots, and none of the inappropriate ones, so I think we will get along just fine. :-)

Got my first BYU class to teach in an hour and a half. There are 280 students, which makes me a bit nervous. But I went to the other section of the class this morning (taught by Bret Hess) and it didn't look too awful.

Actually, going to the other section was funny--I sat in the audience(*) and all of the students around me thought I was jut another student. We did a bunch of partner-problems, where you talk about the problem in a pair and then answer it via an electronic "clicker". After about half the class, I mentioned to my partner that I was teaching the other section of the class. He was flabbergasted and said he had just thought I was a student. And after that, I was partnered with the guy on the other side, and he said the same thing when I let on to him. And then, when the guy in back of me found out, he said "Dang--I was just thinking that you'd be a good study-buddy".


(*) yes, with classes this size, it's basically an audience. Some advice I got last week: "Think of yourself more as a talk-show host than a college professor, and you'll do fine."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070902/ap_on_fe_st/odd_sand_castle

CASCO, Maine - The creator of a sand castle built nearly 32 feet high to raise funds for terminally ill children and their families hopes the structure will be named the world's tallest.

Organizers said Saturday the elaborate sand castle measured a height of 31 feet, 7 inches. Plans called for verification paperwork to be sent to the Guinness Book of Records, which will determine whether the castle makes the record book.

Ed Jarrett, who created a 29 1/4-foot sand castle in Falmouth in 2003 that was declared the world's tallest, organized the "Castle to the Sun" event to raise funds for Camp Sunshine.

More than 1,000 people volunteered over the past two months to help build the castle, which used 40 dump truck loads of sand, organizers said.