Emilie and I spoke in church the Sunday before last. We were asked to speak several weeks in advance so Emilie was ultra-prepared. I also prepared quite a bit better than I usually do. The preparation turned out to be a good thing because the sacrament, the youth speaker, the hymns and Emilie's talk were all done within 30 minutes and I had 30 minutes all to myself. I gave my talk as planned and actually filled the remainder of the time. It was very unfortunate for everyone there who had to listen to me for 30 minutes. Emilie's talk was magical, so at least the congregation was spiritually fed.

Have you ever noticed how rude people are these days? People cut you off in grocery store aisles, yammer on their phones while driving, have loud conversations during movies and so on. For some reason all this rudeness just melts away when people get to a four-way stop. When you pull up to the stop sign everyone suddenly becomes friendly and starts waving for everyone else to go first. The problem is this: there is no reason for manners at an intersection. In fact, manners cause huge problems at intersections. The Nevada Driver's Handbook states that "failure to yield the right-of-way is the major cause of accidents in Nevada." All I can do is plead for people to be nicer at the store and at the movies, but when you feel like waving someone through an intersection remember this: keep your hands out of view and put the pedal to the metal.

Now that American Idol is down to the top 12 I have to say that there is a much better group this year than most previous years.Sure, people like Amanda Overmyer, David Cook and David Hernandez need to go, but look at who has already been eliminated: Robbie Carrico (a bizarre mix between Bo Bice and Bucky Covington), Colton Berry, Garrett Haley and Danny Noriega(!). Those are some seriously impressive eliminations.