Signs of the Times, Issue No. 224 - 09/04/12

All things considered, this was a decision I never thought I'd have to make.

Greetings to one and all. Happy Tuesday evening to you. Topics to be discussed today: Weird friend suggestions; trees, forests, and Tuesday blogs; and a few random thoughts that came from my brain. But first, I make a very serious decision concerning my immediate future as I seek to move on to the next chapter of my storybook life. On we go!

The past week has been a difficult one for me. I've had a lot on my mind regarding a huge decision in my life. It's something that, one way or another, will change the direction I'm headed in the next stage of my mortal existence. I've thought long and hard about it, I've lost sleep over it, and I've weighed all the numerous options and I have come to a decision. Some of you may have noticed that I mentioned something about this on a Facebook group recently, but I felt like it was something that all four of you Loyal Subscribers should know and understand. So... here it goes: I have decided to withdraw from the 2012 presidential election. Since my name was thrown into the ring back in 2008 by a well-meaning mission buddy, I have reluctantly accepted the role of front-runner in the upcoming election. But, due to a few personal matters that have come to light recently - and somewhat due to lack of nation-wide support - I have decided that what would be best for me and my staff would be to humbly concede from the race. I wanted to thank everyone who has been behind me these past four years and for those who "rallied for A-Town" as often as they could. I have learned a lot since 2008 and it has been an experience that I will not forget. I plan on continuing to serve my country to the best of my abilities, but will do so in a much less public role. Again, thank you again to everyone who supported me and campaigned for me along the way. God bless you and God bless America.

Amen and amen.

Why does Facebook keep suggesting that I become friends with little wannabe supermodel teenagers from England? What the heck is up with that? Why would Facebook suggest them? I have no mutual friends with them and we don't even live on the same continent. That's P.M.U.!! 

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it still make a noise? The obvious answer is yes. Set up an audio recorder or a video camera. It would still make a noise. Now, Michael Brunson says that a Tuesday wouldn't be Tuesday without a blog. That has got me wondering... If I went a Tuesday without blogging, would anybody that isn't somehow biologically related to me really care? Hard to say. But I believe that, if such were the case, it would negatively affect very few of you. After all, keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who had to pull teeth to get people to go on vacation with him and STILL ended up going alone (your loss). There are some of you (mainly immediate family members or die-hard cousins) that might spend a few nights crying yourselves to sleep if there were no more "Signs of the Times," but you'd get over it eventually. I try hard to keep you people entertained every week (some weeks, admittedly, are more entertaining than others) and it has been a good way to keep my writing skills sharp, but I am of the opinion that if I suddenly discontinued my Newsletter, you'd all revert back to loving Fridays and hating Mondays soon enough. Tuesday would become what it always was before I came along back in 2005 - an afterthought, a bump in the road on the way to the weekend.

Timber.

I didn't update my Facebook status today to say that I Feel Good About Myself. Nobody noticed. That's not a complaint. Just an observation.

One day I'm going to make a book about all the stuff I couldn't blog or tweet about or post on Facebook. I'll call it a "journal." That will be crazy.


Guess what? The second semi-final episode of "America's Got Talent" is on tonight, which I'm sure you're all thrilled about and the NFL season starts up this week, which means that I'll be bringing back all those segments about sports that you all hate. That's probably the number one piece of feedback that I've received about this Newsletter over time - "I skipped over the sports segments." Hmmm... So at least you've got all of that to look forward to. Oh, and by the way, I think I'm going to order MLBTV all season long next week. It's awesome.

This is shaping up to be the shortest blog of all time. I blame it on my feeling sick to my stomach about my concession speech all week long. Nightmares.

Speaking of things that make me sick to my stomach, they recently announced the cast of the next season of "The Amazing Race" - obviously Austin and I didn't make the cut. What a joke. Have you SEEN some of those teams? Preposterous. Take a moment to go back and re-watch our audition video on YouTube. We would have been ratings magnets.

I have really been wanting to get a milkshake lately, but I haven't gone, for reasons I'll be writing about in my journal later. I had a dream that I went to Arctic Circle to get a milkshake and the girl only filled up the cup half-way. That disturbed me. I think I woke up angry.

Mmmm, tasty.

Austin told me I should blog about the pros and cons to doing a marathon. Well, I'm afraid he asked the wrong guy about that because I hate running. So, as far as a list of cons goes, I could go on and on. As for the pros? I'm sure I could find some pros, but they're all in Kenya.

After being back at work for a week, I think I've decided that I want a year-long vacation. Nothing personal, people, I just really love going on vacation. It's much more fun than being at home and having to actually, like, do stuff every day.

I was thinking today.

Like this.

As I was thinking today, I came to a conclusion - People in Utah are really, really, really weird about dating. And I think that, in order to be successful in the dating world here in Utah, you need to either be a rebel or the Elders Quorum President.

Oh wait.

The Democratic National Convention starts tonight in Charlotte, NC. First of all, I love North Carolina. Second of all, I won't be watching the convention. Third of all, I'm pretty sure that if there were an A-Town National Convention, nobody would watch. Well, I would watch. Multiple times.

The Shoutout of the Week goes to an old friend, Dallin Akagi, who was apparently wed in the New Port Beach temple within the last week or two. Good work, brother. Proof that nice guys don't always finish last.

That's about it for this week, kiddos. I think I'm going to go watch the Rangers game on my Playstation until the Convention is over so I can watch "America's Got Talent." So did this end up being the shortest blog of all time? Might have been. Who knows? Hey, one of you people that corrects me for all my typos - crunch some numbers and let me know. I want a milkshake.

Until next Time,

Move It. Sell It. And Leave the Door Open.

Aaron