(This is Connor, Parker’s older brother.  I will be updating his blog for him for the next two years with letters and pictures that he sends home, so that friends and family can stay updated.)

We sent Parker off to Brazil yesterday morning.  His connecting flight to Dallas was cancelled at the last minute,  so we had to scramble to get him on another flight so he could catch a later flight (and the only other one of the day) to Sao Paulo.  We had to call the missionary travel office to notify them of the two hour delay in his arrival, but it seemed to not phase them (as this is probably a semi-frequent occurence).

So, now we’ll wait to hear from him on how his first few days are going.  As he sends letters, emails, and photos, I will update this blog with portions he wants to release for public consumption so that everybody can stay up to date.

I have exactly a month until I report to the MTC in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It sounds awesome, but  at the same time it freaks me out.. I have been spending TONS of money on suitcases, suits, shirts, and every single thing I will need when I leave. Imagine leaving all your stuff behind and moving to the opposite side of the equator.. pretty crazy! I have been sending letters to all of my friends who are already out, mostly because I know how much I would appreciate it. I am so excited to leave and have been hearing so many great things! I have a feeling July 23rd is going to come FAST. This is the new Curitiba temple that was dedicated June 1st. It is the second coolest temple ever (San Diego is #1). I can’t wait to go visit it! If you would like to come to my farewell it will be at 11:00 a.m. On July 20, 2008. I leave from San Diego airport on the 22nd!If you need any addresses or anything check my facebook group. If you don’t have a facebook then email me or my parents. Thanks!! 

On Thursday I received my mission call to serve in Curitiba, Brazil. I am very excited to go, but I still have 4 months :/ I am going to learn to speak portuguese, which is pretty crazy.
For some reason Brazil was not one of my guesses. I don’t know why because many people go there, but it just never crossed my mind as a place I would go. I have started to read articles and stories about Curitiba and have realized how it is the perfect place for me.
There are a couple things I am especially excited about: #1 the sport EVERYone plays is soccer, which I enjoy very much. I hate basketball so I didn’t want to go somewhere where thats all they play. #2 There is a city in my mission boundary called Banana, I really want to go visit it #3 I wanted to have the experience of teaching the gospel in a foreign country, and my wish came true!!

          Well yesterday was a pretty big day for me.. I finally turned in my papers! It took me longer than expected, but I am excited to be done. I will wait about two weeks until I get my call, I will keep you all posted. I have been very busy ever since I cam home, pulling 40+ hour weeks at work. I got my job back at my local Albertons in the Meat Dept. It’s really fun!          If you would like to guess where I am going (be serious please..) then leave a comment. The winner gets 20 bucks!! hey thats a pretty good deal.. but it has to be the exact country… no africa or southern hemisphere junk. MY guess is South Africa.  My best friend Ryan Thompson got called to Fortaleza Brazil yesterday, and one of my other friends Dan Holiday got called to the Ecuador/Galapagos Islands mission! Pretty sweet… 

I couldn’t have said it any better.

I was fired today from Simply Mac. 

Simply Mac is a freakish frankenstein of a company with the innards of the cell phone industry and an Apple exterior. This doesn’t paint the most flattering picture, and it shouldn’t. At the corporate level, there’s nothing Simple or Mac about it. But if you’re looking for a shrewd, heartless company ready to ride the coattails of Apple’s hipness, look no further.

Let me state that I love Apple. I think they consistently make amazing products. Call me a “fanboy”; call me what you will. Apple is arguably the fastest growing most cutting edge company of the moment. Moreover, (and, once again, there’s a fanboy talking) Apple represents a mentality - Take something complicated and make it simple. Take something people hate to deal with and make it into a pleasure. Personal computing is the most obvious example, but the philosophy extends into every aspect of the company because it lies at the core. The retail experience is no exception. I love walking into an Apple Store. I don’t feel pressured; I don’t feel ignored. I feel like a kid in a candy store. This is a far cry from walking into, say, a cell phone dealership.

When I walk into a cell phone dealership, and most retail stores, I get the feeling that I’d better buy something or get out. I’m just another denominator in their sales-closing ratio. I don’t look forward to the experience, and I only walk in when I have to. Why? Because I’m surrounded by salesmen. High-pressure, cheesy salesmen who have been trained to suck every last dime out of me.

Now take those cheesy cell phone salesmen and give them license to sell Apple’s products. That’s Simply Mac. It’s the stuff devoid of the substance. All sizzle, no steak. The look and feel of Apple minus the philosophy. Customers see the glowing signs and transparent cubes and think they’re in an Apple Store, but when they hear the sales pitches and pressure they feel like they’re in a used car dealership.Of course, just as customers are attracted to the store expecting an Apple philosophy, so are prospective employees. Simply Mac has been privileged to have some excellent employees. Unfortunately, when these employees realize who they’re working for, they quit. I’ve watched as the company’s best employees have left one by one, all for the same reason. They lose tolerance for a management team that is clueless enough to think they can sell Apple’s products the same way they’ve peddled cell phones. They’re usually sick of being treated like another sales statistic themselves. I believe Simply Mac’s customers will eventually react the same way.

Ray Kroc once said “Look after the customers and the bottom line will take care of itself.” Try telling that to the management of Simply Mac! Any feigned respect or concern for customers is wrapped up in the guise of “selling the customer everything they need.” This really means “selling the customer everything we need them to buy to meet profit goals”. Of course, profit is important to any business, Apple included, but the concern for the customer experience at Simply Mac doesn’t extend very far beyond this. Put bluntly, the company doesn’t care about people. Customers and employees included. Simply Mac is a house divided against itself. Management doesn’t trust the employees and vice versa. The most blatant, ironic incident of this that I saw was when the company’s Vice President called the top salesman to let him know that he was currently being watched on the store security camera and that he should stop eating ice cream while it was slow because it was unprofessional. Shortly thereafter, another employee was told he was being watched on camera making small talk with a service tech during slow time and was sent home. I guess Big Brother is watching. Anyone familiar with Apple’s famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial will catch the irony.

This leads me to why I was fired. I don’t know why. I’ve met profit goals. I’ve been loyal to the company. I’ve even adopted cheesy bundle sales pitches that no one likes just because that’s what we’re told to do. I get the feeling that Simply Mac just needed someone to fire for the sake of progress. They’re always talking themselves up with delusions of grandeur and becoming a huge corporation. Like a toddler who emulates his older brother, Simply Mac decided to play the corporate lay-off game. I wasn’t the only one let go, and I get the understanding that I won’t be the last. Of course, everyone who doesn’t match the cheesy cellphone salesman image Simply Mac is really looking for has already quit or been fired themselves (with a few choice exceptions).

It won’t take long for people, employees and customers, to realize what Simply Mac really stands for. Every manager I’ve worked under has quit because of disgust for the corporate management. Customers will get the message soon enough too. A cell phone dealership that dresses up as an Apple store is still just a cell phone dealership - and there are plenty of better places to buy Apple products.

posted by joe.maddock at 7:33 pm

http://wavesforthedeaf.blogspot.com/2008/01/simply-mac.html

To All My Democrat Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of thewinter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.   

To My Republican Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Everyone has been hearing about our national debt. I took econ in high school and college and my high school teacher talked about it almost daily. In this article, it says that we are going in debt at a rate of about $1,000,000 a minute! Stop for a second, and think about that. RIGHT NOW the numbers are skyrocketing. This is becoming asuch a huge issue, that mainly young people like me are concerned about. We are the ones who are going to have to deal with this. When I went to Salt Lake city to see Ron Paul, I didn’t know much about him. But when I sat down on the floor and listened to him, I knew what he was saying was true. He talked about how we are spending way to much time and money overseas, on things we have no need to be involved in. We could be saving approximately 1 TRILLION dollars a year if we bring everyone home. He has a plan and he is sticking to it.

The national debt — the total accumulation of annual budget deficits — is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009.That’s $10,000,000,000,000.00, or one digit more than an odometer-style “national debt clock” near New York’s Times Square can handle. When the privately owned automated clock was activated in 1989, the national debt was $2.7 trillion.

I hope this makes you sit and think about how big of a hole we are in. And day by day, minute by minute, we dig it deeper and deeper. What will you do about it?

1. WILL THE REAL DUMMY PLEASE STAND UP? AT&T fired President JohnWalter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership. Hereceived a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it’s not Walter who’s lacking intelligence.
2. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Police in Oakland, CA spenttwo hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himselfinside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officersdiscovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line,shouting, “Please come out and give yourself up.”
3. WHAT WAS PLAN B??? An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun,kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two differentautomated teller machines, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdrawmoney from his own bank accounts.
4. THE GETAWAY! A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Stop and askedfor all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was toosmall, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himselffor three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.
5. DID I SAY THAT??? Police in Los Angeles had good luck with arobbery suspect who just couldn’t control himself during a lineup.When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words:”Give me all your money or I’ll shoot”, the man shouted, “that’s not what I said!”.
6. ARE WE COMMUNICATING??? A man spoke frantically into the phone: “Mywife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart”. “Is this her first child?” the doctor asked. “No!” the man shouted, “This is her husband!”
7. NOT THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED! In Modesto, CA, Steven RichardKing was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun. Unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket.(hellooooooo)!
8. THE GRAND FINALE!!! Last summer, down on Lake Isabella, located in the high desert, an hour east of Bakersfield, CA, some folks, new to boating, were having a problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get their brand new 22 foot boat, going. It was very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power they applied. After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted into a nearby marina, thinking someone there may be able to tell them what was wrong. A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working condition The engine ran fine, the out-drive went up and down, and the propeller was the correct size and pitch. So, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath. He came up choking on water,he was laughing so hard.NOW REMEMBER…THIS IS TRUE. Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer!

I have been reading a lot lately (thanks to my brother) about how much the dollar is declining and why we should put our investments in other things like gold. 

The euro, worth 83 cents in the early George W. Bush years, is at $1.45.The British pound is back up over $2, the highest level since the Carter era. The Canadian dollar, which used to be worth 65 cents, is worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in half a century.Oil is over $90 a barrel. Gold, down to $260 an ounce not so long ago, has hit $800.Have gold, silver, oil, the euro, the pound and the Canadian dollar all suddenly soared in value in just a few years?Nope. The dollar has plummeted in value, more so in Bush’s term than during any comparable period of U.S. history. Indeed, Bush is presiding over a worldwide abandonment of the American dollar.Is it all Bush’s fault? Nope.The dollar is plunging because America has been living beyond her means, borrowing $2 billion a day from foreign nations to maintain her standard of living and to sustain the American Imperium.The prime suspect in the death of the dollar is the massive trade deficits America has run up, some $5 trillion in total since the passage of NAFTA and the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994.In 2006, that U.S. trade deficit hit $764 billion. The current account deficit, which includes the trade deficit, plus the net outflow of interest, dividends, capital gains and foreign aid, hit $857 billion, 6.5 percent of GDP. As some of us have been writing for years, such deficits are unsustainable and must lead to a decline of the dollar.A sinking dollar means a poorer nation, and a sinking currency has historically been the mark of a sinking country. And a superpower with a sinking currency is a contradiction in terms.

This is one of the many reasons why I am voting for Ron Paul.

Real economic growth won’t return until confidence in the entire system is restored. And that is impossible as long as it depends on the politicians not spending too much money and the Federal Reserve limiting its propensity to inflate our way to prosperity. Only sound money and limited government can do that.      - Ron Paul   

Just found this today, such an amazing idea!! This is what I have been looking for, you should all research it. NOW! http://www.libertydollar.org/