Someone just told me that I missed my true calling in life.  We were discussing church basketball.

I loathe the game.  I'll freely admit, that loathing is due, in great measure, to the fact that I suck at basketball.  Really.  I'm not good at all.  It's not something I've spent a lot of time doing.  However, that doesn't change the fact that church basketball (by which I mean basketball usually played in the meetinghouses of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is partly to blame.

As a young man, I had "scouts" once a week at our church building.  More often than not, nothing substantial had been planned and we ended up spending at least half of the time shooting hoops in the "cultural hall."  (Cultural hall = a fancy LDS word for "gymnasium.")  For me, this usually meant running back and forth on the hardwood while the rest of the young men on my team ignored me and the young men on the other team tried to run me over.  I finally quit even walking out on the court in the first place.  This meant that the other young men had to feel the obligation to make me feel included, and they would harass me for not playing.

I gave it a shot (pun intended), I really did.  I remember one time (I must have been EXTREMELY bored) that I picked up a basketball, and due to some strange alignments of planets in several galaxies, I attempted and made several 3-point shots in a row.  This, of course, meant that the other young men started to harrass me for not playing on their team against the other wards.  I said something both dry and droll that they completely didn't get.  So they just started harassing me to make me feel included again.

The angriest that my wife has EVER seen me was after my last experience with church basketball.  My cousin's husband finally harrassed me long enough and assured me enough times that he would make sure I had a good time, so unwisely, I decided to give it one more try.  My cousin's husband then proceeded to do everything that had ever been done to me before in my entire life that made me hate church basketball.  I haven't played one minute of church basketball since.  I never will again.  Since that day, I tell people that "church ball is against my religion."  It is.  I'm a better person when I DON'T play.

What does this have to do with my true calling?  My friend is a basketball official.  He's headed out to officiate in a game this evening, and I told him to "have fun" and to "taunt the overly-competitive players" for me.  "Hey!  You sneezed in my direction?  Technical foul!!  What??  You're ARGUING with me?  EJECTED!!!"

That's when he told me that I've missed my true calling in life.

Which got me thinking...

Maybe I SHOULD become a basketball official.  Then I could make everyone else's experience as miserable as mine was.  Maybe I could end church ball as we know it.

If any of you know where I can get some basketball official's training, please let me know.  I already know where I can get my concealed carry permit, because if I put this plan into action, I'm going to need it.

The pareto principle, sometimes known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity, states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from about 20% of the causes.

It's a common rule of thumb in business...  80% of the sales come from 20% of your clients, for example.

The principle has its basis in economics.  Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.  It has also been noted that the richest 20% of the people in the world have about 80% of the world's income.

It seems to have application everywhere.  One might guess that they wear their favorite 20% of their clothing 80% of the time.  Microsoft noted that fixing 20% of the bugs in their software resulted in an 80% reduction in errors and crashes.  My favorite, late director, Syd Riggs, even applied this to stage combat.  The person giving the action was responsible for 20% and the person receiving the action was responsible for 80%, making stage combat much safer.  (Or did she say 90-10?  I wish she were still alive so I could ask her. )

The one that's bugging me today, though, is that, according to my dentist, they perform 80% of their work on 20% of their patients.  And yes, I'm in that wonderful 20%.

Ugh.

A week ago Thursday, I played racquetball with a friend from work.  We played three games, and during the third game, something didn't seem right.  I checked the ball a couple of times, thinking that it may have gone flat, but it was just fine.  I finished the game (and lost, mind you), but never figured out what had gone wrong.

This last week, I examined my racquet closely and found a hairline crack in the frame.  The frame was flexing a lot more at that point, so my racquet wasn't responding to play in the same way.   I felt a little better knowing that it was my racquet and not me that had the problem.

Friday I purchased a new racquet.  It's a great racquet.  It's different that the old one.  It's going to take a little getting used to.  Once I get used to it, I'll regain some of the control that I used to have while playing.  I didn't play poorly with the new racquet.  I just wasn't quite on top of my game.

The other problem is that the longer I played, the more my elbow started to hurt.  It's going to take my body a little while to adjust to this change too.  For now, it's causing tennis elbow.  That's the pain of change that I'm currently experiencing.

I've been to see an Orthopaedic Surgeon about tennis elbow before.  I have a tennis elbow brace that helps a lot and he also taught me some stretches that will help treat and prevent further problems with tennis elbow.

Another change:  don't forget that Daylight Saving Time is starting (except those whacky Arizonans like you, Lisa).  I'd better go to sleep when I finish this, because I'll be losing an hour of sleep.  Oh, the pain!

Miss Giggles is going to send me something homemade this year.  The catch is that I have to do the same for three people.

It's not going to be anything fantastic, but I finally had an idea.  So...

The first three people that comment here and promise to do the same thing for three other people will receive something homemade from me this year.

I'm more than 10% of the way toward my riding goal for the year!  That's good, because we're more than 12% of the way through 2009.  But since I started riding when almost 4% of 2009 was gone, I'm making up ground!

It's been nice, really.  Some days, I really haven't wanted to get on that stupid spinning bike, but once a workout is over, I'm usually pretty happy about it.  My legs are getting stronger and I'm losing weight.  These are a couple of pretty good side effects.

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone.  I broke a mirror over a black cat while walking under a ladder indoors carrying an open umbrella.  Nothing happened.  I don't think there's much to Triskaidekaphobia.

I got tired of being tagged with this ubiquitous meme, so I decided to do it using 25 randomly generated facts "about me."  So here they are:

1. I believe only mentally deficient people want anti-gravity boots taught in schools.
2. I went to a camp where we tried to eat bags of Doritos all summer.
3. I joined Mr. T's organization to destroy the environment.
4. On grandpa's farm one summer I tried to piss off a sasquatch.
5. My daughter thinks Ben Folds sounds like a George Foreman Grill choking a castrated buffalo.
6. MC Hammer's music always makes me feel rancid.
7. My favorite part in Plan 9 from Outer Space is when Bill O'Reilly is shooting the beaver in Mexico.
8. My favorite part in The Matrix is when Leo Laporte is scaring the gerbil in Paris.
9. I saw Jimmy Eat World using a butter sculpture of Princess Leia in utero to disgust a sasquatch.
10. My second cousin thinks Kanye West sounds like a Xbox 360 petting a rude weasel.
11. I'm addicted to my stapler, and never put it down. Even when I'm dancing with my step cousin-in-law.
12. I once dated Chuck Norris in high school.
13. My favorite part in Finding Nemo is when George W. Bush is whipping the guinea pig at my kid's choir concert.
14. I got Timbaland's entire discography autographed by Miss Teen South Carolina on my birthday.
15. I joined Barack Obama's organization to eradicate drug abuse.
16. I got Lady GaGa's entire discography autographed by the terrorists on my birthday.
17. I saw Jimmy Eat World using a life-size Yoda in Russia to educate a hippo.
18. I've been known to frighten William Shatner with my Kindle 2.
19. I love my family even though they are always searching for the Loch Ness monster.
20. I went to a camp where we tried to create new jobs all summer.
21. I often put on some Twisted Sister and think about how to frighten small children with my dad.
22. My second cousin laughs like a retarded donkey.
23. I think my cousin is the best in the world. I love it when he is riding the camel.
24. My mom thinks Fall Out Boy sounds like a iPhone torturing a insane goat.
25. Whenever I can, I like to hang out with Apple zealots.

And there you go.  25 random things "about me" as generated by the BBSpot Random Thing About Me Generator. <-- Warning, there are some things that might be generated that you might find offensive.  I had to generate more than 25 things to populate my list.

I survived.

Actually, last night's campout went very well.

There was a glitch or two right at the beginning as I had to deal with someone that is a big fish in a very small pond, but once that was out of the way, we really had a good time.

Here's where we slept:

The "burritos" we slept in were warm... WAY too warm at first.  I wasn't cold at all at any time during the night.

The next morning was fun!  Snowshoeing is a blast.  We hiked a couple of miles each way, gaining at least 1000 feet in elevation on the outbound trip.

Most importantly, I didn't get the urge to kill a single scout during the whole campout, and everyone seemed to have a really good time.

It seems like nearly everyone around me has huge health-related goals this year.  I'm riding 2009 miles in 2009 (more than 160 already behind me!) and in the process, I hope to lose 40 lbs or so.  My boss is cutting out sugar and trying to lose about the same amount of weight that I am.  My cousins, uncles and aunts and others are doing a "Biggest Loser" competition.  Many of my friends are on diets or exercising more or both.

I'm just glad that I decided to do what I'm doing before I heard about it from everyone else or I'd feel like I'm just jumping on the bandwagon.

But I'm mostly glad that I'm doing SOMETHING for my health and that I'm feeling better the more I exercise.  Hopefully, it'll continue to get better.

This morning, I rode 33.33 miles.  That's a third of a century ride.  I know that it was indoors and was easier than REALLY riding 33.33 miles, but it's good to ride longer rides once in a while, just to get my rear end used to longer times on the saddle.

Oh, and while riding the third of a century, I burned a third of a pound of fat.  That's good too!

A storm came in over the weekend.  It rained most of the day on Saturday and the rain turned to snow on Sunday.  The heavy, thick, slushy snow on my driveway was even causing problems with our all-wheel-drive vehicles.

Yesterday was Fast Sunday because of our upcoming Stake Conference, so as usual, I sent a dozen young men out to gather fast offerings.  They all looked like drowned rats by the time they were done.

I always offer them rides home, and especially yesterday when it was snowing.  One pair of Deacons wanted to walk home and I snapped this picture of them as they walked down the street:

The snowflakes had gotten quite large and they stopped for a minute to watch the softly falling snow.

A little later, I decided to see if I could get some of the snow off of my driveway.  I was still wearing my church clothes, and after shoveling about half of the driveway, I went down.  Good thing I have a spare pair of dress slacks.  Unfortunately, I don't have a spare finger.  It lost a pretty good patch of skin as I went skidding down the driveway.  I guess I should have put the hiking boots on instead of just wearing my normal shoes.

When I came back outside (after applying a band-aid) a car pulled up and my home teacher jumped out of the car and grabbed a shovel out of the trunk.  He helped me finish shoveling.  How nice of him!  It was another example of a snowy duty being performed by a priesthood holder.

It's been just over a week since I started riding again.  It feels good to be riding again, though it would be nice to be doing it outside.  Freezing temperatures, fog, and today, pouring rain have made riding outdoors impossible.

But I'm feeling good about things.  I'm just over 4% of the way to my goal in just over a week.  My legs are getting stronger, my butt isn't hurting as much (road bike saddles aren't soft) and I'm down a couple of pounds.

Not bad!

I've just got to continue this for... well... forever!