Yesterday was a good day. I got up at 8, ate breakfast, and headed to campus at 9. I met with a group in the library and helped them understand some of the trickier topics on the homework. Then I headed back to the lab and finished up a program I've been working on for my research. On my way out of work I set the program running on my other work machine. This morning I checked on it, and it's not done running yet, and sadly it doesn't seem to be getting the results I'd like, I need more data.

After work, I went down to the Provo Towne Centre Mall. I decided I wanted to look good for the evening (which I'll get to in a minute). After a long while traversing the mall and going through stores I finally wrapped up my purchasing: A fitted burnt-orange dress shirt, a pair of medium-light brown slacks, a new belt, and a pair of brown shoes (not quite dress shoes, but not overly casual either, in between). I'd post a picture, but the only one I have is a terrible image, so it's really not worth it. Then I went home and made some quick dinner and ironed my new shirt. I got dressed, and let me just say, I looked good. But, what's the occasion, you ask? Celtic Woman concert at the E Center in West Valley.

Brady brought Hilary, and I invited Lynette. We left Provo around 5:20 and got up to West Valley a little after 6. So we stopped at Wendy's to get a bite to eat (the concert was starting at 7). We left Wendy's at about 6:35, and we were only two blocks from the turn for the E Center. It took about 23 minutes to go 1 block, ridiculous. So I turned there and wound around the back and we got there on time. Josh was coming as well, but he couldn't get anyone to cover for him at work, so he left Provo around 6:05, and got there about the same time we were walking in. We had all bought tickets separately so we were just going to meet up afterwards. Lynette and I went and found our seats, and about a minute later Brady and Hilary sat down right across the aisle from us (we each had aisle seats). Then another 2 minutes and Josh came in and sat about 5 seats away from Brady and Hilary. It was fairly humorous.

The show was excellent, though they should have had projection screens setup to show closeup and such. Our seats were in the balcony, so the stage was pretty far away, but it was good in that we could see over the people in front of us, and could hear perfectly fine. The group proper is comprised of 5 singers, a fiddle player, and their director / pianist: Meav, Orla, Lisa, Chloe, Hayley Westenra, Mairead and David, respectively. Meav and Hayley are splitting the tour, we saw Hayley. They performed for about 40 minutes, and then had a 20 minute intermission, and then performed for another 40 minutes or so. It was a lot of fun, but I think I enjoyed Trans-Siberian Orchestra a little bit more. The TSO performance was much more loose and the performers seemed to have more freedom in what they were doing on the stage. The Celtic Woman performance was much more strictly choreographed, but it was still good.

On the way home we stopped at Kinko's so Lynette could pick up a giant map she was having laminated for her roommate's birthday, it was a big map. After everyone went their separate ways for the evening I was invited over to a board writer's house for strawberry pie. It was quite tasty, and her cat, as always, was hilarious. I finally went to bed around 12:30, exhausted. But it was a good day.

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I read "Rambam's Ladder" by Julie Salamon this week. One of my purchases from the clearance corner in the BYU Bookstore over the past semester. I thought it might be interesting, the subtitle being "A Meditation on Generosity and Why It Is Necessary to Give"; I bought it for like 3 bucks. It had some interesting things to say, but was not exactly a great literary work. The writing was not that great, and the author's train of thought was a little jumpy, rarely sticking with any thought long enough to really dissect the ideas. It turns out that the book is just a modern rehashing of Maimonides' (his Greek name) "The Eight Degrees of Almsgiving". Maimonides was born as Moses ben Maimon and was driven out of Spain during the Islamic invasion. He spent his life as an exile, traveling the world and often relying on the help of strangers for support. Rambam was his nickname.

Maimonides suggests that there are 8 ordered levels of charity. The higher level you attain the better person you are, in terms of your charity anyways. Salamon gives each level a cute, single-word description, which I'll use here in conjunction with further detail.

From Highest to Lowest, the 8 levels of Almsgiving:

8. Responsibility - Helping others become self-sufficient
7. Anonymity - Giving to those you don't know via a third party, so they don't know you either
6. Corruption - To bypass corrupt middlemen in level 7 - Giving to those who are known to you, but you are unknown to them
5. Boundaries - Giving to those unknown to you, but you are known to them
4. Shame - Giving before being asked, both parties know each other, may produce shame an embarrassment for one or both parties
3. Solicitation - Giving to those who ask you directly for it
2. Proportion - Giving, but less than is proper
1. Reluctance - Giving begrudgingly

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My time has mostly been spent working (grading homework, meeting with students), reading research papers related to my Master's work, and reading leisurely. A terribly exciting life, I know, I get to live it everyday. The weather is nice, and I ride my bike to and from work every day, which helps cut down on my gas needs. See, I'm doing my part to keep gas prices low, what are the rest of you doing?

As an apartment we've taken up the task of cooking dinner on Tuesdays (Brady), Wednesdays (Josh), and Thursdays (Me). It's quite a convenient set up. We're also instituting Monday Night Poker (no money exchanging hands, of course) and trying to come up with people we can invite to play that won't be offended at the idea. On Thursday night we went over to Rock Canyon Park and played Capture the Flag with some ward members and other random people that showed up. It was pretty fun, though there was some confusion as to what rules we were playing by. Nothing happened on Friday night that I recall.. I think I mostly read. Saturday Brady and I went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of PVC pipe and proceeded to build a frame from my projector "screen" (two twin sheets sewn together). It worked quite well, and that evening we watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" out on the patio with a small handful of friends.

Coming up on the 22nd is the Celtic Woman concert that we are going to at the E-Center in West Valley. We're pretty excited about that; too bad it's not at an old Irish castle like the DVD, but it will still be fun. Now we just need to find dates....

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