A Few Days Later

Hello world!

It has been a while since I wrote here, and I wanted to give a little update! I served and finished my mission in Portugal since I last wrote and it was amazing! I love the people that I met there and I am excited to continue on with this fascinating journey called life!

Right now I am waiting to hear from BYU, I finished my application here a week ago! General conference was really great and I enjoyed it so much!

I suppose that is about it for now, but I will update here more often!

Thanks for reading!

-Doug

Happy Days Are Here Again!

Dear Everyone,

Thank you. Truthfully, sincerely, and seriously, thank you. Each and every one of you has been such a positive influence in my life, and I cannot express how much it means to me to know that I have wonderful friends like all of you.

This world that we live in is so plagued by opposition, hatred, and pessimism, that it can be hard to find anything to be excited and happy about, but I'm slowly coming to realize that this is not so. We allow ourselves to fret and worry about small details, discussing the tiny speck on the lens of the telescope whilst we ignore the glorious cosmos above. I have myself been staring at any number of specs, ignoring the wonders of the world around me, but I will do so no more! I am making a promise to myself, and to anyone that wants to as well, that I am going to see the bigger picture, and that I am going to make it known that I think, no, I know that the world is a wonderful place, and that I will do everything I can, and maybe a little bit more then that, to make sure that in everything I do, the best is evident.

Mediocrity is not a standard, but a trap that will ensnare us if we allow it to, and there is nothing that we can do except it be that we decide to move ourselves above it, and make ourselves better then society says that we can be. I know that I myself have mourned at what I have thought of as the world's doom, but in doing so I have found that I, myself, have only been contributing to this unhealthy practice of complain now and do something later. Let's all be better then our best. Let's make the future brighter. Let's all go and do something marvelous and amazing. While it may not be apparent to begin, things can, and will change if and when we decide to change them.

I want to be better, and I know that I'm not the only one. We're here to do more then watch TV and play games. We're here to do amazing things. So let's stop thinking about them, and go and do them!

I just want to again thank everyone that will read this. You're amazing, wonderful, inspiring, and above all, you are special. You have talents that are untapped, and you have limitless potential. You aren't just anyone. You're someone, and you're someone that can make a difference. It won't be easy, but don't make it hard. Make it something that you know you can do! (Which is anything) So have an idea, run around outside, talk to someone that you haven't talked to in a while, tell someone that you care about them, bake someone something just because. Be the awesome people that I know you are!

I love you all, and want to hear the best of things that you've been doing,

Sincerely,

Douglas Wescott Knuth

Ninja Story, Chapter one

For this story, we begin in a reality that suggests that anything I say can happen happens. We must also assume that I, being the only one that governs this dimension, am allowed to do whatever the heck I want. So there. NO WHINING.

The path was dark, and my mind was racing. I'm too young for this, I thought to myself, as the shadows of the trees around me grew longer and more menacing, as if to grab me where I stood. I knew that in this world there were many dangers, and in those shadows were other ninja, ready to attack at the slightest trip, or sensing of weakness. That's when things went wrong. I was so focused on finding the presence of an enemy around me that a man carrying a small box didn't register until he bumped into me.

"Oh my, I am so sorry sir!"

"Ah, so it would be you this time Broady"

"I'm sorry?"

"You're the one that's been chosen from this world. You've been chosen for the war."

"What? Who are you, and why-" I stopped. Something was wrong. Things didn't add up in my mind as I stood looking at this man. He was about six foot three inches tall and of a large stature. He looked to be about twenty one years old, and based on height and size, he should have weighed no less then two hundred pounds, yet he had almost fallen over when I grazed him. That, and his voice was somewhat unsettling. It was both deep and light, low and high, and in the strangest way sounded like my mother and worst enemy.

"Broady, you have been chosen. Take this with you as you go, you'll need it" The man said, handing me the box. It was small and appeared to be made of wood. I glanced at it for a moment, then turned to ask the man for his name. He was gone. I sent out a few shadow clones to search for him, but he was nowhere. I looked at the box, and then everything went black.

The lesson I should have learned here is to never, ever accept anything from someone that I don't know, but I'm far from that intelligent. My skills lie in pretty much everything but human to human relationships. If I don't have to know someone, I'll be nice to them, but I won't put thought into it. I suppose that it has something to do with my mind, but I have no idea. Give me a combat situation though, and I'll win. I've never lost a fight, and I am always the best at what I do. I'm a ninja in an age that thinks ninjas are fictional, and an age where man has lost sight of what's really important. I live in the village of the Sky Scrapers, the one from downtown New York. I don't pay attention to the street names though, since we don't deal in the town. We protect it, but it's the fact that we don't have to go into the city that shows that we keep it safe. We have a perimeter wide enough to keep most of the entire United States safe, and quite honestly, I've never even been to the home base in New York. I prefer to work on the west coast, where California used to be. I do roaming missions, and try to help keep people around in America. After all, that's what the ninja clans were founded to do. We keep the peace in this mad house.

Well, we try at least. Back in 2001, that's when all of the trouble really started. Some rogue ninja hijacked a plane and busted through our defensive barriers. They made the best tactical decision. I hate them for all things that they've done, and I'll grind their bones into the dust, but as a tactician, I have to say that they pulled the best move that they could have. They cut down one of the main hubs for the village, and we were all shocked. Rogue ninjas from the UK, disguising themselves as the Palestine to throw off the scent, but I knew better. They didn't believe me when I told em' that it had to be the Viktorian Style to pull it off, but what do I care... What can I do against em...

**I'll write more later, I need to sleep for now!** C:

New post, for realzies

So, I haven't been posting lately, but it isn't for a lack of trying. I've started about six posts, that rambled on and on, but I couldn't seem to finish them, and then when I tried to finish them, I couldn't seem to get anything out right, and then usually my laptop would die and I wouldn't be able to any ways because all of the writings would be lost. sad me. too bad though. Moving on now, I've had some rather brilliant ideas for a story floating through my head, and since no one really reads my blog, I won't be worrying about someone stealing my ideas and publishing them for their own!! Yay me and having some anonymity over the internet! So, the story is going to begin in the next blog post, and continue on for I don't know how long! I'll start all of the story blogs off differently then the others, for those of you that may be reading (I know you're there in my head, my imaginary friends!!!) and I am going to write about you!! (Yep, all of my imaginary friends are going to get a story to bind them together!) so yeah. The End

Death and Taxes

So, I sort of disappeared for a while there, and I know that all of my imaginary readers have been distraught to an unhealthy degree, so I will post again. *granted, I have started a few posts, but I haven't been able to finish any, and through the wonders of my laptop, the text was lost to the fatal Dead Battery Syndrome. Allow me to digress though. I have been very busy lately, doing a lot of nothing and a little bit of something useful here and there. I find that the more I type here, the more I find that I, myself, am a hypocrite. The ideals that I believe in are awesome, and are not impossible, but they are, however, improbable. In an example, I told myself that when I got my mission call, I would stop playing video games. Pokemon Soul Silver came out a few days later. Yeah.... *for those of you, and yes, I mean you Kayla* I took the video game rant down because I wrote it when I was tired and in a VERY anti-technology mood. We need not talk about it. I know that for the rest of you, *the ones that don't read every entry before I take something down* may be curious and confused, but it is better that you remain that way, so that you hopefully will not think ill of me. although, you may think so since I won't tell you, but either way, you are either still reading, or have closed the tab, so yeah, that's that.

Death and Taxes are the title points of this entry, and so they shall be.

Death- Well, it is the other one guaranteed in life, so it seems relevant somehow.

Taxes- Suck. Well, rewind 14 characters, add a space, and then start over with this one. I am totally fine with paying taxes. They keep our country running, and they keep me safe from creeps that would steal my stuff. What I don't like is when the government tells me that I don't have to pay another 5-15 dollars or so on each paycheck, and that then I have to pay over 100 dollars when I don't have it for the leeway I received during each of my previous pay periods. I'd rather have a little less for a while when I have it then a lot less when I don't. It's the difference between my parents helping me, and having a smaller waistline from eating out less.

I know somewhere, deep down, that it's my own fault for not being politically aware enough to realize what was happening to me, but at the same time, the government doesn't exactly make it known what I am going to have to do. I'm a little perturbed right now, and so this is probably just me being tired and moody, but the government that we keep complaining about seems to do a lot of not changing. I think that we need to be more active in our government, so that this doesn't happen. I know that it probably won't happen before I go on my mission, but sooner or later, I'll make it happen.

That's all for now, my dear imaginary readers, and whomever may be here as well.

-Doug Knuth

The Birthday, and the Day after. 75 Days to go. (74 on Friday)

Good day to you dear reader, and thank you for stopping in. My Birthday was a rather interesting event, and I will quickly recount it for you here! We (being Skylar Warren, Jen Warren ((no relation)), and I went on a road trip to Seattle. This may not sound like too daring a feat, depending on where you live, but for us in Salem, it constitutes over 220 miles of open road, and some not so open road as well! I originally wanted to go to Portland for the day, visit some shops and the like, and then come home for a birthday dinner with my parents. Well, I changed my mind, deigning instead to return to the land of my childhood (well, till I was six) and have an adventure. Due to a lack of knowledge on my part, we were not allowed onto the Navy base that I was born on (the car I drive is technically in my parent's name, so I couldn't get a pass for it...) but we traveled a few miles and took the Ferry to Seattle. The ride was beautiful, and between the Navy base and the Ferry we were fortunate enough to see a Bald Eagle on the side of the road, perched in a tree!! It was a beautiful and majestic bird, and I like to think of the idea that God put that bird there at that particular time as a way of saying Happy Birthday to me! We then rode on the ferry, and wandered around the closing Pike's Place Market, and afterward retired to the first ever Starbucks (my friend Jen works at one here in Salem, and she had always wanted to see the original!). Proceeding from there, we drove around Seattle and found the Cheesecake Factory, and had dinner. It was delicious! After dinner (which took until around 9pm, we got on the road, and came home. It was a good Birthday, and I enjoyed it more then those around me would think I did.

The following day (today), I slept in. We got in at around one, and my mother made arrangements for us to be able to sleep in, since she knew that we would be getting up rather early in the morning. I slept till ten, and then began going about my day. I did the usual, and later went to work, all rather routine and usual. The biggest difference being that everyone is asking me how long it is until I leave, or how much longer will I be around for. It is fun to answer, but at the same time, I have a small lamenting in my heart. I know that my mission is going to be the most amazing thing ever, but I am going to miss everything here that I will leave. Visiting my home state yesterday made me think a lot about where I come from and where I am going with my life, more so then I have even been doing on a regular basis, and I found that I was, at least in my eyes, lacking somewhat. Now, I don't mean that I am a bad person, or that I am not good enough, but at the same time, I feel a little like that. I have come from such a privileged background, and I really don't have much that I can adequately complain about, and yet I find so many things to occupy my little box of worries. I worry about the silliest things, and I fret over things that are going to be fine. However, I sometimes wonder if that is something that I have been blessed with, or if it really is an insecurity. Sometimes it can be helpful in the sense that if I think to worry about something, I may do something that wouldn't have gotten done otherwise, and that is of great relief to me, since it brings a sense of fulfillment into the worrying I did... This is getting rather rant-ish, and I really do need to get some sleep, my dear reader, since I have to be to work in around six hours. I hope only the best for you, my dear reader, so have a wonderful day.

76 Days, and My Birthday!!!

So today, my dear reader, is my nineteenth birthday! I am rather excited about the fact that I am planning on having an awesome day, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do... I know that I want to do something though, so that helps tremendously. My life is something that I think of far too often for a normal person, or at least that's how it feels sometimes, but nonetheless, I have been doing a lot of soul searching. One of my clever readers saw a post that I had before I deleted it, and mentioned it to me in context a couple of days ago. I felt rather flattered and caught at the same time, being that the person had read something that I had written so soon after it was up, and within the few hours that I left it up for. *I'm going to explain why I took it down for anyone else that may have seen it.* The post was about video games, and I really felt in that moment that it was the right thing to post, but now, I think about it and realize that my conviction on that particular matter is not strong enough to properly address the issue. What I mean by this is that I pretty much said that video games are useless and not worth anyone's time or effort, while in the same day (almost) I played them for a while and gave the idea no thought at all. So, that's why the post is gone. It may come back when (or if) I have enough self mastery to give them up, but until then, I'm leaving it at that!

I hope that you, my dear reader, have a wonderful day, and I will write again when I know what I have done for the rest of this day that hasn't happened yet! Best Wishes,

-Doug Knuth