Helen Keller is Real. I promise.

Hello again, everyone.

I apologize that this was not sent on Monday. It slipped my mind again, despite a couple of reminders from people who are starved for entertainment. It won't happen again.

sike 

Anyways, this week hasn't been particularly exciting. I did see some guy perform at the Scera Theatre who is apparently somewhat famous (I promised I would include that event in this email). Other than that, I haven't done much else. I 3D-printed some shelves with a French cleat because I was tired of losing my Aquaphor, wallet, and Airpods around the house. That felt really cool because I had the idea, I built it on the computer, and it became a physical product in my hands in a matter of hours. I printed 3 in a nice little stack on a very small slice of wall between doors in my room, and the French cleat design means that il peut changer si je veux. 

Speaking of France, I will be there in about two weeks! I am quite excited. I have never lived in a real city before and I usually don't like visiting them. I don't like New York and San Francisco stresses me out. I think Paris will be better though. We are also free to leave the area as long as we bring a partner and get it approved, so if anyone has any suggestions on where to visit within a few hours by train, let me know. I am also looking for camera suggestions. I need something pocketable that doesn't suck like my iPhone does.

Also, to my brother who wasn't on the list until this one: sorry Sawyer. You can be back on it now that you are out of the country.

I discovered that a bag of trail mix costs $2.99. The same bag of trail mix has 2200 calories and 70g of protein. For anyone that knew me in college, they probably also knew that I only ate once a day. I hate to say that nothing has changed. I don't know why, I just forget to eat and I'm not very hungry for most of the day. However, this bag of trail mix has changed my life. I eat it throughout work and I am barely hungry by dinner. I still eat after work because living on trail mix cannot be healthy, but I don't even have any complaints. It is so weird. I think I genuinely could live off of just trail mix.

I heard a story about living for a long time this week: apparently some guy in a Scandinavian country was stuck in his car for 60 days under the snow with no food. He only ate snow, and he lived. However, people are pretty confused because it seemed like he kinda wanted it to happen. He drove out to the middle of nowhere and parked his car until it was snowed in. Then, some snowmobilers found him 2 months later. Very, very strange. His name was Peter Skyllberg(?) and I didn't believe the story until I read the reporting on it.

I also didn't know that a disbelief in Helen Keller was a real thing. Independent of one another, I have met 5 different people in my life who do not believe she was a real person. Is this from TikTok? I'm so confused. They don't believe that she could learn to ride a horse or speak or anything like that. I do know a few other people who think that she and Amelia Earhart are the same person. There are crazy things to believe in this world.

What other crazy things have happened at BYU? I'm not totally sure. I know that BYU's HR team is getting more strict with the dress code at work, which is kind of silly since we don't have a problem with it. Maybe other offices do? I don't think our office will change in that regard.

In three paragraphs, here are my recent frustrations with the school that I attend.

One: BYU is celebrating their 150th birthday (the sesquicentennial), and as a result, they are asking every student to do 150 hours of service. At our office, we are having a stained-glass coloring poster that we can do a piece of for every hour that we do. This is all well and good and I have zero qualms with, except that temple work counts as service. I would think that to focus on community improvement, you would push for service that is directly influential. So, when you see that headline come out next year that says 'BYU does 1 million hours of service,' know that it is probably quite a bit lower.

Two: BYU partnered with LuluLemon and has replaced significant floor space in the Wilkinson Student Center. Being a student, I think it is a little weird that they are putting over-priced, expensive clothing on the main floor of the one place that students can't really avoid, especially a school that has a student body population with a known issue of comparison and meeting unrealistic expectations. I also find it strange that the school that is so resistant to "go along with the ways of the world" is so eager to put this there instead of setting a good example for students and removing an opportunity to spend irresponsibly. In the past, they have said "no, we won't sell ____ here because that wouldn't be good for our students," but I guess the LuluLemon collection is different.

Three: Athletic events should be for the primary enjoyment of the students. More specifically, ROC passes should not sell out within minutes of the sale queue opening. I didn't try to get one, but if I did, I'd be pretty annoyed. They are tightening restrictions on ticket sharing, which makes sense, since students would often buy passes and then sell them online for a higher price. However, general admission tickets are up to $200 just for a seat in the boonies. That's pretty ridiculous. As a student, I can't go to my own school's football games because they are exorbitantly priced. I realized that I don't hate college sports, I hate NIL. Give these kids fair compensation. Use the collegiate level as a jumping point to professional sports. If they don't make it, that's what they have a degree for. Don't use them to sell expensive football tickets you can profit off of. Before you come at me with the "BUT NIL PAYS THE STUDENTS", yeah, I've thought of that. Pay them a fair wage for what they do. Give them an hourly student job and treat practice like on-campus work hours. But a new Ford Raptor and family perks? Kind of wild.

Thank you for bearing with my complaints. I must now go eat Tucanos and pack for yet another trip.

Till next time,

Willyummyummyummy (name credit Justin Jones, my boss' boss)

1 Year Older and Wiser Too

I suppose it isn't Monday. I meant to send this out on Monday as I usually do, but I got distracted so I didn't.

I didn't do a whole lot of exciting stuff this week, so I'll try to make it sound like I did by over-exaggerating everything I say like a 17 year old girl.

I am like, so into chess again. We are so back. I'm basically the chuzz (chess huzz) and me and Magnus are gonna have crazy beef in a few years when we go at it for the title. My ELO is higher as my Snap score now, which is impressive because I have a Snap score of like 200. I even read chess books, like paper books, which is so weird because the longest things I usually read are Sabrina Carpenter's posts about Coachella 'cause a picture's worth a thousand words and there are 7 pictures which makes, like, 700 words I think. I haven't been counting but I think there have more than 700 words in this paper book so far. I could ask AI to summarize, but I'm in my anti-clanker era right now so I'd rather read it for myself, you know?

Okay, I can't keep writing like that. It makes my eyes twitch for some reason, not sure what that's about.

I learned to play Song to Woody on the guitar this week. I love that song. Let me just paste the lyrics here for you: 

I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin' a road other men have gone down
I'm seein' your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings

 

Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along
Seems sick and it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn
It looks like it's a-dyin' and it's hardly been born

 

Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know
All the things that I'm a-sayin' and a-many times more
I'm a-singin' you this song, but I candt sing enough
'Cause there's not many men that done the things that you've done

 

Here's to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too
And to all the good people that traveled with you
Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind

 

I'm a-leavin' tomorrow, but I could leave today
Somewhere down the road someday
The very last thing that I'd want to do
Is to say, "I've been hittin' some hard travelin' too"

I love this song for a lot of reasons, but my favorite verse (although very hard to pick) is the one that mentions Cisco, Sonny, and Leadbelly too. Those were contemporaries of Woody Guthrie who influenced Dylan's songwriting. By referencing both themselves and the people who traveled alongside them, Dylan writes to a whole generation of musical enjoyers. Dylan implies that the songs that he and others write are journeys in and of themselves, and if some sung notes and plucked chords can be a saga worth following, then a person is unfathomably more interesting. However, Bob Dylan immediately notes that those same, infinitely complex people that write the songs and hear each other are fragile and fleeting, and that neither their feelings (hearts) nor physical actions (hands) last long when in the context of intergenerational impact. Quite simply, they come with the dust and are gone with the wind that brought them there.

I have felt this lately. I have thought a lot about the friends I've made and the people I've had the pleasure to know. I've made one observation: it's hard to let go. I have had very, very close friends who I don't feel very close to today. I know that if I needed anything they'd be there for me, but I don't spend as much time with them as I'd like to, which is all I ever really wanted in the first place. People come and they go, and maybe the best I can do is run with them for a little while until I get too tired or we turn different ways.

As the title suggests, something happened a year ago. Although from the classic LDS children's version of the 'happy birthday' song, it wasn't my birthday. Isn't it odd that we sing the same song every year? You could measure your life in birthday songs if you wanted, cause it's the same one every time. The universe hasn't changed a lot in that one year, but you've ticked off one more box on the 10 by 10 grid, and to you, it really matters.

It has been a year since I left my family in search of more meaning than what I had at home. I left to try to help others find it too. I saw a funny ol' world that was coming along, and boy, was it sick, hungry, tired, and torn. I think it's funny how all those conditions are ones that we fight so hard to be out of, but they're inevitable. Humans will always get sick and hungry. They'll always be tired after 12 hours awake, they'll always be torn between decisions and sacrifice one thing for another. I think Bob Dylan was onto something when he said the world "looks like it's dyin' but it's hardly been born" because everything is always moving towards closure, towards an end that may never come. I took off my missionary tag 40 weeks ago because I didn't feel like I was finding that meaning. Not that I hadn't found it, I wasn't finding it. I felt the same way I felt when I missed friends; like I had something in the past but didn't have it anymore. I don't know that I'll ever find purpose and fulfillment, but I think that's okay. Bob Dylan taught me that this week. The hard traveling is the beautiful part: that's the part the Dylan writes the song about.

You may wonder, "what's the point, then? If finding the fulfillment is impossible, then what's the point of it all?" I don't think that reaching that end goal of happiness is important. Dylan writes that he'd just like to say that "he'd been hittin' some hard travelin' too", implying that he was still traveling at the end of his song. He also suggests that he is helping someone else along their path. If there is no end goal to be reached, then how do we solve this problem? Well, it seems that the best way is to make it easier for other people to feel like they could. 

Sometimes it is hard to feel like my life is going to go anywhere. With sky-high home prices and ridiculous costs of living, I wonder if I'll ever get to host a barbecue or spend a night on vacation in Europe under pink skies. Fortunately, I'm not alone. There are millions like me who will eventually tire of the conditions they see and realize that they want to feel like if there ever was an end, they'd like their chance to reach it. Like John Lennon said in Imagine, "I'm not the only one".

Now, I know this is a ridiculous line of thinking. Obviously my life will continue. I should be able to survive and live a fairly normal life that many people would give anything to have. I've also noticed that when humanity runs out of problems to solve, it creates new ones. The Silent Generation should have been the most depressed, yet Gen Alpha leads the pack.

All this to say, I'm still working on that whole meaning thing. I hope you are too. I doubt that it will ever stop and I think Bob Dylan was starting to figure it out. It's no wonder he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, and I know they only give that to people for high performance in the "figuring it out" category. I think he was write when he said that lives were a "road other men have gone down". No matter where you go, you always have to go somewhere else until you die and can't go anywhere anymore. So thank you, Bob Dylan, for freewheelin' your way to knowledge and writing it down so that I could have some of it too.

Bonus points for making it rhyme and putting it to music.

I don't have anything else to say today. I told you at the beginning that I didn't do much this week, and I meant it. Have a fantastic week, and listen to Bob Dylan. I'll make it easy.

-Will Ott

PS. I told you it would be easy.

Oh Yeah, Wait a Minute Mr. Post-Maine

Alright, the Great Eastern American Vacation of America has ended. I can now write up this summary of the past two weeks.

Monday of last week arrived, and I looked around and thought, "Man, I am a free man. I don't have to write anything today." So I didn't. Monday this week arrived and I still hadn't changed, which is why you are receiving this a full 16 days after you were last supposed to hear from me.

First, quick movie reviews.

The new Jurassic World was a little dumb, but still an entertaining movie. It felt like it was set in the same universe as the others, but a totally different storyline that had nothing to do with any of them. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was funny, but definitely not for everyone. If you are easily offended, do not watch this movie. The same was true of The Interview. 

I found out that Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of The Odyssey comes out on my birthday next year, which I am very excited for. I love The Odyssey, even though I definitely did not read it when it was assigned in my Greek and Roman Literature class. Fun bit of lore for a Kahoot about me: I didn't read any of the books assigned in that class. Yes, I still got an A. This is after being told my entire career that a teacher knows when you BS an essay. I have yet to be caught. They are unaware that they kneel at my throne built upon their lies. Anyways, I can't wait. 

Speaking of birthdays, I turned 20 in the middle of July. Hooray. One more year until I can drink all the alcohol in the whole world. Just kidding.

Okay, now to the good stuff. I went on Vacation, with a capital V (mostly because I typed it on accident but then I realized it made a good rhetorical point). You already heard about Florida, so I'll skip to Connecticut. Right after we got home from Florida, I packed my bags and promptly went to a pool party (without the bags). In the morning, I went to the Salt Lake Airport with my family, who left me to go through security while I waited to see a couple of my close friends that happened to be at their airport for a mission homecoming. I got to welcome my buddy Clark Barry back from Aussieland and see the legendary Tyler Blevins, Timothy Scott, and Ty Bybee while waiting for him. It was dope.

I then flew 8 hours across the country (again) to Connecticut. We stayed there for a few days and then went north to Killington, Vermont. The drive was very pretty; there are a lot more trees in the Northeast than there are in the desert. We arrived at the location of our family reunion, only to discover that they hadn't sent us the keycode and nobody had cell service. Sawyer and I checked all the doors to no avail. I was halfway through a very slowly loading video tutorial on getting through a push button key container when Sawyer found an open ground floor window. At the same moment, someone pulled up to open the door for us. Womp. Heroism is dead.

The reunion was fun. There were lots of kids running around and screaming, but what else do you expect? We tubed a river, but some parts were too shallow so we had to get out and walk. It was also the slowest river I'd ever been on and I got very sunburned, but it was fun.

After the reunion, we took the train up to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Apparently it is THE Montrealais party spot, so a bunch of people there spoke French! I was not one of them. The town part was nice; the pier felt kind of trashy but that was okay. Also, the beach was so crowded during the day. It looked exactly like they do in the movies where you can hardly see the sand, and it went on for miles and miles. It was crazy. Once the sun set, it cleared out and everyone went to get drunk at the pier. We stumbled upon the town's "Illumination Day", which consisted of their community band/orchestra, strawberry shortcake sales, and 7 paper lanterns that were underwhelming lit at the end of a countdown. The neighborhood was picturesque.

Old Orchard Beach had, by far, the best souvenir/vacation drip I had ever seen in my entire life. The best part? It wasn't a rip off. The items were fairly priced and weren't just cheap things either. I got a lit sweatshirt. It was my dream. Everything had a sailing coastal aesthetic and was made of very pleasant fabrics. I am a fabric freak. If it's made of bad fabric, it's not for me.

Post-Maine, we took the train back to Massachusetts to pick up our car and drive it back to Connecticut. We stopped at my aunt's house for a minute so that my family could see it (I was there in November), and then drove back to CT. We spent the next couple days sitting around, and that brings us to today. I am now packing up and getting ready to fly home. Hopefully a raise awaits me at work. Somehow I doubt it. Apparently things are complicated with me getting paid fairly. Wish me luck or something.

Anyways, there's the end of the chronicles for today. I feel like there was something else I was gonna write about, but I don't remember.

Goodbye,

Will

The Greatest Eastern American Tour of America in America

If you have social media, you've likely gathered what I've been up to this week. I am naming this three-week vacation as "The Great Eastern American Tour of Summer 2025". Really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Anyways, I am 1/3 of the way through this extended period away, so I figured I had better provide an update on what's happening.

We flew to Florida out of Provo on Monday last week. The transportation segment was pretty average as far as flights go, but I do have one complaint. Breeze Airlines no longer gives you a thimbleful of soda free, in case anyone was wondering. It was raining the most torrential deluge I had ever seen in my life when we landed, but it subsided pretty quickly.

Days 1 and 2 were both spent at Universal Studios. The park is pretty impressive, especially the screen/movement matching of the motion simulator rides. As someone who only gets motion sickness from screens, I appreciated that detail. I didn't ride any of the huge rides because (lore about me) I have an irrational fear of rollercoasters. I did ride Hagrid's Motorcycle ride and it was freaking sick; I enjoyed it enough that it was probably my favorite ride I've ever ridden. The Harry Potter parts of the park were very well executed. The whole sections actually felt like you were in the movie because the set design was just that good. The immersion factor was the most impressive part to me.

The Super Mario Land looked exactly like you'd been dropped right into the video game, from the spinning coins and moving shells to the marble bricks and the Thwomps on the towers. The rides in that part weren't particularly great, but the setting was remarkable.

The third day was a beach day. We went to the gulf side and it was very warm. Hazel lost her glasses in the water so she was stuck with her backup pair for the rest of the trip, which she was sad about. Poor kid also lost 80$ cause she left her bag somewhere we went and someone stole it. We got the bag back, just not the money.

Day 3 was the newly unveiled Epic part of the park. Yes, I capitalized Epic intentionally. That is the name. Do I ever make grammar or spelling errors in these? Never. Never ever ever. I wouldn't drame of such a ting.

You thought that was a mistake? You were supposed to read it in a North England accent.

Anyway, Epic was… well, epic. Their new Harry Potter ride was worth the wait (~65 minutes), and I'm a guy who absolutely hates standing in lines. Epic was where the Mario stuff was too.

Overall, I was impressed. I'd give it an 8/10. 

What happened to the other 2 points? Since you have no choice in whether or not I write any of this, I will tell you. Most of my complaints have less to do with the park itself but more on the timing of our trip.  I do not suggest traveling with 10 people, especially children. That made going anywhere very slow. I do not recommend mid-July, as it was 100 degrees at 60% or more humidity. It wasn't a kill-all though, since many of the rides have you wait indoors. Some of the wait times were craaaaazy. 195 minutes for one ride is insane. Sawyer and I went to Disneyland on Memorial Day weekend and I don't think it got that high. Fortunately, we never waited in line that long.

Rides also close for weather, no surprise there. Storms tend to roll in during the evening hours from 6-8:30, so ride the big outdoor ones before that. They also let you get in line for rides before close and then they let everyone in line finish the ride. I thought that was cool. I think that is part of why they close a little earlier than I expected at 9:00.

Thus concludes my review of the theme park.

It is at this exact point that the draft I was writing on the plane didn't save and deleted itself, probably because my phone was totally out of memory. I even tried to copy it to my clipboard to no avail. The rest of the email was masterfully written but it is lost in the dregs of digital history. Here is my sad attempt to replicate it.

The next day was a beach day again. We went to the other side, near the race-famous Daytona Beach. It was much colder since it was the Atlantic Ocean, but the waves were a lot bigger so it was more fun. There were thousands of sand fleas that would all come up when you stepped on the sand. They are harmless crustaceans a quarter of an inch long that Hazel immediately christened as "sand piggies" the first time she saw them. That beach was cool.

The following day we went to a place called Blue Spring State Park. It was the bluest, clearest water I've ever seen. It was a little cold, but it was freakin' nice. Then, in a very in-character fashion, lightning forced us out of the water and under pavilions. It was the loudest thunder I've ever felt; it shook your nerves and rattled your brain. It was seriously impressive. Being the oldest comes with the eternal privilege of cleaning up after your younger siblings (and some others), so when the lightning made us retreat to the van, I was left to clean all the trash from the environmental neglectors who left it behind. It was at this moment, in my weakness, that I forgot my dear Mustang Hat. It has been to all 3 coasts of the US with me; countless trips to exciting destinations. I guess I'll have to show my next hat to all my favorite spots. Like an ex-girlfriend, that hat was to me.

Oh, Mustang Hat, lament thy loss

I do without much recourse of course

It feels alike the ship's been toss'd

My Mustang Hat I loved before.

-ode to mustang hat, 2025

Of course, I am writing in this way facetiously, much because of the influence of a book I just finished. Since I am traveling a lot for the next few weeks, it felt appropriate to read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. This novel is an American classic, and for good reason: it is a simple reflection on the idea of chasing the next hill despite perfectly happy circumstances. Even though the characters have wonderful lives, they repeatedly leave it all behind in pursuit of simple passions and shallow pleasures. I quite liked it, although I don't condone the consecutive abandonment of wives and children for no real reason, but I think that is precisely the point. Even though I should loathe the characters for acting the way they do, I can't help but fall for their pied piper antics, just as Sal follows Dean. It feels unbelievable that they are still alive by the time you finish the book, although it was set in the 50s, so I suppose things were different back then. It reads in a similar style to books like "Catch-22" or "Lord of the Flies", so if that really isn't your thing, you might be a bit bored. Some parts felt a little slow, but that might be because the font size on my Kindle pdf would autofit to the page and would frequently swap from massive to nearly unreadably small. Yes, I did try to change it. It didn't work. I got through the book, didn't I?

I also read AI 2027, a projective report by some proven accurate folks on the future of AI. It is both impressive and terrifying. I think everyone should read it. It's incredibly interesting. It feels a little hollowing to realize that your job might be gone in a decade, but comforting to know that a Universal Human Income is becoming plausible.

Fun fact: facetious is a word that I spelled wrong in my middle school spelling bee. Clearly I've learned.

I also listened to Tyler, the Creator's new album. It felt more cohesive than usual for an album, which I liked. The concept was good, although the music itself was a 6/10 in my opinion. Don't tap the glass? I didn't. I let that music play. Unfortunately, I couldn't dance the whole time, or any of it, for that matter. The character/alter ego he made for the album makes me laugh, so much so that I can't take it seriously.

Anyways, I've got a bunch of nothing to do while we drive to the airport again. Wish me luck. Hopefully the door doesn't fall off the plane.

-William Leonardo

Fabulosity

Well, I remembered what I was going to say last week that I forgot to say: I got called up for jury duty.

Twenty-four hours later, they emailed me again and said that I was released because the case had been resolved without going to court. Unfortunately, this means that I am back in the pool for the remainder of my term. Hopefully I don't miss something important to go and potentially sentence one of my fellow Americans.

Today, I went to a concert tribute for The Beatles. It was performed by a group called The Fab Four, and they sounded impressively similar to the legendary icons themselves. From the crowd jests to the classic Beatles accents, the resemblance was uncanny. Indulge me when I say that the concert was fabulous. I liked it a lot. If you know me, you could probably have predicted this. I can name just about any Beatles song in only a few seconds of the opening chord. Test me on this. It is the skill I am most proud of. 

I don't really know what else to talk about. I've realized that I really want an FJ Cruiser, specifically one in the primary blue. I've really started to pay attention to my investing. I've been exploring how my beliefs fit in with the system I've found myself in. Same old, same old.

Work is fine. I have my feelings about it and don't really feel like sharing them here haha. Just wish me luck or something.

Anyway, I think I just sent something a few days ago, so I'm just gonna make this one really short and end it here. See you next week!

Will