Cris

Wishing...

2011-06-25T14:31:00.009-06:00

An odd title, I know. However, we've all got our wishes. I wish I was done with school, my parents wish I was married, and I wish people would stop bugging me about it. See? These are just some simple examples.

I also have some wishes that involve you. I wish you could get to know my good friend Erin. While we're at it, I wish I could explain why all my good friends are under the age of 15!

I wish I hadn't gotten to know Erin for the reasons I did. Erin is my former roommate's daughter. I got to know her while she was receiving treatments for leukemia at the hospital I work at. I wish she hadn't had to endure 6 months of basically living in a hospital room, chemotherapy, sicknesses, non-stop Dora the Explorer, and a few other things I'm sure. To be fair, she did like Dora, but her parents might not be as messed up as they are if it hadn't been for that one ;)

Speaking of her parents, I wish you could meet them as well. I'm not sure I have ever met anyone with such a positive outlook on life. I just don't see how John could have lived with me as long as he did and not have my rosy outlook on life. I blame Jill - she must have undone all my hard work.

I wish you could meet their kids as well. They are the sweetest, happiest, mellowest kids I know. I'm sure they have their moments, but I've never seen it. Meeting them just reinforces to me what I observed in their parents.

So why all this wishing? Well, because all these pictures are from Erin's Make-A-Wish party. All my wishes so far I have no power or ability to grant. However, for the Make-A-Wish party, I had an in - Renee was in charge of it! Erin was going to Disneyworld to meet princesses and we got to throw her a send-off party.

It started with a carriage ride to the ball. Don't you just love the costumes?

A relative of Steve's made Erin her own princess dress. Check this outfit out! Isn't it amazing? Matching hat and purse, too!

My fun was that I finally got to wear my Prince Charming costume I showed you earlier. Betsy and company did an awesome job finishing it up. It was awesome! You'd never know that was all stitched together DI supplies!

I had a lot of favorite parts that day, so I'll just explain a couple of them. When I first got to talk to Erin, she was so excited to show me she had hair! Last time I saw her, she was still pretty bald. I was surprised she knew I hadn't seen her hair yet.

The next fun part for me was this next picture. I had just asked her is we could sit with her, meaning at her table. She said yes and then immediately sat down! See, she's sitting with us! Love how literal kids are.

As everyone was cleaning up, I tried my hand at entertaining her for a bit. It was easy enough in her hospital room - she was a captive audience. However, I tried playing a game we had made up in the hospital: Hot Dog! It consists of just saying hot dog in as many weird ways as you can think of. Each time you say it, Erin will jump. It only worked a couple times in the hospital before she got bored of it, but it worked here! Again, I was surprised she remembered.

I really wish you could hear her deep belly laugh as she does this, as well as see the sparkle in her eye when she looks up at you while laughing. Priceless. It's amazing how five minutes of that could completely make my day. It hits this invisible reset button in your heart that helps you refocus your priorities. You can't help but leave smiling.

And now for my favorite picture from the day. I wish I could explain why I love this picture so much, but I can't. To me, it just somehow captures Erin's trust and friendship to me as well as my desire to help and protect her. I also love how her big sister is there helping her. If you have time, you should read through Erin's blog to see all the nice and simple ways she watches out for her little sister.

If you now wish you could meet Erin, I wish you would join us this weekend! Erin will be participating at a fundraising walk and everyone is invited! You can join her team here.

And in closing, my other favorite story from that day. I decided that two hours at the party wasn't enough time with them, so the night before, I called John to invite them to join me and my family for a barbeque at Nikki's. The conversation went about like this:
me: John, do you guys have dinner plans tomorrow?
John: No, why?
me: Well, I was thinking two hours isn't enough time to catch up, so we should do dinner.
John: Oh, ok. Um, would you like to join us for dinner? We don't have anything special planned, but you're welcome to come join us.

And that simple conversation alone should say all I need to say about why I absolutely love these guys. As a final edit, they did come to Nikki's instead of me going there, and they didn't have to bring a thing.

Conference season

2011-06-17T16:54:00.006-06:00

Today has been an interesting and exciting day for me with email. It started off when I received the following email from Anesthesiology, the flagship journal for the American Society of Anesthesiologists. It took me quite off guard.

Dear Mr. Cris:

The Anesthesiology Editorial Office utilizes a Web-based manuscript submission and tracking system, Editorial Manager (EM). We have entered your name and address information into the EM system, as a REVIEWER, in anticipation of inviting you to review a manuscript. As a matter of information:

Once you have been invited to review a manuscript submission, we hope you will agree to provide this service for the Journal.

We look forward to working with you as an Anesthesiology reviewer. Thank you for your commitment.

Anesthesiology Editorial Office

Interesting. I've only just started writing yet they have asked me to be a peer reviewer for the journal. Interesting and flattering. My first paper was just published, so maybe that's why? There might not be too many people out there doing my type of research.

At the end of the day I received a second email. As background, it is the "season" of writing and submitting abstracts for research conferences for me. I received the following email on one I had submitted. This happens to be the official conference for anesthesiologists, with roughly 20,000 people attending. This is HUGE and is a nice nod to the work we've been doing. Renee will remember me desperately trying to submit them while at her apartment hijacking some poor neighbor's wireless.

Dear Mr. Cris,

It is my pleasure to inform you that your abstract, Remifentanil-Propofol Effect-Site Concentrations that Lead to Airway Obstruction and/or Intolerable Ventilatory Depression: Building a Response Surface Model for Respiratory Compromise, has been chosen for presentation in the 2011 ASA Best Abstracts. Congratulations! There were many outstanding abstracts this year, and yours was among the top chosen for this session. This will be an oral presentation, and you will receive a formal notice from the ASA in the next few weeks providing the full details.

Anesthesiology sponsors sessions at the ASA Annual Meeting in order to highlight important research in our specialty and to recruit manuscript submissions from these special sessions to highlight in the Journal. As you may have seen, the April 2011 issue of the Journal consists entirely of original investigations and review articles from the sessions we sponsored last year, and we hope to do this in the coming year as well.

I therefore invite you to prepare a full length manuscript for submission to us for consideration for publication in the April 2012 issue of Anesthesiology.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and please respond to this email to the Editorial Office on whether you intend to submit your work for consideration for publication in Anesthesiology. Thank you for your consideration, and, again, congratulations on your outstanding work!

Sincerely,

James C. Eisenach, MD
Editor-In-Chief, Anesthesiology

Projects to fill the rainy days...

2011-06-05T22:35:00.008-06:00

If you haven't heard, there have been a lot of changes here for singles. As part of that, I just finished moving my stake office again (2x in one month). It's been a couple long days, but I'm now expert at setting up networks, sharing drives, and configuring routers and print servers. However, that is not the fun I want to share. What is amazing is the office. The only thing I have to say is WOW! A little more ornate than your typical High Council room, don't you think? Here's a view from the head of the table.

Here's one from the other end. Please make note that yes, there is a couch against the wall as well.

As for my other projects to distract me during the rainy and sometimes snowy days, here's one from work: building an enclosure to house some equipment. I had the equipment but had to find everything else. I added an easy access panel at the top.

Here's a view of the inside - had to figure out how to tie everything down. And that's steel, mind you. I spent four hours last Saturday in Ace Hardware looking at all their connectors and trying to figure out what would work. It also included a trip to Lowes (and three more trips back to Ace), but worked out in the end.

Here's the finished product. It weighs a bit more than I would like, but it's protective!

While that's all fun, the real fun project has been making a Prince Charming costume. I've been thinking about how to do this for about a month now. It's going to be for a princess ball put on by Make-a-Wish for Erin. I don't think I've ever put this much effort (or money) into a costume before! That same day I was at Ace for four hours I also put in a couple hours at 4 different DI's looking for "inspiration". Here's what I came up with.

Shoes: $6
Pants: $6
Jacket: $6
Belt: $2
Assorted accessories from Walmart: $8 (Yes, I accessorized)

I spent all of yesterday with my sisters piecing everything together. We did quite a bit of sewing, adjusting, and modeling to get to this stage (10 hours later!). I just want to point out that I did the collar, cuffs and buttons all by myself! Thankfully, Renee and Betsy did the epilephs. Anyone remember what Laree did? :-p

All we need to add now is a sash and button holes. I'm pretty excited! And if you happen to know them, don't let Erin's parents know!

Apologies for the weird look. What can I say? It was Betsy taking the picture - I was probably trying to defend myself.
Special thanks to this picture for the inspiration, and this website for the instructions.

Christmas 2010

2011-03-19T09:15:00.004-06:00

How long has this been sitting here? I apparently forgot to publish this post. Might as well get it up.

This was probably the smallest Christmas yet at home. Just Laree and I plus the 'rents. Mother nature cooperated by absolutely dumping on us - it wreaked havoc on the airports and delayed everything all week. It also gave me plenty to do since mom and dad got very generous on their desire to shovel everyone out!

These are the clues I gave them for what their Christmas present was: kites, a spoonful of sugar, and this poem.

Being a typical girl in the family, Laree is always cold. Therefore, she got some nice new attire to keep her warm.

Michelle made everyone Christmas ornaments. The best, hands down, was mom's cows.

On a slightly more somber note, the day after Christmas a police officer in my hometown was shot and killed while chasing a burglar. We were actually on our way home from dinner that night when we had to stop at an intersection while a cop car came flying by headed to the scene. It stuck out because it was in the middle of a pretty bad snow storm, so something pretty bad had to be going on for him to be moving that fast.

Anyway, we live right on the main road to the highway as well as just down the street from the cemetery so those who were here went out to pay our respects. This was the first time an officer in our town had been killed.

Another visitor...

2011-03-13T23:31:00.001-06:00

I've decided that one of the best decisions I've ever made was to go visit Katy in Riga before she went home. Why? Because I am continually running into people I met there. I became fast friends with the same group of people Katy was friends with. Since then, I have had an opportunity to meet up with at least six of them here.

This past week gave me a chance to greet Olga as she came here to enter the MTC. Again, I'll probably get killed for putting this picture up, but here is a picture from when we first met in 2005. Olga is the blond. Oh wait... The one in white. Wait... Ok she's the one on Katy's left.

This picture is a bit better glimpse into her personality (in pink). This was after virtually 48 hours straight of hanging out, so all shyness was completely gone.

There were only a few of us at the airport, but I don't think you could have asked for a better reception. We had a sign, excited kids, and then this family: Matt, his wife and daughter. Matt is the elder who baptized Olga. I'm not sure who she knew would be there, but she was all smiles.

I was hoping to be able to give her a ride to the MTC. I got permission from the MTC and everything. Even had Laree waiting to go out to dinner with us. Alas, Matt wanted to give her a ride as well. No doubt that in this situation, I lose. He definitely got first dibs on that. After convincing them all that she did not have to ride the shuttle down, they were off.

Just as we were leaving, I realized I hadn't taken a picture of us yet, so here is a shot just as we are leaving the airport.

Several things about this night make it special. First, that I can meet up with someone from so far away here. Second, that a friendship that developed in a relatively short amount of time can last so long and third, the things she has overcome to even be here in the first place. Makes my life seem pretty wimpy in comparison.

Memory Lane

2011-03-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

Apparently I forgot to publish this post way back when, so I'll do that now.

Before Lisa flew out after the last wedding, I got to spend an afternoon with her and Jack. I swear, he must be the happiest baby ever. Granted, it took a little coaxing to get this good of a smile, but still, how cool is that?

Our other fun the day before the wedding was moving Jamie out of his apartment. This would have been a beast after the first wedding (old man, young pup, and Bryce and I), but with a couple recruits thanks to previous weddings, we had him boxed up in no time. Here's the celebratory picture. Michelle's not at all excited to be leaving this apartment!

Every gathering has to have its iconic picture. That's what this is. Look how empty the truck is! The result of 4 engineers and one tag-a-long/wannabee (Bryce) packing the truck. They could probably have fit their car in there!

As for the final picture, I can't remember why I took it and even less why I decided to include it. I believe this is as I'm heading to Nicole's. It was a clear day and the sun was behind me so you can really see the mountains. This is one of the times of year I really love it - when they are this green. It doesn't last. So enjoy this rare picture of green mountain beauty.

Remember when...

2011-03-03T23:17:00.006-07:00

There was a time I remember when it was warm. You could spend extended periods of time outside. Ok, so we've barely gotten out of February, but I'm missing being able to spend long periods of time.

To remember what it was like, I decided to post some pictures from a hike I went on this fall. As for the hike, it was a great reason to meet up with a friend from Latvia who was visiting: Elina.

I first met Elina back in the summer of 2005 when I visited Katy in Latvia before she came home. Just for fun, here's a picture of Elina from back then.

Yeah, she'll kill me for that. Anyway, we went on a short hike near where she was staying. The trail meandered up the canyon mostly following a stream. It was fairly early when we started so it was still cool, but it ended up being a beautiful day.

I wish I could say I was actually trying to be all artsy in that last photo. However, the camera kept auto-focusing on the grass instead of on us. Looks pretty cool now, though!

I took so many pictures when I was in Riga with Katy that I earned the nick-name paparazzi. Well, I've got to live up to it now! Besides, it'd been 5 years. Nothing like some fun pictures to break the ice, right?

The path did go along a stream, so I had to try to get some good water shots. I liked them. The first one reminded me of a setting you might see in the shire. Yeah, that's right, the Shire.

Right before we turned around, we found this section of the trail where the trees made a kind of tunnel. It was better in person, but it still looks pretty cool I think. I also think Elina was done with pictures ;)

One last picture from where we did turn around. It was awesome seeing the canyon just open up like this. It's addicting - I just wanted to keep going to see what was around the next (river?) bend. Alas, we had things we had to get back to (my supposed PhD?)

We finished the morning off by getting some sandwiches and meeting Laree and Elina's fiance for lunch.

All in all, a good day!

Odds and ends

2010-11-08T18:39:00.008-07:00

Oh, where to start? So much to say, so few people to say it to! Renee had a big year. First a wedding, then graduation, then the baby... Here's some pics of graduation. That look of wonder and disbelief explains it all. It seems to say... now what? That's why I haven't graduated yet. There, I beat you all to it.

Steve's just glad he doesn't have to pay any more tuition!

Oh yeah, and I brought Betsy with me.

There have been a ton of events, few of which I've brought my camera too. Not that it matters. When it comes to grandkids, they are sufficiently documented by my family! I did go up to Nicole's for Jax's baptism and Kenzie's birthday. We stayed up 'til 3 am frosting the cakes, and no that's not just 'cause we started late. By we, I mean my sisters. I was dutifully employed to kill all the houseflies. Success (but no pics).

This first cake was the "easy" one. Grandpa engineered a base so that the barbie doll would fit. Not too shabby.

The real pride and joy, however, was the Cinderella carriage. This baby was frosted using individual stars. This is the one that took forever - one star at a time! If you enlarge the picture you can probably see them.

It looked great, but it sure didn't last long!

No post from me would be complete without a list of what I've tried to repair. I've only got pictures of one - my laptop. I love taking it completely apart and then putting it back together and having it still work. It's a cheap thrill. Too bad it didn't help! My laptop hasn't been recognizing the power supply, meaning no charging. A 6-year-old battery only lasts about 15 minutes unless you try to do something, and then it lasts even less. I tried replacing the power supply w/o any luck. As a last ditch option, I tried replacing the power jack on the mother board. I did it, but unfortunately that didn't fix it either. So sad :(

Here's an after picture since I forgot to take a before one.

Completely apart. Looks cool, huh?

The part I'm replacing. It sure is a pain to do this when you don't have the right tools!

A little while later I tried to do that same thing on Betsy's laptop. No luck again. Curse those Dells!

Final one for this post - repairing my window. We had a nice day so I left the windows open to air out the apartment. I came home to this:

Awesome - someone broke into my apartment. Oddly enough, nothing was missing. We still had the police come and, after talking to the guy for half an hour, on his way out he decided to ask our neighbor if he'd seen anything.

Should have thought of that. That day, a micro-burst had come out of nowhere. Apparently it had blown out our screen, breaking it, and had bent our venetian blinds as well. Oops. The fix, then, was repairing the screen (easy) and counter-bending each slat of the venetian blinds so they looked normal again (hard). It took forever, but now you can barely tell!

Utah Summers

2010-07-27T10:44:00.010-06:00

The great thing about summers out here is there is so much to do! Makes working on school complicated. You really have to schedule your time carefully! The first thing to catch you up on is the Wasatch Back. Yes, I survived. Still not sure if I'd ever do it again, but I did do much better than I thought I would. I will say I was very surprised at how far I could push my body. I could barely walk after my first leg and yet I ran my next two legs even faster! The body is amazing!

Here's the entire team at the start - 6am.

And here I am goofing around waiting for my turn to run to come. I was #6 so everyone in my car had to run before I got to. I had to keep myself entertained!

Here I am finishing up my final leg. My left hip and right foot were hurting after my second leg, but I still managed to run a 20 minute 5K. Not bad considering both shoes came untied and I got stuck at a red light.

And here we all are - completely exhausted at the finish.

Next up - Renee's wedding! It's no small undertaking when the entire family tries to get together. This time was no exception!

We ended up spending about 9 hours in the same chapel - from lunch to the end of the reception. We had to get pretty creative. Here I'm trying to get Sophie to join me in an A Capella version of You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'. She got the "doop da doop" part!

I'm not sure what I like about this next picture best - Nicole's reaction, Betsy's reaction, or mine! I decided to have some fun at Betsy's expense.

I also went on my yearly hike of Mt Timp with, of course, some good friends. It was a beautiful day but there was still lots of snow! It made the waterfalls full, but did create a bit of an adventure getting to the top! I only put a few pics here. The rest can be viewed here.

Here's a couple of pics on the way down:

Finished at last!

And finally, birthdays! I missed Payton's, but I made it to Chris' (somewhat undocumented) and Tanner's. Tanner got some new camera equipment so we tested it out!

Multiple betsy's:

Action shot:

Geek time!

2010-05-26T15:06:00.004-06:00

Why geek time? Because it's Science Fair season!! The regional science fair was the weekend after I returned from Hawaii. I highly recommend NOT taking off the week before a major event you are planning. So many little things popped up that it seemed like one of the worse years yet. Luckily, it wasn't - I didn't select the wrong projects as the grand winners. Yeah, it happened once. Oops.

As for the caliber of projects, they keep getting better and better. I love that we actually had a hard time finding the top projects to advance to the international fair. Luckily, I don't have to help select it. But each year there are more and more contenders.

This was the key year for barely making it. For those who don't know, I created the scoring program we use. One of our goals starting 5 years ago was to have each kid's name appear in the awards slide show. Partly it's so that they knew they won despite the face we were destroying their name. Anyway, it's accomplished using some macros in excel and powerpoint. Well, this year it didn't work! So while the keynote speaker was up there talking, I was desperately trying to figure out why it wasn't working. I was finally able to get half of it working, so we set that up when the keynote speaker ended. While they worked on that, I was desperately trying to get the second half working. Yup, I got that just in time. The best part - I don't think anyone caught on just how close I came to not making it! Oh, and I've now fixed the problem.

One of the nicest surprises this year was being awarded a plaque of my own. Right after the first switch. I couldn't figure out why I was getting dragged away from my attempts to fix the second half of the award show. Somehow everyone knew except for me. Yeah, I'm quick. Seriously though, I was very touched. I don't think many in the audience appreciated it, but I did. So here's my picture of me receiving my award!

Why this year? Well, I kind of hope to not be here next year... I've said that before, though.

One perk was that I got to chaperone our winners to the international fair in San Jose in the beginning of May. It's the best chaperoning because the kids are no trouble at all. It's a nice vacation. Well, it would have been if I hadn't offered to give some presentations to other fair directors. I sent in three and all three got accepted. As last minute as I am, I finished them up the morning of. Yeah, no stress that way! Three hours of presenting. Wasn't overly popular, but I did have the same people coming back again and again. If you're bored, we've posted everything here. Seems odd to look at all those files. They represent 100s of hours I should have been spending on my PhD. Oh well!

Now some cool pics: Our team. They had IB tests (kind of like AP tests) the evening and morning after judging. Oh, and judging goes from 9 to 5. And then they decided to stay up playing starcraft instead of sleeping. This is them at the public event. I don't think they did much talking!

And for the final picture - saying goodbye to me. I ended up sneaking out Thursday evening so I could help officiate the Utah Outdoor Track and Field Championships. They didn't leave until Saturday, so Jody snapped this picture as I was heading back to the hotel and then the airport.

As for now, I'm getting ready for the Wasatch Back! My first 24 hour race. Not sure how it'll go, but regardless, I promise to never do it again!

PCC

2010-04-15T10:16:00.008-06:00

I spent Saturday at the Polynesian Cultural Center. I actually didn't record a whole lot, but the place is sufficiently documented on youtube. Still, I thought I'd collect some hightlights here so you know where to start.

In Samoa, you want to learn about who does the cooking, how they make a fire, climb trees, open a coconut and get coconut milk. Sorry to throw so many on this, but they did a lot of cool things and some videos are better showing different parts.

creating a fire:

I'd also recommend this one about who does the cooking (towards the end).

Samoa - tree climb

All about the coconut:

Same guy, different day and angle here

Here's another guy doing the entire show:partI & partII.

Final suggestion is a video showing a competition between 2 of the Samoans.

I really like Tahitian dancing so of course I had to find some clips of that. They do make a point that Tahitians are the only ones that "go crazy with the hips" (to quote Bartok).

Here they are again during the canoe show:

Tonga had another really entertaining presentation. Basically, get some people on stage and make them look funny.

The main point seems to be to confusing the japanese guy, who seems to usually be the third one they get up on stage. Here's a funny one.

Here's a couple pictures from the canoe show. It just shows some of the different costuming.

Finally, the night show. It highlights each village. The new part is the fire show. Here's some selections:

Part 2:

Aloha!

2010-04-14T17:37:00.018-06:00

It's been about a month now, but I thought I'd get some pictures up of my most recent trip - Hawaii! I got the chance to go thanks to a research conference in Honolulu. I went a few days early so I could "experience" the island.

The first 2 days I spent on Waikiki: swimming, snorkeling, hiking and boogie boarding. I got there in the afternoon so after a quick swim and dinner, I decided to walk along the beach. The sunset was very pretty. There were also some dance shows going on.

The next morning I couldn't sleep so I went for another walk. I had to try to find breakfast, but also wanted to see the beach without the 100s of people. I was amazed how cool the beach looked. Agree?

I also thought it was interesting how everything grows different there. This tree is the best example, but it seems like lots of things grow thin and then send out additional roots above ground. As a side note, this tree was just in front of the Honolulu Zoo. Their main advertisement - they are the only zoo within a 2300 mile radius!

I did make it to Hanauma Bay, a natural preserve where you can snorkel. I was amazed how many fish you could see! I thought the hundreds of people would have scared them away. Guess not!

someone else's video of the snorkeling:

I spent the weekend in Laie (BYU-H and PCC). The PCC will have to be its own post, but here's some of my pictures from BYU-H. It's a really small campus. It took about 10 minutes to see it all! The mosaic is a visit by David O. McKay where he decided they needed to build a college (or something like that).

Check out the back drop! This is what you would see out of the dorm windows.

And just a short trip from BYU-H is the temple. Unfortunately, it is closed for renovations :(

And like a true slacker, I got no pictures of my host. However, he was great. It was nice to talk to someone I knew being so far from home!

Anyway, after the conference, my boss and I took one more trip. He wanted to go snorkeling but I didn't think my body could take the cold water again so we split. He went down to the beach and I went up to the top of the crater you see in my picture of the bay above. It was a great view but crazy hike. It didn't zig-zag at all. You went straight up! Here's the view of the bay:

and here's my boss:

Final video - while driving around we stopped at this crazy beach. The waves are huge! In the left center you can see it totally tossing a boogie boarder. Even crazier - we ran into an undergrad who had done some research in our lab while there!

I'm not a hater!

2010-02-15T22:34:00.005-07:00

You know, some people in my situation have an avowed hate of Valentine's Day. Sorry, Single's Awareness Day. Well, not me. I like Valentine's Day for exactly what it is. So, in honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share this video.

The background (yes, after you've watched it): Ellen surprised the guy by secretly flying his girlfriend in for the show. She then surprises the girl by helping him.

Too funny!

2010-02-05T01:13:00.006-07:00

This is too funny not to share!

What I find funniest is that he should have plenty of practice making sure his phone is turned off for prayers! Good recovery though!

Reminds me of a time at BYU one went off during the closing prayer one Sunday and the person never turned it off. Yup, full 30 seconds of ringer! Come to find out, the phone belonged to the person giving the prayer, but her phone was in her purse back at her seat! Can't say I blame the neighbors for not wanting to dig into a purse to turn it off!

Open letter to the world

2010-02-04T15:09:00.002-07:00

Dear World:

How to recognize spam/junk/etc emails. They:

hype some global threat
try to scare you into doing something
usually include lots of capitalized words and exclamation points
all sound the same

They are easy to spot. They usually start with "FW:" in the subject line, and go straight to my trash.

Should you happen to receive one of these, please put it in your trash, too. You do not have to send it to me.

Thank you.

Everyone in your address book

Runners are some of the classiest athletes!

2010-01-22T13:13:00.002-07:00

I've been helping out at track meets now for over 10 years. About 5 years ago I decided to become a certified official. Really, all that means is I passed an open-book test and paid some money, but it also means that I'm more involved now than ever. It's been great meeting other officials, olympians, and collegiate athletes from all over the country. However, what has really made it a lot of fun these last few years is getting to know the high school kids. Especially since you see the same kids meet after meet, year after year, you actually get to know them.

One of the things I love about runners is they all get along. Before and after the race, you'll see kids from different teams talking to each other, congratulating, etc. It's just a good group of kids. Something about the sport seems to not appeal to the slackers or punks. Maybe it's all the hard work?

Anyway, I worked an indoor meet last week. My assignment was taking heats from the bullpen and getting them on the line in order and as quickly as possible. Being in that position, I got to observe three things I thought were really cool. First was during the finals of the 60 meter hurdles. Just as the final heat was getting ready to go (so the fastest kids battling for the top positions), they announced that one of the kids had won the Oustanding Athlete in Field Events award (top athlete overall in field events). The kid next to him said "Hey, that's you! Congratulations" and shook his hand. Classy.

Even better was what happened for the girls 800. The track is 5 laps to the mile, and the 800 (half mile) goes so fast that I had 3 heats waiting on the outside of the track while the first heat was running. It became quickly obvious that 2 girls were going to be way behind everyone else. In fact the girl in last place got lapped (finished 2.5 minutes behind the winner). Anyway, it wasn't too surprising to see the girls waiting cheering for their teammates on the first lap. However, on the second lap, all the girls (in single file, since that's how I'd lined them up on the outside) came right up to the first lane as the girl in last place came by and absolutely screamed their lungs out! I was actually worried the girl would think she was finishing and not run the last 1/2 lap! It was this amazing show of support. Just classy.

Not to be outdone, the boys waiting to run the 2 mile did something similar for the final girl finishing the 2 mile. The 800 meter girls did it much better, but again, just a classy show of support.

Say what you want about your favorite sport, but in my observation, runners are just some of the classiest athletes out there!

Happy Bday Diggy!

2010-01-21T12:53:00.002-07:00

I got back from Christmas in time to celebrate Digham's bday. I basically spent three days over at the in-laws! It was great seeing the kids, playing and then trying to figure out where the scratches and bruises came from!

One of the things I thought was really funny was that they stuck all 8 grandkids at this picnic table! It was crowded, messy, and hilarious to watch!

The brownies must have been good...and soft!

It was a good party! Glad I could make it!

Christmas

2010-01-19T11:53:00.003-07:00

With 7 siblings and 4 spouses returning home for Christmas this year, things were hopping! I'm glad I'm from a big family - it's too boring if not enough people are around! With that many people, all old traditions were resurrected. First was gathering before so we could all pick on Laree. We still go down in age order, so mom had us line up oldest to youngest. You should have heard Laree's protests... which turned to glee when mom then had us turn around and go downstairs the long way, but in youngest to oldest order!

We still do one present at a time, giving everyone a chance to see what everyone else got. The funny thing is we were just getting started when texts started arriving from people 2 hours behind us who had already finished! Here's Renee w/ her latest toy.

Laree got her own quilt. This thing was enourmous! It's probably 12' square! One square of this thing would be enough for Laree.

Katy and I had the brilliant idea to help Jamie get more presents by doing what he used to do - wrap up his old stuff lying around the house and give it to him. Here, he'd left some stuff behind from his wedding reception the previous year. Katy wrapped up an old movie while I wrapped up his broiler pan!

We had a fancy dinner without making too many memories (Mom's statement that if we never use them, we don't have memories so every time one of the fancy dishes broke, Jamie used to yell out that he'd made a memory).

And finally, our official photographer in her swivel nest.

Amazing shot!

2010-01-08T13:21:00.010-07:00

It's a family tradition to go caroling to the neighbors on Christmas Eve. It was a warm evening, so the snow was perfect for making snowballs. As we were leaving one house, I made a snowball to tease our neighbor. I wasn't going to throw it at him, but I did have to get rid of it. As we were getting ready to go to the next neighbor, Jamie took off to grab the box of chocolate from a car in our driveway. I knew I wouldn't actually hit him from that far away, but wanted to spook him. If I got the distance right, it would hit the roof of the car and splatter on him at least.

Well, apparently there was some divine intervention. My apologies, Jamie, for the absolute best shot of my life. A nice, high arcing throw that hit the back of your head and went down your neck. I couldn't do that again no matter how hard I tried! For those of you who missed it, here's a pretty good version from Elf. Those who saw it agreed this is pretty much what it looked like!

Looking forward to spring break!!!

2009-12-17T21:58:00.004-07:00

Does that mean I'm living in the future instead of the past? Hmmm....

I'll get philosophical later. In the meantime, I just got three emails today, all with the subject "IARS 2010 Annual Meeting Notification for Abstract Number: ####". Here's what they had to say:

1) Dear Dr. Cris:

Notification of Abstract Acceptance*:

"EVAULATION OF A PHARMACODYNAMIC MODEL FOR SEDATION IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING FIXED-RATIO PROPOFOL REMIFENTANIL PATIENT CONTROLLED ANESTHESIA FOR ELECTIVE COLONOSCOPY"

The IARS 2010 Program Committee has completed its analysis of the peer review of the abstracts submitted for the IARS 2010 Annual Meeting and we are pleased to inform you that your abstract (listed above) was selected for presentation at this year's Annual Meeting.

2) Notification of Abstract Acceptance*:

"CAN CHANGES IN RESPIRATORY RATE PREDICT VOLUNTEER RESPONSES TO A NOXIOUS STIMULUS. A PRELIMINARY LOOK USING A REMIFENTANIL CHALLENGE?"

The IARS 2010 Program Committee has completed its analysis of the peer review of the abstracts submitted for the IARS 2010 Annual Meeting and we are pleased to inform you that your abstract (listed above) was selected for presentation at this year's Annual Meeting.

3) Notification of Abstract Acceptance*:

"PROPOFOL-REMIFENTANIL RESPONSE SURFACE FOR RESPIRATORY DEPRESSION USING RESPIRATORY RATE AND MINUTE VENTILATION"

The IARS 2010 Program Committee has completed its analysis of the peer review of the abstracts submitted for the IARS 2010 Annual Meeting and we are pleased to inform you that your abstract (listed above) was selected for presentation at this year's Annual Meeting.

Why spring break, you ask? Because the conference takes place during spring break in Honolulu, Hawaii!!! Here's a picture from the hotel's web site:

Yay!

Published!

2009-11-24T20:44:00.005-07:00

I wish I could make a bigger deal about this than I really can, but wanted to share this exciting news:

It doesn't count towards the PhD, but it's a little recognition. The disheartening news - I worked on this paper 3 years ago!

My next fun is a conference in March. I've submitted 3 abstracts and should find out in a month or so if any of them are accepted. If they are, I may get to go to the conference to present them. I should mention this conference will be in Hawaii, and during Spring break!!!

Whistle while you work!

2009-11-24T20:19:00.002-07:00

My life is a lesson in self-discipline right now. Unfortunately, I'm a bad student! So, although you may think this post is about school, it is, instead, about what I do to avoid it (let's say relax after a long day!). I spend a lot of time in front of a computer running simulations, etc. I miss the hands-on aspects of engineering. That's what my evening activities provide! Here's my latest list of things I've fixed!

1) I noticed at work (they are remodeling) they were tossing some insulation. I've also noticed that at home, my room gets cold. What to do? Take the insulation home and put it above my bed!

Glad I did! Once I got up there, I noticed that there there was absolutely no insulation between three rafters directly above my bed! Problem solved!

Odd, it felt so much warmer that night!

2) Fixing 2 computers. It got me a great dinner with some great friends, but sometimes removing viruses can be time consuming! One computer was fixed with an online virus scan, but on the other I had to completely reinstall windows (and then everything else as well).

3) Fixed a friends printer. Somehow a tube had worked its way into the paper feed gearing and completely jammed it. I had to completely disassemble the printer to get it out. The fun part was that I actually put it back together correctly!

4) Repaired a closet door. It's one of those bifold, sliding doors. The wood is soft and the catches had broken through the wood, causing the rollers to not catch on the guide anymore. I rotated the entire door 180 degrees clockwise to use the holes on the other end, and it works great!

5) "Repaired" a furnace. Same friends had a problem - there furnace (gas) wouldn't ignite. After some playing around, I found the problem was that the insulation on the ignition wire had come off in a 2-inch length just before the pilot light. This wire ran close to the piping inside the furnace. Since that was closer than the pilot, the spark was shorting out to the furnace housing. I was thinking of just wrapping it in electrical tape. However, a quick test of the flammability of electrical tape convinced me that wouldn't be a good idea. Instead, I just tried to position the wire so that the path of least resistance was the pilot (just moved the wire as from from the sides as I could.

6) Fixed a friends wireless card. Two programs that controlled the wireless card were conflicting, but uninstalling one removed the driver, killing the network card. We didn't have the discs, and I couldn't download it anymore. Restored, downloaded the driver, re-unistalled (can you do that?) and then updated the driver. All good.

There might be a couple others, but that will work!

Happy Birthday, Lisa!!

2009-09-29T22:33:00.006-06:00

Tomorrow is my sister-in-law's birthday. She is the one responsible for putting on my amazing 30th birthday party last year (in conjunction w/ my mother). Well, they are in the process of moving, her husband (Bryce) is already gone and working at his new job, and tomorrow is a baby shower so no party for her. Her sister organized a surprise party for her at Leatherby's tonight. We were actually all stuck in line waiting to get seated when she showed up, but still, she was surprised.

It was a lot of fun, and included some of her former roommates as well as family from both sides. Plenty of ice cream to go around, too. Here's Marci and Michelle posing while Jamie contemplates the effect of all that sugar on his teeth.

Here's Betsy showing us how much she likes her "food".

And then my small helping. They weren't kidding when they said they would add slabs of ice cream to it!

The best part, however, had to be Jamie's toast. As always, a classic moment. We desperately tried to get him to sing Happy Birthday Mr President as only he can. For some reason, he was too shy.

Followed up by a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday

My diversions

2009-08-26T00:25:00.006-06:00

Despite working on my proposal, I still managed to have a little fun here at the end of the summer. I took a quick trip to Ohio the week before my proposal was due. Not my brightest idea ever, but it all worked out! While there, I picked raspberries, swam, kayaked, played, and did a little house work. I really have got to remember to take before pictures. Oh well, all I have is some after pictures.

First task was demoing a bathroom and framing a new wall. The fun part was getting all the trash out after the demo was done. That involved a very short step ladder, kids on the room, and a window! Had no lack of volunteers that night - everyone wanted to be on the roof!

The next real big project was adding a door to the new bathroom to one of the bedrooms. We had to move the closet over about 6 inches as well as cut a 2x4 in half so the door would open without hitting the wall! Not too shabby!

Almost as an afterthought, we decided to put in the recessed lighting in the kitchen. We bought the lights on Saturday evening, so we got them installed Monday morning before I flew out. I've now put in about 30 of these! Much easier when the beams are exposed like this!

Also, Bryce and Lisa keep threatening to move, so I've started trying to make it down to Sunday dinner every week until they actually move. I have a new roommate, so I thought it would be fun to take my new roommate and his friend down for Sunday beans. Although I'm still bitter no one touched my pasta salad, they had a good time. They are both the only kids in their families, so I think they were blown away by the fact there were 4 siblings there (and that's only 1/3rd of the family!).

And now we'll wrap this up with a Sophie photo shoot.

I proposed....

2009-08-20T11:59:00.000-06:00

And they all said yes!

To clarify, that's the PhD proposal and not the one you're all hoping for. I passed the oral and have a little rewriting to do, but otherwise passed the written as well. Now I move on to, well, more writing!

Up for air, now time to go back under!

To everything, there is a season...

2009-07-23T03:02:00.003-06:00

Have you ever realized there is a song for everything?

Well, here's my update. I have been given exactly one season to finish up. Let's call that season this Fall. That's right, after years of spinning circles and walking back and forth, my lab director has decided it's time for me to graduate. How, you ask, can he make me do that? Simple - stop paying me!

I was given a cut-off date of October. I may have managed to scrounge up a TA position that will cover me until the end of the semester. The fun part is that I have done more writing in the past 3 weeks than I have in the last 3 years! Well, maybe not, but definitely on my proposal. I'm up to 45 pages and counting!

To explain my position, I have to write a proposal on what I plan to do and present that to my committee (they call it a defense, which probably better conveys how the meetings go). I have to do that by August 21st if I want to graduate next semester since, oddly enough, they don't let you present both your proposal and final thesis in the same semester.

Once that is done, I have to write and submit for publication 3 papers. Luckily, one is already almost completed. However, there are 2 more I haven't even started. One that is done, I get to write the dreaded thesis, which promises to be at least 100 pages. Once I get that through the thesis editor, I get the opportunity to defend it to my committee. All that has to be done by January 8th at the latest. So, if you don't hear much from me in the next 4 months or so, I promise it's nothing personal.

Here's wishing I were you!

Conan @ ISEF

2009-07-07T10:33:00.002-06:00

Check out the two videos of Conan O'Brien at the International Science and Engineering fair here.

For background, see here.

Betsy and Tanner!

2009-06-18T23:31:00.008-06:00

What would a summer be like without one of my siblings getting married? Who knows! I can't remember such a time! About 6 months after Jamie and Michelle got hitched, Betsy and Tanner decided to follow suit. For those of you wondering why Tanner looks familiar, he's been the one showing up in all sorts of family photos over the last 3 years or so.

If your curious, those are all the nieces and nephews. Personally I love how Digham is playing with his tie, Jaxon and Kenzie are putting on their cheese smiles, and Jayden is having a blast. He was real excited when they finally gave him a bouquet to hold as well!

In fairness to my parents, I must say that if I had to choose who to hang out with, I'd pick the kids over the adults any day! If you're confused, see here.

With all these weddings (she was number 7), my parents are getting to be pros! They almost look like models now, getting the poses just right, smiling, etc. Here's dad with Betsy. For the ceremony Betsy wore my mom's wedding dress, so it was a bit sentimental I think.

They had quite the involved photographer, so here's Bryce doing his best to get a smile out of the kids. It was a little song and dance routine.

and here's an example of his creativity. I love Betsy's face.

Of course, no wedding would be complete without this classic. Doesn't Jamie just look like he wished he had a twin?

Last pic I took that day - here's the view from the temple. It was raining on and off and really made the mountains look impressive.

We did get to meet Tanner's family the day before the wedding. They invited us over for a bbq and pool party. They cooked up 5 different flavors of meat! All of them were great.

Why they were getting dinner ready, the ladies helped put together impressive assortments of candy dishes for the candy bar.

while the kids all played in the pool

That was one of the few nights there weren't any arguments when the kids were put to bed! Most of them were asleep before we even got home! For the final picture, here is Payton going to town on some home-made strawberry ice cream!

Love is in the air...

2009-06-18T22:57:00.005-06:00

With the (slightly) warmer weather and spring in the air, I've been starting to attend lots of wedding receptions. I'm too slow to keep up with all of them but I thought this one deserved some documenting. I have known the family for years, practically lived with them my last semester of my undergrad and visited them last year in Ohio. I guess you could say we have a working relationship - whenever we meet up, I do some work! (my choice, not theirs).

I first met John when I was in Ohio last year. We didn't spend a whole lot of time together, but I did formally meet his entire family before her parents had! He's a good guy. The fun was getting introduced. His parents actually thought I was Cosette's dad, the single adults thought I was her cousin, and at the wedding I was introduced as her (adopted) brother. How's that?

It was great seeing the entire family again. Plenty of excitement and fun. If you ever got bored with the picture taking, you could always catch something entertaining going on just out of view. Here is Zack playing ninja tag.

It was also pleasing to see that Bryce and I aren't the only ones who have to do this pose. However, they won't have to do it nearly as many times ;-)

This is my favorite picture from that day. I'm so disappointed I cropped off Nico's head. I had to sneak it, so it'll have to do. It was a little chilly.

I actually was going to Wicked that afternoon so I missed the luncheon. However, I hung out with them right up until they went to it. We were playing Great Dalmuti (basically scum with more cards) and talked Cosette into joining us. She got creamed. It was like her mind was elsewhere...

And for the final picture, the only picture I took at the reception. Taking pictures is how I managed to avoid having to dance. It worked for about 1 minute!

Why does your family keep you?

2009-06-14T20:07:00.010-06:00

I love telling the story of one of my parents' trips out here to visit the first grandchild. It was when I had the rude awakening to my new (lower) status in the family. Short story made shorter, they weren't going to come visit me at school. If I wanted to see them, I had to find a way of getting to them. Ah yes, once grandkids start coming, I'm convinced your net worth is directly proportional to the number of grandkids you have.

While some of the allure of grandkids has worn off (just meaning parents are now willing to maybe go out to lunch now without the grandkids), where I'm still not producing any, I often wonder why my family still keeps me around. Well, with everyone gathering for Betsy's wedding, I quickly discovered why! To fix things!

It started to dawn on me when one sister called to ask if I'd take a look at her hair straightener if she brought it. It became blatantly obvious, however, when Bryce showed up with his microwave and Bosch mixer. Throw in a couple laptop repairs as well, and it was a pretty busy week!

In case you're curious, I just had to uninstall a corrupt software install on the laptop, resolder the wires to the circuit board in the straightener, repair a wire break in the mixer, and replace the turntable motor in the microwave. Glad Betsy got married here or I wouldn't have had access to all the tools I needed to fix everything!

However, I'm most proud of another repair made at home. Anyone who has spent a night at my apartment has wondered if perhaps they are the ones who clogged the sink. The fact is that, although I've lived here 3 years and have plunged the sink countless times, it's always drained really slow. I've used every concoction available to try to get rid of whatever blockage there might have been. To my disgrace, however, it was one of my roommates who first decided to undo the plumbing underneath it to see if he could get at it. Luckily he had no success and my reputation is no worse for the wear!

Anyway, I am happy to report that, after 3 years of just dealing with it, Saturday I finally had it. It was pouring outside anyway, so I decided to see if I could get at it. I started small, but ended big! This bugger was really in there and out of reach of all the tools I had. I even tried using tubing, wiring, etc to get at the clog but nothing worked. I was even trying to use the garden hose (inside the house) to try to flush out the pipe.

I was giving up and putting everything back together when I broke one of the connectors. That earned a mad dash to Lowes before it closed to buy a new one. While there I decided to get a real plumbing snake and give it one more try. I'm sure to encounter clogs again and now I'll have the right tool! I'm glad I bought it - that ended up being all I needed. I pulled one massive hairball out of the drain and, after that, I had no more draining problems. I guess it was a good thing I broke the connector? Now any clog within 25 feet of an opening had better beware! I can get you!

I did make a bit of a mess, so I ended up having to clean the entire bathroom after I got it all back together. The good news is the drain still works like it should even after I put it back together and we now have a very clean bathroom. So, any visitors? For you winter visitors, the thermostat isn't broken; it's just set low!

Oh, and one final picture in tribute to the month of non-stop rain we've had out here. Honestly, I'm starting to feel like I'm back home! I thought this was a desert!

Yellowstone!

2009-06-07T23:04:00.009-06:00

Despite living within driving distance for that past 8 years, I've never been to Yellowstone. Well, thanks to Besty's wedding, that's all changed. My family did it's first road trip in a long time - we actually went to see some of the sites before the wedding day!

There's all sorts of things to see. I don't think that's news to anyone. The trick is actually seeing it! Bison were in abundant supply. It's amazing how stupid some people are, though, coming within inches of them. A very impressive animal to see. Just ask Katy: it's amazing how big their heads are compared to their bodies!

Other wildlife was remarkably elusive. Just to rub it in, there were plenty of people willing to tell you what they'd seen! On the other hand, there is an abundant supply of hot springs and geysers to visit. They just smell. It's amazing how it seemed to follow us in the car, too!

The smell obviously didn't seem to bother Taylor!

With the spring runoff going strong, the rivers and waterfalls were also amazing to see.

My most favorite site had to be Artist Point with its waterfall in the distance and the river coursing through the colored canyon walls. It's impossible to take a bad picture there.

Finally, just as we were leaving our last stop we spotted a bear just off the road. Micah had been dying to see one up close the entire time. He's connected to the right source! I only managed a couple pictures before the rangers showed up and kicked us out.

Katy, Micah, Laree and I decided to leave through the South entrance and go through the Tetons. We got it timed just about right. If we'd spent any more time in Yellowstone, the Tetons would have been completely covered by a rain storm that was blowing in. As is, there still impressive to see.

It was a busy trip - over 500 miles in 3 days. Still, a great time that I'd do again! And now, just for fun...

Happy 33rd Anniversary

2009-06-02T22:05:00.004-06:00

It's been a busy week! This week promises more of the same. My parents just celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary. Conveniently, Betsy is getting married this week. My parents were out here for the celebration, so we surprised them with a book of pictures and thoughts. My parents are IMPOSSIBLE to shop for. However, if you can get something sentimental, you're golden. Here they are reading the book.

Katy (and Micah), with her infinite patience, made 5 pies with all the kiddies. However, by the time we got around to celebrating, all the kids were in bed so they didn't get any! They did a good job, though!

Since it was a week before the wedding and so much of the family is already out here, we spent the weekend visiting Yellowstone. We rented a cabin for it. It was a beautiful escape from the city and the chaos that is sure to reign this next week! Here's the sunset that first evening

ISEF 2009

2009-05-25T00:52:00.009-06:00

I had the opportunity this year to again accompany the winners from our Regional Science and Engineering Fair to the International Science and Engineering Fair in, hold your breath, Reno, NV. I guess I'd like to start this post by asking you to think about what you did during the summer when you were in high school. Now compare it to some of the examples below. Oh, and don't worry - I failed this test as well!

This kid built and tested whatever that contraption is. I just took his picture - no conversation.

The students came across a scientific publication that reported sparks may produce more energy out than is put in. If true, this violates one of the fundamental laws - conservation of energy. I'm not sure what their final conclusion was, but they had an impressive project!

These sisters taught themselves how to program and image process. They developed a program that is able to identify cavities in digital x-rays of teeth. They have had quite a run at ISEF - the ribbons indicate how many years they have been coming: one for each year.

I also don't know what these girls did, but they had a creative way to display even more information - 2 posters!

If you think that's good, check out this one! Not sure, however, if the judge is supposed to sit on the floor to see it all!

Ok, here are the students we brought from our fair. 2 individuals, 1 team and 2 student observers. Funny, we also had 5 adults! The kids weren't getting away with anything! Not that I was worried - not the trouble-causing type of kids!

It's amazing what some people bring! Check out the size of this crate one of the projects was shipped in! That's amazing!

The nice thing about this fair is that it is huge! Because of that, it attracts media and celebrities. Conan O'Brien was walking around for about 5 hours interviewing kids. There were all sorts of TV crews there, radio, etc.

After setting up, there is an opening social. I talked 3 of our 6 students into going to it (it was pretty lame). We ended up meeting this student from Pakistan. He was quite the social guy, talking to anyone who wanted to talk to him. He had an interesting story. In order to come to ISEF he had to learn English, so he did - in 3 days!! Also, his poster got destroyed by the airline on the way over so he had to completely redo it that day.

Judging at our fair is 3.5 hours. At ISEF it is 10 hours (with breaks)! It's an all day, draining process, Here's our 4 on their way.

Evan's project was to develop a system that analyzed the integrity of a model bridge, sending a text message to a predetermined phone number when there was a significant change in monitored parameters. He took third in his category.

Sarah and Shwan (sorry Shwan, the judge was in the way) analyzed bacteria found on public diaper changing tables before and after wiping with clorox wipes.

Matt developed a new and improved technique for drawing images on a computer screen (rendering). He also took third in his category.

It is a very long day. Throw in some serious jet lag, and I'm surprised I only stumbled across one team catching up on sleep during the final break in the day (4pm).

After it was over, we decided to lighten it up a bit with some fun pictures. Here's our secret agents coming to the rescue.

Scenery shot

More fun

Spelling out Utah!

It was harder to get them back up after this picture that it was to get them down so I could take it!

This was our most successful year at ISEF yet. Out students won 3 special awards and 2 category awards! Great job! If you still want to see more, I put several more here.

EASTER!!!

2009-04-22T23:05:00.006-06:00

Every family has their traditions for the holidays. I must admit, growing up I was extremely jealous of the kids who got the plastic eggs filled with money. Being from a large family, we did what was practical - instead of looking for eggs we looked for jelly beans! Well, now that we're all (supposed to be) too old to search, we are passing the tradition on to the next generation. I think they're sold! Look at that hoard!

You can get real creative with jelly beans. The multi-colors and small size makes them great for hiding in real obvious places. It only took a couple rounds for dad to learn to count the jelly beans before and after to make sure we found them all. Here's a nice pic of Jamie stealing one of Sophie's jelly beans.

Trav's a little too small to participate. Looks like he didn't mind! Just wait til he figures it out, though. No stopping him!

But I digress... Back to the hunt. Apparently the obvious ones weren't obvious enough so Renee made some real obvious ones for Sophie. And yes, if you hadn't guessed yet, this is mostly going to be about Sophie.

Case and point about the ability to hide them. There is a black jelly bean sitting on this lamp. Jamie finally decided to play fair and let Sophie get it. These were the fun ones because she'd look but not see it at first, but then would get really excited when she spotted it.

I figured Bryce followed the same procedure as dad - count before and after. I therefore decided to add a new twist to the game. I bought some jelly beans and, while everyone else was looking, I was hiding more of them! So you had to keep going back because you never knew if a new jelly bean was back. It makes the hunt last longer! It also contributed to Sophies loot, seen in the first picture.

The dinner spread as only Lisa can lay it out. We ate well!

And dessert. Yeah, you're jealous!

Jamie and Sophie started playing this game during dinner. Sophie would "call" Jamie and they'd have a conversation. Here's the call:

I guess Jamie had run out of English conversations by this point so he started talking in Spanish.

Unfazed by all the pictures being taken of her, Sophie decided to assist the paparazzi by taking some picture of herself.

Good thing she did - I finally managed to get a picture of her with a normal smile!

As for the rest of the night, entertainment was provided by, you guessed it, Sophie dancing to her favorite songs. She even pulled out her tutu and everything. Thanks to Bryce for being a helping with the lifts and spinning.

Best date EVER!!!!

2009-04-12T00:13:00.006-06:00

That heading ought to get me a couple more hits than usual! Now to explain. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may have picked up that I like volunteering with the local figure skating club. If you didn't know that, here's a quick hit-list to catch you up to speed: 1, 2, 3, 4. Once a year they put on an ice show. I've gone to 3 of the last four. It's not the Olympics, but there are some Olympians in the show (including one who does back flips!). Anyway, it's a fun event and it's an excuse to run into some of my friends!

The past couple of years I've been trying to get my niece Sophie there. Yes, Bryce and Lisa, I thought you'd enjoy it too, but I really wanted to see her reaction to a bunch of "ice princesses". Alas, Bryce and Lisa had plans that night. They kindly enough decided to let Sophie decide if she wanted to go with me. I think it took her about 3 seconds (yes, I mentioned seeing princesses several times) for her to tell daddy she wanted to go see the ice princesses with Uncle Cris! Yeah!

This was a big deal because it meant leaving her cousin and lots of cool toys. Still, when the moment came, she was still really excited. Bryce had kindly enough gotten her all pretty for her date with Uncle Cris. Just check out that smile!!

Ok, she's probably most excited about the snow she's getting to eat. Still, this is just picking her up. We've got hours to go still! Kindly enough, everything was running late, so we got there just as they were getting ready to start. They did a quick opening number, to which Sophie was enthralled.

However, just as they were getting near the end of the first performance, she looked over and said "I want to see more princesses". Perfect timing! The number ended and out came about 15 skaters! She was thrilled! It worked out pretty well. Each number was between 2-3 minutes, so just as she was getting bored of one, a whole new group would come out.

Perhaps the one performance that caught her attention the most was one based on Rocky and done to Eye of the Tiger. "Rocky" came out with his robe still on. This is the Rocky where he fights the Russian so he's got his USA shorts on and a blue and red cape. Well, she's never seen Rocky, but she does know superman. So if she's telling you about it and happens to mention superman, that's the one she's talking about.

I guess one of the best ways to measure how good a date is going is if your date is not afraid to be themself. I hear one of the hardest first dates if going out to eat. With Sophie, it was dinner and a show. And, guessing by how she was eating her food, she was very comfortable!! Of course, it probably helps that I look just like her dad! She even slipped and called me daddy a couple times!

With so much music and dancing going on, it was all she could do to stay in her seat! Of course, every time you try to catch it, she'd stop and just stare at you, so this is the best I could do. Just know she did much better!

These next few pictures are after the show had ended. She's in various stages of taking off all her sweaters getting ready to go down onto the ice to spin. She didn't ever make it onto the ice unfortunately, but mom and dad may have to start taking her to lessons soon!
Before...

Now taking off the jacket...

And now the sweater...

I did make arrangements to have her meet some of the princesses. However, I didn't get any pictures because, although she was thrilled to see them, she wouldn't go near them! Also, sorry the pictures are all so dark - they don't like flash photography, and some don't even like people taking pictures of their skater. So I played it safe.

And now in parting, one last picture of the date.

If you build it, they will come!

2009-04-11T23:46:00.004-06:00

Just following up on the science fair, I need to mention it was held in the University's football stadium - the VIP section/press boxes. It's a really cool venue and probably the reason why many of our kids participate! It is kind of a funny location, though, if you think about it. I mean, this is the "temple" of sports here in the city and yet we have the regional science fair there!

I honestly don't care much for the football, but the views were spectacular.

After spending an entire day there, I can vouch for how pretty the sunrises and sunsets are from this vantage point. And hey, you get a pretty good view of the mountains, too!

I hypothesize ...

2009-04-11T22:43:00.011-06:00

For all you wondering where I've been the last month, I am happy to announce that this year's science fair was a success. This was my fifth year being involved with it and potentially my last (I do hope to graduate at some point). In the past, I've spent all my time in a completely separate part of the building running the scoring. This year I wanted to experience more of what made it fun - the actual fair - so I spent a lot of time walking around and taking in the atmosphere (and taking pictures). Nothing like 300 kids sweating it out while they wait to get judged!

For those of you who have forgotten what it was like, let me walk you through it. You show up for the judging period to find the judges are already circulating and previewing projects. Prepare for the best day of your life - the opportunity to talk to a fellow geek who really understands what you did for your project! The longest 4 hours of your life! Here's a couple views.

Ok, enough of the distance shots. Let's really take a look at the interviewing! Remember those cute posters you spent more time on than your actual project? Check them out!

The fun this year for me was that I was able to talk a couple friends into helping judge. Here's one of them. I was actually her TA 3 times! Not bad, considering I only was a TA 4 times! She looks like she's having fun, but the student looks horrified!

Here's another one of our judges really geeking it out! I was actually waiting to talk to him. He was talking to this kid for at least half an hour!

Our biggest challenge with judging is convincing our judges not to give every elementary kid a 100! When training judges, we warn them that judging these kids is like trying to pick a puppy! How can you pick one over another? There all just too dang cute!

This judge is actually a former roommate of mine. He did great, especially considering this kid put on an awesome presentation. Notice the pointer in her hand. As she was talking to him, she'd use it to point out the corresponding information on her poster. She really was a great saleswoman! They make it tough!

Honestly, the only reason I've been involved as long as I have is because I absolutely love working with the other people. LaraLee had been involved for the previous 3 years, but this year took on a different assignment for the Utah Science Center so I only got to work with her the day of the fair. The other two are our fair director and fair manager. We spend a lot of hours over the year getting the fair together, so we get to know each other pretty well. You can probably tell by the looks on their faces!

I'm really excited because this year I'm going to be one of the chaperones (again) to the international fair. So I'm still involved with the fair, and now actually helping mentor some of our winners to help them get ready for it! Pictures coming in May!

Odd...

2009-03-17T20:40:00.003-06:00

A few nights ago I came home to an odd situation - half the outlets and none of the appliances were working. My roommate told me they had been having issues with the power. It had been flickering on and off, and everything seemed to be running at half power. Then all of a sudden, his computer turned off. None of the appliances worked. That's odd...

I was confused because I discovered it when trying to use my laptop - no internet, and then my ac adapter light wouldn't turn on. I went to warm up dinner and the microwave wouldn't work. But all the lights worked, the outlets in the bedrooms and bathroom worked. Weird. I checked the breakers, but none were thrown. I threw them all and reset them, but still no luck. Odd...

The next thought was if a GFI outlet needed to be reset. We only have one - it's in the bathroom and it was working. It was really weird. How often do you have a power failure on only half the house? And how? I was starting to get worried. I'm narrowing the causes down to malfunctioning wiring somewhere. A little spooky. That or there was a power surge and it burned out the motors in the microwave, regrigerator, router, modem, laptop, desktop, monitor, speakers... But then the outlets were completely dead as well. Odd... Something was missing still...

As a last resort I went looking outside to see if there was another breaker between the house and the lines. There was, and there is where I found the cause. We have what is called a bust box. It's an old fashioned fuse box, complete with a big switch and everything. Inside there are 2 60 amp fuses. One was completely charred and burned through. Aha! Got it. 2 fuses regulating power to the house. One fuse dead, half the house doesn't work. That DOES make sense. Finally!!

That is kind of freaky. 60 amps is a LOT of current draw. For comparison, the fuses in your car are thin little wires. This has a metal plate, and it was completely burned through! Still not sure what the cause was, but my guess is the fuse was really old and just went bad.

$3 dollars later, everything was fixed! Not bad considering that despite his promises to come out the next morning to take a look, the landlord still hasn't shown up!

What? Engineers Socialize?

2009-02-25T12:26:00.006-07:00

Yes, I know. Who would have thought it possible? Getting six engineering students (and one poor friend) together on a work night to cook dinner might seem daunting, if not down right scary! Who would have thought it could be so fun? One of my co-workers had the brilliant idea. Everyone was to bring something unprepared, and we were going to get together and cook them. Not a bad idea! And with 6 people, we were bound to have some variety!

Even more odd, it was the guys cooking on the stove and the girls cooking on the grill!

We ended up with salad, garlic mashed potatoes, cheese bread (all gone by the time the picture was taken)), chili toppings ...

corn bread muffins, schishkabobs ...

a yellow curry Thai dish, and southwest chicken chili.

Behind the Thai dish you can just make out the hot apple cider. We also had freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, sparkling water, and FIVE flavors of homemade ice cream for dessert (blackberry, raspberry, kiwi, chocolate, and the most amazing mint chocolate chip ever)!! If you left this place hungry, it's because you either have weird allergies or had to leave early to study for a test!

The food was great, and I think we lost the non-engineer just once with our conversation. We had so many leftovers, I'm pushing to do it again tonight! So on the whole, I think we've just been given a bad reputation. I'm sure more people would go into engineering if they knew they could have this much fun!

Let there be ... Heat!

2009-02-19T14:37:00.004-07:00

I had a friend tell me the other day that their heater was just blowing cold air. Kind of stinks when you're in the middle of the winter to lose your heat! Their landlord isn't the best about taking care of things either, so I thought I'd stop by and take a peek.

I should mention that in my last apartment, this happened to us. You'd hear the ignition clicking but it wouldn't light. However, the fan would go so you'd just get room air blowing. That's still better than outside air, but it also means the apartment just gets colder and colder. The trick then? They told me they just cleaned it.

Well, I can clean! I stopped by the other night, and all 3 roommates were huddled in sweats, sweaters, etc. When one went to get a blanket to wrap herself in, I remembered the heater wasn't working. I took a look and it sure looked similar to what happened to me. I had no special tools, but thought I'd at least try cleaning with the vacuum. Five minutes later, the heat was going strong! By the time I left I think the apartment was at 80!!

Add one more to the list!

Big Feet!

2009-02-09T22:02:00.010-07:00

I'm a fairly active person. However, winters keep me pretty much a homebody. Well, thanks to some great friends, I've been breaking out and doing outdoorsy stuff in the winter! Specifically, I've gone snowshoeing twice this month.

Honestly, both times I really didn't need snowshoes. So many people go hiking that the trails were well packed. The fun with hiking in the winter is everything is covered by 2-3 feet of snow (in the mountains) so you can run around off the trail without worrying about destroying vegetation.

The first time I went with some friends from work. They are the ones who introduced me to the fun of running down hills (see first picture) and between trail sections. They are also the ones who lent me the snowshoes both times!

We even created a "short-cut" by cutting around this section instead of going up and over. Since it was my first time (???) I got to blaze the trail.

I wish I could say that we were only able to capture this shot because we wore snowshoes, but not true.

I put more pictures from this hike here.

The second time I went with my roommates and some of their friends. This hike was a little lower in elevation and much straighter. It means we didn't climb as much but also allowed me to capture longer shots on the camera.

Honestly, this is probably the first thing I've really done with my roommates. It was a lot of fun! We found a tennis ball at the beginning and passed the first couple miles or so by throwing it into branches overhanging the trail and causing snow to fall on someone's head. Anyway, here's a picture taken as we were on the way out. It looks like everyone had a good time, right?

I had a friend visiting from Boston that weekend who joined us. Nothing like going on a long hike (about 5 hours) with 6 people you've never met before to pass the time! Keep in mind the constant threat of snow falling down your back as well and I'd say she looks like she still enjoyed it!

Here's the same shot but with us out of the way. The views were gorgeous. The amount of snow in the trees really surprised me! It made for some great pictures.

Five hours is a long time to walk with snowshoes on your feet. We were all tired and starving, so if we look a little out of it, that's why. Here's everyone in a line. Oh, and if you're curious, my roommates are the first and last people.

I took a lot more pictures than I dare put up here. If you're interested, the rest are posted here.

One year already?

2009-02-06T11:59:00.013-07:00

About a year ago, a friend of mine passed away. Last year I posted this about Cat. I really have nothing new to add except that I'm still thinking of her and her family.

Trial and Error

2009-02-06T10:54:00.006-07:00

Does that title indicate if I fixed the CD changer or not? I was all excited last night to get it installed and see if it worked. Upon plugging it in, it was apparent I had fixed the old problem, as there was a lot more movement than there had been before. However, it appears I'd either discovered or introduced a new problem since it now couldn't pull CDs from the magazine. Dang!

Luckily, this time I had access to the car, so with the changer partially disassembled, we were able to play with it to get the puller in the correct position. However, now it couldn't lift the tray high enough to engage the player. After a couple more trips out to the car for testing and numerous more times of assembling and disassembling the changer, I finally spotted what was causing the problem. From that it became apparent that I hadn't put one of the pieces back in correctly. I fixed that and put it back together for one more test and...it worked!!!

With a functioning 6-disc changer, my friend is now motivated to making longer drives so she can rediscover her CD's. Mom, I got the Geek Squad bag just in time. I loaded my tools into it before heading over. It just meant I had to fix it!

Oh, and this so gets added the list of things I've fixed!

Now, the consummate engineer, here's the evaluation of what I'd do different next time.

Eject the CD magazine using something long and skinny.
Take out all the trays (so that the missing one could be put in).
Put the empty magazine back in.
Let the changer put the "missing" tray back in wherever.
Eject the magazine. (the receipt wouldn't have interfered with this)
Reach in and remove the receipt.

That would have taken 10 minutes tops.

Be careful what you post...

2009-02-05T01:17:00.006-07:00

I have discovered that people actually read my blog! What a refreshing thought to think it's more than just me reading this thing! Lesson learned - be careful what you post!!! Apparently my last post about all the projects I worked on over Christmas gave a friend of mine the confidence to ask me if I would try to fix the 6-disc CD changer in her car.

I honestly thought when she was asking that she just didn't know how to put the CD's in. Nope. That was not the problem. We couldn't even get the CD magazine to eject. I was hoping to just find a backup eject button (like on your computer CD player) or that maybe I could just take a couple screws out and get it to work. Nope. After keeping her up WAY past her bedtime, I finally removed the CD player from her car and took it to my place to work on.

After removing the black casing, I found yet another housing! This thing was well protected...which meant there was that much more to remove to get a look at the inside. While looking at it, we'd noticed some paper inside the metal casing on the bottom. I figured it was some sort of warranty paper or something. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a receipt that had somehow gotten in there! And this thing was really in there.

This is what we call an exploded view in engineering. I basically removed every piece I could to try to figure out what was going on, not to mention find a way to get the receipt out. As for what happened, it appears a receipt found its way into the changer, perhaps when some new CD's were being put in. Because it's a 6 disc changer, the "grabber" raises and lowers. The reader is actually on the top of the unit, so the right half is mostly empty on the bottom when the CD is playing.

Anyway, the receipt had gotten onto the right side. When the grabber was switching a CD tray near the bottom, it appears to have snagged the receipt. It interfered with the tray. At some point it appears the unit was reset. However, it was done when a tray was out of the magazine. The reset erases the memory of where the tray goes, so it was trying to put it into a slot that already had a tray. Because it couldn't do it, it wouldn't eject the magazine. Nice cascade of events! Here's the culprit.

The first good sign is that I was able to put it all back together when done. Not bad considering how many pieces it was in before! The next good sign - no left over screws! It seems I always have one...

Honestly, I don't know if I actually fixed it or not yet. I kind of need her car back to try that out. Still, it all looks good. Now I cross my fingers and hope I got it all back together correctly!

Christmas Projects!! (i.e. chores)

2009-01-23T22:02:00.009-07:00

I know it sounds bad, but it's been so long since I've lived at home that my visits there rarely venture farther than my bedroom to the living room. Combine that with the fact that I have an incredibly difficult time sitting still andto you can see how I get antsy to return to school when I'm home for any real length of time. I can only sit around for so long doing little to nothing!

Well, that's a not a problem anymore. I'm not sure if it's my past visits where I spent 2 weeks cleaning off the computer that dropped the hint, but my parents have finally figured out how to keep me entertained while home: provide me with a list of projects to work on. This year, I think it was a list of everything they've wanted to do over the past year!

I should mention that dad will normally take off whatever remaining holidays he has at the end of the year. He suffers from the same drive to accomplish something so he was a companion on almost all of these projects.

I've already introduced project #1. Fixing the snowblower. It wasn't overly difficult - we just had to switch the augers around so they pushed snow to the middle instead of the outside.

#2. With all the pictures from the wedding as well as the new all-nighters on limewire, the computer kept throwing warnings about not having enough free space to operate. We had an extra 20 Gb hard drive lying around, so I added in to the computer and moved all music and pictures over to it. The error went away, and we now had 22 Gb free on the C drive.

#3. For Christmas, mom got an external hard drive. I got to install that. I then moved all pictures and music over to it.

#4. Itunes had a couple issues with the switch, so I ended up having to fix it as well. Just changing what folder it pointed to, but if you're the only one who knows how to do it, it still counts!

#5. The past 3 years have had a similar project - fixing the windshield washer fluid motor on mom's car. The first time we were set to buy a new one, but it cost $50. As a last resort, I pried the motor open, wiggled it a little, put it back together, and it worked again.

It stopped working again some point later on, so last year we did the same thing again. Apparently it stopped working just a couple weeks after. This year I tried the same trick, but it wasn't budging this time. We then tried removing the motor from the tank. It came off quite easily. A quick trip to the salvage yard yielded a similar motor. $5 later we had it all working again!

I don't know how they drove with it broken. You get all that road spray on the windshield and the only way to remove it was pull over and either rub snow on the windshield or pour the fluid directly on the windshield.

#6. Nothing like a working sprayer to make it obvious your windshield wipers need replacing. I did that as well.

#7. We had a porcelain light fixture in a closet with the pots, pans, tupperware, etc. Somehow it had shattered. I removed the fragments of the old one and installed a new one.

#8. Mom and dad got a digital picture frame for Christmas. They decided to put it on the piano. Problem - there is no accessible outlet on that wall. We therefore added one. It works great!

#9. With TV switching to digital, mom and dad had purchased a analog to digital converter. However, they hadn't figured out how to make it work. I spent a little time on it and figured it out. Incidentally, if you're holding off, I wouldn't! There are multiple channels where there used to be one, and the picture is great with the digital converted. Where you used to have to get the rabbit ears just right to make out some stations, they now come through perfectly clear! After a couple training lessons, I think they got it!

#10. Installed 7 cam (recessed) lights in the kitchen. This was a 2 day project and by far our biggest undertaking. It was also the most documented. Sorry for all the pics! We used to have 3 lights in the kitchen controlled by 2 light switches. Two (the ones on the end) were cam lights and in the middle we had this yellow-covered incandescent light fixture. The light above the sink was on its own switch. The other two were on another switch.

The first night we bought all the supplies, mapped out where the lights were going to go, and replaced the incandescent fixture with another flood light. The white discs are marking where the other lights are going to go. Because it's recessed it doesn't throw the light as far (hence the need for more lights), but the light it does throw is much brighter and whiter.

The next day I marked all the holes and got ready for the fun job of cutting them out of a wood-paneled ceiling. Here's the pre-destruction picture. This took quite a while because it was the most important. They had to be far enough from the cabinets to not throw shadows, but at the same time close enough so that your own head doesn't cast a shadow while you're working at the counter. Additionally, they all had to be symmetrically spaced so they didn't look weird. It took a while to finally settle on a layout!

Our original plan was to connect all the lights to one of the existing switches, turning them all on at the same time. With the increased light output is increased heat output, and mom was worried the kitchen would be a sauna. After discussing it with dad and investigating the possibilities, we decided to leave the old lights and switches as they were and turn the halves of two 4-socket outlets into two new light switches, putting half of the new lights on each switch.

You want to talk about another couple-hour project, it is running wire from the ceiling down to the existing boxes. The hardest part is getting the wire into the box! The next challenge is getting everything back into the box! There's a lot of wire behind what you see! As you can see, it took 2 engineers working on it to get it all back together!

The new layout still has the front middle two lights on the same original switch and the sink still on it's own switch. A new switch to the left of the stove turns on the 3 lights above the counters on the left side of the stove. The new switch on the right of the stove turns on the 3 lights above the stove, cutting board and mixer area. Pretty slick if I say so myself!

Unfortunately, a new challenge was encountered when trying to run the wire. There were a couple beams in the way! Luckily we could go over them, but wire doesn't like to stay straight over that distance! Here we are ready to install the new fixtures.

Now came the time to figure out how good a job I did at cutting the circles. If they are just a little bit wider than the template, the lip will not be able to cover it up. If they are just a little bit smaller, the fixture won't go it. We only had to trim 2 of the holes!

In the end, we had a beautifully lit kitchen. What do you think of the finished product?

#11. Rotate the tires on the car. Laree went sledding in mom's car. When she hit the curb, she broke a good piece of the rim off. When I was driving around getting stuff for the reception, I noticed the right front tire wobbled quite a bit. When working on the windshield wiper motor, I noticed the rim had been chewed up. I spent an hour or so at the salvage yard looking for a replacement rim. The problem when you drive the most popular car out there is that the ones in the salvage yard have been picked pretty clean! So that you wouldn't feel the shaking, dad had me rotate it to the back.

#12. I noticed the ottoman in the TV room didn't rock smoothly. Upon inspection I discovered that the support screws on the right side had stripped. I dug through dad's nuts and bolts and was able to put it back together. It now works great!

#13. Every year the stereo system has been moved somewhere new and has not been put back together correctly. I was able to get the speakers connected. I also added a new 1/8" to stereo RCA cable so that anything with a headset output can be connected to the stereo. The thought was to watch a movie on a laptop while still enjoying quality sound.

#14. When I got back to my apartment, my roommates were commenting on having to get a plumber to unclog the tub. I spent 5 minutes in there with a plunger and it now works fine.

#15. My other claim to fame. Over the break, a friend of mine dropped their (rather large and heavy) printer right on the corner where the power goes in. She had taken the paneling off but couldn't see anything broken. However, the printer would no longer work. The drop had bent a screw so I took the circuit board (right in that corner where the power goes in) out to look at.

As soon as I unscrewed it, it was apparent that the drop had cracked the board in several places. The cracks had broken several traces on the circuit board, which was why the printer no longer worked. Luckily, we have a soldering iron at work so I took the board up there with me. I was hoping to repair it by bridging the traces on either side of the crack with solder. It really wasn't that difficult. You just have to scrape off the green silk screen to expose the copper on both sides. Still, some of the traces were pretty small and close to other components so it was a little tricky.

Well, obviously if it's on this list it worked. Yeah!!

#16. Glad I brought the soldering iron home with me! Bryce called and asked if I had one. Apparently Sophie got a remote controlled (with a wire) puppy for Christmas. However, it had gotten sucked up into the vacuum and wripped the wire. I brought it down and put the puppy together again!

#17. I put together a friend's bookcase!

Jamie & Michelle's reception

2009-01-09T20:11:00.018-07:00

I did promise to give a list of projects I did while home this Christmas break, but that will have to come after the biggest project of them all - the reception. This starts to get challenging when it is the 6th one your family has done. It has to be classy yet unique. With so many, it's also nice if it's cheap! That means a lot of the stuff purchased for earlier receptions has to be recycled and reused in new and creative ways because, let's be honest, the world would stop if two siblings had similar receptions!

While there's no lack of creativity in the house, there is probably less energy and enthusiasm than there was when we put on the first reception. It also doesn't help that we have downsized from a 15 passenger van to sedans (thanks Laree. I still blame you for breaking the van!) What does that mean? We've resorted to picking the trash for decorations! Honestly, and Christmas is a wonderful time of year to do that! For example, these white trees we salvaged!

Ok, I should say they weren't pulled from the trash. They were saved from going there - or delayed. These were used at a dance put on by the university wards back home. My mom thought they looked real cool, so she got permission to take them to use for the reception. Honestly, these are much more creative than we are capable of!

As for recycling, we've got tons of toole and lights. Toole by itself only really works the first time. We've mastered the art of wrapping it around the lights and hanging it in any desired pattern in order to decorate a gym. Yeah, we've got enough of both to completely ring a basketball court - with more to spare! Here are the cousins working their magic.

As for centerpieces (because of course you have to have them), Betsy got to design those. Again, just upside down glass goblets with either a pomegranate or lime on top and a battery candle underneath. Pretty spiffy, huh? It took 2 pictures to fully capture, though.

Now, whether she wanted to or not, mom gave Michelle the task of making these trees. In case you're curious, they are 100% chocolate. The snow on the trees is white chocolate while on the ground it is coconut. She spent 2 days working on these! We hid some lights under the coconut for quite an awesome effect, I think!

And then to try to give a feel of the overall aura created for the reception, here is a shot of the center table with the outer decorations. Again, it was pretty cool! We even had enough lights to kill the fluorescent ones in the ceiling!

Now most receptions have a guest book that visitors sign. We had one of those, but due to family tradition, we also have the guests sign a tablecloth. Any of you who have been to our house for dinner know what that's all about. Whether the newly weds decide to carry that on or not is up to them, I guess. However, I'd recommend it because otherwise the new couple receives a ruined tablecloth! Here's Aunt BJ modeling it for us.

ps - we put the new digital frame to use for the reception as well. It'll show pictures, play music in the background, and even play videos! Not bad!

And finally, the food. Let's just take for granted that there was an enormous assortment of mom's cookies and candies. That's the one staple at our receptions. It's the "main course" that varies. This time it was a hot chocolate bar, complete with all sorts of toppings you'd probably never thought of putting in your hot chocolate:

as well as a chocolate fountain complete with a dipping selection of homemade marshmallows, fruit, and a couple other things I can no longer identify!

In case there was any doubt, it was another successful reception to go down in the annals of family history. As always, kid friendly but classy! Best wishes, Jamie and Michelle.

Merry Christmas!

2009-01-09T19:31:00.003-07:00

Despite all the fun we were having in Cali, the snow beckoned. Alas, we had to return. We got home early on the 23rd. There was a tree in the living room, but it hadn't yet been decorated. Santa had hours of wrapping to do, and there was still some settling in to do. Oh, and a couple projects, but I'll save those for another posts.

The girls took to the tree. I don't think we've ever had a tree with so many lights on it. It looked great, and even better because I didn't have to worry about breaking any of the ornaments. Yes, there are still some paper and plastic ones, but now we also include glass and ceramic ornaments. Here's the finished project on the all important day.

The way we do it at home is everyone empties their stocking first, and then we all sit around while the presents are opened one at a time. It's much easier now that we are so few at home and have much more patience! So here's mom and Renee. I'm not sure what Renee was expecting Santa to bring her, but here she is getting ready.

Here's dad, ever the engineer, computing the percentage of Laree's body that will be covered by her new scarf. In case you're curious, it depends on if you wrap in a spiral or overlap. Roughly 40% of her body could be covered by the overlap technique while her entire body could be covered if we wrapped her like a mummy! No cold air is getting in there!

I'm not sure there is anything too special about this picture except that it shows mom and dad excited upon opening a present. These are some of the most impressive sweaters I've ever seen. They are very warm. While both parents appreciate warmth, they seem to always be cold. I'd say turn up the heat, but I guess this is a cheaper solution.

And finally, mom's big gift from dad. Yes folks, that is an external hard drive with a 640 Gb capacity. As if she didn't already save every possible photo of the grandkids, now she has the capability to do so. So come on, everyone, forward her all those pictures you've been saving.

Hey, for a small fee, maybe she'll also store any electronic data you just don't have room for on your own computer!

Boys and their Toys

2008-12-23T12:52:00.009-07:00

What better way to follow up driving through a snow storm to get to California (notice the short sleeves on Michelle's dress) than to return home to a foot of new snow! At 3am! Someone (most likely one of our awesome neighbors) had cleared our driveway and stairs.

However, since my parents had taken a shuttle to and from the airport, the cars were buried. We also had the treat at the front of the driveway the plows always leave. Since I was still wired, I decided to do the final touch-ups.

For some added perspective, here's my proof the snow is about 1 cubit.

For the second half, I have to explain a little. With 10 kids, my parents were constantly looking for things to keep us busy. Why remove a perfectly good chore that could keep 2-3 kids busy with a machine? That logic kept us from having a dish washer, garbage disposal, and, in this case, a snow blower. Well, with all but one of us out of the house, my parents were realizing that the snow shoveling duties were all theirs again. That was all it took - they got a snow blower. Ok, someone moving gave them their broken one. Still, they never would have accepted it with all of us there!

I guess dad spent some time before coming out to Cali to repair it. One minor detail - he put the auger in backwards. So instead of pushing snow to the middle so it could be thrown up and out, it was pushing snow to the outside. After a little repair work again this morning, he took his new toy for a test drive. What do you think?

So funny story. The snow was remarkably powdery for New England, and it was a little windy. The chute was throwing the snow too high and into the wind. Shortly after these pictures, dad turned around. His head, glasses, shoulders and gloves were covered in snow. What did he have to say? "Your turn"

I can almost guarantee that this path never got cleared when we had to do it by hand. With it, we cleared out not only this sidewalk, but one for the mailman, one to the compost pile, and another to the tool shed.

It's still some work to wrestle this thing through a foot of snow, but it sure makes the work go a LOT quicker! So come on, baby, let it snow! I'm ready!!

All-nighter!

2008-12-23T12:52:00.004-07:00

I know last week was finals week, but that was not why I pulled an all-nighter. Just want to point out I didn't have any finals to those of you who did. No, my all nighter came courtesy of my brother's wedding in Sacramento. The local family decided to carpool out in my sister's van. Thankfully, due to the snow we ended up taking Tanner's 4-wheel drive Tahoe. The all-nighter aspect came into play because it's normally a 9-hour drive and we didn't leave until 6 pm. Throw in some snow, and it took us 11 hours. Wondering what that does to you? Here's my evidence.

Luckily, we hit no bad weather after Elko. Even more thankfully, there was nothing going on in Donner Pass when we went through. We arrived at the hotel at 5 am. My brother left earlier in the day and it took them 14 hours.

Any of you who talked to me beforehand know that I was VERY apprehensive about the drive. I lived up Provo canyon for exactly one winter. I learned the benefit of chains, 4-wheel drive, etc. The biggest thing I learned, however, was that when it snows like that I don't drive. Didn't have the option of waiting since the wedding was at 12 the next day.

Throw in a family reunion, little sleep, and a wedding and your group pictures start looking like this! Renee's a little, um, excited for the camera. And that's just Laree.

The happy new couple

Jamie practicing/warming up

The luncheon

Return to the rink

2008-12-17T00:08:00.004-07:00

I made it back to the ice rink this week to catch the holiday show the local figure skating club was putting on. It was definitely low key - mostly for friends and family. Still, it had been a while since I'd been able to talk to my friends there, so I decided to stop in.

My main connection to the club has been in volunteering at their larger competitions. In the process, I've gotten to know some of them really well. The first skater of the evening happened to be one of my favorites, Camille.

Her mom was the person in charge of the two large competitions I helped out with so I got to know them pretty well. They became instant friends and have kept in contact over the years. It's not uncommon to get a phone call or email asking for an update on school (sorry it never changes - 1 more year still), family, dating (odd, that one never changes either), etc. During the events, Camille spent a lot of time just sitting around so she was my entertainment! This next picture should explain well enough!

Of course, being the first means they work out all the bugs with you. They were having issues with her music. However, she did really good in spite of it. So for your viewing pleasure, here is a recording of her performance.

Too hot to handle

2008-12-13T13:51:00.012-07:00

I love one-upping everyone else's stories. In this blog, I get to one-up Lisa's story from last year. I counter with a story of my own. I have to mention that it was the second time in one day I was involved in a news story. The first time was waiting for Wicked tickets for 7 hours that morning. No, I didn't get any tickets. They were sold out.

So that you can all experience this along with me, I'll have to give you the play by play. I hadn't gotten much sleep (3 hrs) the night before because I got up early to try and get tickets. That evening I joined some friends for a gymnastics preview meet. Afterward, they decided to go watch a movie. I needed sleep so I bailed, as did a friend who had to work at 5 am. End of scene 1.

Scene II
I wake up to a phone call at 1 am from the same friend. I'm just a little out of it as I'm trying to figure out why she's still awake. The conversation went something like this:
A: Hey Cris. I wanted to know if you're ok.
me: ????. Yeah, fine. Why?
A: Well the complex next to yours is on fire. I wasn't sure if yours was as well.
me: ?!?!?!?! Really?
A: Yeah, it's pretty bad. The street is filled with fire trucks.

OK, you get the point. So while she's on the phone with me, this is what she's looking at. My apartment is probably at the left edge of the picture.

The section you see burning is the middle third of the apartment complex just next to my apartment. Literally. It's like 15 feet away.

Well, I'm up! I told her I'd come out and meet up with her so I could take a look. I first went out to see what a quick glance would tell me. The first thing I see is tons of smoke and a couple fire trucks. I can't see any fire, although I hear the fire alarms going off. I went back in and woke up my roommate. He didn't seem too interested, so I went in my room, grabbed my camera ???, put on jeans and a coat and went out for a look. There were a bunch of people in our parking lot (behind my building) so I figured I'd go down there and see what everyone was looking at. This is what I see:

Did I mention I was awake yet? Well, I was! I still haven't seen the front, and this corner is about the furthest you can get from my apartment (diagonally, even) on that building, so I'm not too worried. I sit there for a minute, and then start walking back to the front of the building. About halfway there, I start seeing this little tongue of fire appearing and disappearing just under the roof. At the same time, I notice a couple red embers bouncing off our roof onto the ground. AHHH!!

I find this funny now, but I didn't want my place to burn down! I went down to the street and up to the first firefighter I saw and basically tell him the building is on fire. You can imagine the response to that. I did manage to explain that it was just starting to burn through on this side now as well. He was nice, but nobody went running up to deal with it.

Now I'm confused. I call my friend back and we start describing what we're seeing. I ask again where she is so we can meet up. I'm trying to prioritize getting our garden hose to spray down our roof, saving stuff from my apartment in case it goes up, and getting my new car out of the parking lot! I go back inside and wake up my roommate again. This time I told him he really needs to get up. He goes outside for a second, then comes back in and starts grabbing stuff. I grabbed some of my things just as a fireman comes in the door and tells us we're being evacuated. He did tell us they were pretty sure they could save our structure so not to worry about grabbing too much stuff.

I dump my stuff in the trunk of my car. Since I can't drive anywhere, I went back to the front and finally met with my friend. There was a very dutiful police officer on the street keeping everyone back, so we decided to go back to my parking lot. No cops, great view, and more photo ops.

The fire apparently started on the balcony of the balcony of the top right apartment in the above picture. If that's where it started, it spreads from there, right? So you'll notice the top right apartment is not longer on fire, but the top left is. Also, remember that I'd seen it just starting to burn through the roof about halfway towards my apartment.

I basically watched the entire roof section burn up. This next picture shows the roof of the complex closest to my apartment going up in all its glory.

And a picture that I got off the local news site of me recording the video above.

At this point, firefighters have taken over my front lawn, side lawn, etc. Here's one cool picture I captured from the local news station. These guys are standing right next to my porch!

I counted 20 fire trucks alone there. The location made it so that only 3-4 trucks could actually be positioned close to the buildings. Still, it's such a large complex that they needed that many men just to go through it and put out all the remaining embers.

I ended up spending the night on the floor in my friend's living room. Not the best sleep I've ever had. I just kept rethinking it over and over. This morning I went back up to get some pictures of the aftermath. I also wanted to show just how close our two buildings are. Here's a corner of my porch and front lawn with the burned complex next door.

Here is the back of the building. This portion probably has the most visible damage.

According to the latest news, the entire building (6 floors, 39 apartments) has been condemned. The top floor, attic and roof are all that actually burned, although there is obviously water and smoke damage through most of the rest of the building. It appears that the fire was started by a cigarette butt.

As for the residents, there were no injuries. People were coming back today to get stuff out of their apartments. A church on the corner was opened as a temporary shelter for the tenants. If will be open again tonight. The local wards have moved into full swing, as has the red cross. I met a couple family members today trying to salvage stuff. What a horrible start to finals week and the Christmas season for a lot of people.

I'm glad my apartment was spared, and am very appreciative to the firefighters who ensured that. Now the topic of discussion in my apartment is renter's insurance and, if we had to do it over again, what would we grab from the apartment?

I'm quite curious to see what swoopref has to say about this post, seeing as he is one of America's favorite heroes and all.

Let it snow!

2008-12-09T12:55:00.002-07:00

Tradition dictates we have to go to Temple Square at least once during the Christmas season to see the lights. We seemed to have picked a perfect night, as it was snowing most of the day.

No great stories to tell. It was fun to see the lights. Catching it with a camera, however, is much more challenging than you'd think. Since it's so dark, the auto settings use the flash. Then you can't see the lights. You just see what's close to me. However, with the flash off, everything gets blurred because the shutter stays open longer. Nobody can hold that still!

I finally decided to play around with the exposure setting, decreasing it to as fast as it would go. Well, my pictures aren't blurry, but then there's not much brightness to them either. Oh well...

We finished with, suprisingly enough, hot chocolate and cheese cake. The hot chocolate is probably expected, but cheese cake? Ok, so it was leftover from our Christmas party last Friday. It was still good. And yes, we were just outside the gate. We made an impressive road block! Sorry to anyone trying to get by!

Great combo - food and friends!

2008-12-09T12:31:00.005-07:00

Our bishopric was changed at the end of August. Since then, I've been meaning to do something to get a group of us together for an evening. It took longer than I expected, but last Saturday we finally found a day that everyone could make it to. It ended up being a great time to do it because we could do a Christmas dinner!

It took a lot longer to get ready for than I thought it would! I started at 11 am and didn't really finish until 7 pm. Then the reunion went until midnight! It was a long day! Still, the apartment and setup looked great!

And yes, those are shamrocks on the napkins. Still, they were green!

I wasn't the best at taking pictures. Still, here's a couple I did get.

For all you non-believers

2008-12-08T15:09:00.005-07:00

I know many of you thought this day would never come. Well, forces conspired against me. It was finally going to be too much trouble and money to fix my old car yet again. Actually, I haven't had to do much with it over the past 3 years other than feed its insatiable appetite for oil.

Anyway, you can tell where this post is going. I found out that I had lost compression in one of my cylinders and it was going in my other ones. Translation - I had to either rebuild or replace my engine to get it past emissions. Seeing as I was already 3 months overdue on my registration, and that I'd been avoiding the inevitable for 3 years already, I finally bit the bullet and decided to get a new car.

I have decided I HATE car shopping. After numerous phone calls and emails to dad (I think he stopped answering the phone...), I finally decided to go with a car that I wouldn't have to worry about for the next 10 years - a 2005 Toyota Corolla (40k miles). And now those of you in my family, please pick your jaws up off the ground. You never thought I'd do that, did you?

Anyway, now to maybe stop the phone calls and texts, here are the pictures. And yes, it was cold when I took these pictures.

No, I don't like white cars. However, you take what you can get.

Yes, it had to be a manual. That's one of the things that made shopping so hard! Nobody likes to sell manuals - too many people don't know how to drive them. Odd, I'm counting on that!!

So here's to the nicest car I will probably ever own. It pays to be single sometimes! And now because I did pay, I'll be single even longer (can't afford to date for the next 5 years).

Thanksgiving

2008-12-08T13:18:00.004-07:00

Here's my quick summary of Thanksgiving. We all met at Chris and Nikki's house. Pretty much everyone brought something that needed to cook so we spent all morning trying to coordinate in the kitchen. It was a nice jigsaw puzzle.

With so many in one house, we couldn't all be in the same room. We had a kid table (all 10 grandkids) and an adult table (another 12 adults). Here's the kid table...

and here is the adult table. Yeah, a little nicer. We deserve it!

There was all types of noise coming out of the kitchen, but we sentenced Tiffany (Micah's sister) to the kid table to keep an eye out.

The only problem with doing all the cooking and eating is that there are mountains of dishes to wash afterwards. Following a unanimous vote, Bryce got assigned that task.

And now for my favorite picture. Nothing is cooler than having a baby fall asleep in your arms. I'm not sure why it feels so cool, but perhaps it's a sign of ultimate trust. Anyway, I put Payton to sleep!

I'm turning into my parents!!!

2008-12-08T10:50:00.002-07:00

A friend recently had her baby son. I feel oddly like my parents - I didn't visit her much before her son was born, but I've visited her 5 times since!! My parents never came to Utah to visit until there were grandkids. Now they are here about once a year! Oh, and never to visit me since I have no grandkids!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a couple pictures from the last time some of her former roommates and I stopped by her house supposedly to play games. We did play games, but I surprisingly don't have any pictures of that!

Orlando - part 2

2008-11-13T19:49:00.003-07:00

On to the scenery of Orlando. First, I hate to disappoint, but I never got a chance to head to any of the parks. Yeah, lame, I know. I even had half a day my last day but missed the last shuttle by 30 minutes. Oh well.

It was interesting being there close to Halloween. A Denny's near my hotel went all out. They had a real hearse all decked out as well as a real coffin, and tons of little mannequins, ghosts, etc. Honestly, who uses a real hearse?

I saw a couple of these birds around as well. Not sure what it is, but it looks pretty! The funny thing is that it has spawned a conversation on how it compensates for the increased dead space due to its long neck. Oh, if you don't know, dead space is the volume of air you breathe in that is not involved in gas exchange. This is the air in your mouth, throat and bronchi... all the air not in your alveoli. The more dead space, the larger the volume you have to breathe in.

I decided to spend my last afternoon walking up and down International Drive looking for cool things to take pictures of. Ripley's Believe it or Not had a really cool building. It was hard to capture it in a picture because there is little to compare it to. However, the building facade was all skewed, tilted and leaning.

The Wonderworks building was pretty cool as well. It was, as you can see, upside down! Much easier to capture this one in a picture.

And finally, three miles later down the road, there was a mini golf course with alligators around and under it! If you lose your ball, it's gone!

Look Bets, their happy to see you!

Orlando - part 1

2008-11-08T12:08:00.005-07:00

Not sure why I insist on making 2 posts for everything I do. I guess it drags out my having to come up with another post! I also like to show what I did in one, and then scenery shots in another. Regardless, here's my post on going to Orlando.

You must be dying to know why I went. Well, probably not, but it was to attend 2 research conferences. Funny to think that just last year I was going to my first!

I was attending ISAP and the ASA. ISAP is the International Society for Anaesthetic Pharmacology and ASA is the American Society of Anesthesiologists. ISAP deals specifically with my type of research while ASA is a much broader conference that caters to all types and levels of interests in anesthesia. The conference was held in the Orange County Convention Center. Here's a picture of the banners welcoming us.

I had to get some legible proof of what the conference was, so here's another picture of me after presenting my poster. These signs were all over the place to help you find your way around.

The OCCC was beautiful (outside at least). They had some cool fountains and grounds. It made for some great pictures!

I was there a week but only had a 2 hour window in which I was actually presenting my poster. It was nothing overly exciting, especially to the audience reading this. However, it was the busiest one I've been to yet. I had plenty of people asking questions and critiquing it. I've been pleasantly surprised by how nice everyone is. Even our department seminars can get pretty nasty!

There was quite a group there from the U. Several anesthesiologists, including the 2 I work with, as well as my advisor, lab director, and one other student. Here's the lab director presenting a poster of his own.

The other student is also the one who got me back into running this year. You may recognize her from the homemade ice cream post.

It was actually quite enjoyable to be surrounded by so many cool research presentations. It was, well, educational!

There is one funny story from this meeting. I decided to take the city bus from the airport to my hotel. While waiting, a kid about my age sat down next to me. He was also holding a tube with a poster in it, so I asked if he was going to the conference. He was actually there for both as well. Since the ride was 2 hours long, we chatted until he had to get off. The funny part I guess is that I ran into him EVERYWHERE! He is Italian and studying in Switzerland. His research group does very similar research to what we do. So everything I found interesting to attend his entire group was at. I went to his poster presentation without knowing it was going to be him, and then he and his professors came to mine without knowing it was me. It was nice to have a friend!

Happy Halloween

2008-11-01T18:18:00.003-06:00

I had a friend organize a cookie decorating party this week. I started later than they did so I was decorating these after most of them had gone to sleep! I'm quite proud, though. They weren't sure what one of the cookie cutters was supposed to be, so I made a kitten, owl and Frankenstein all out of that one.

Frankenstein is the kitten upside down, in case you're curious.

Ohio - part 2

2008-10-30T00:53:00.007-06:00

Part of the fun of going to Ohio was being back in a place where trees are taller than me and the woods are dense enough to block out the sun! Even better, it was fall! You know what that means - fall colors! Sunday afternoon I decided to go for a little walk up and down the river than runs back in the woods.

Just to let you know how great of a location this is, here is the view out the living room. The grass is the edge of the back yard. When I got there only one tree had started changing colors. This was how it looked by Sunday.

Down in the woods I came across this stone wall. It actually runs for miles up and down the river. It comes and goes as you walk. I'm not sure why I liked it so much. Perhaps it reminds me of New England. It was definitely worth sharing!

When I came across this spot it immediately reminded me a the location in Chronicles of Narnia when Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus. You know, by the light pole? Again, the stone wall, the trees, and a random light post. It was so picturesque.

I'll admit I was looking for the most brilliant colors on this walk. This was one of the first ones I came across. It's really only a branch. Later on I got entire trees!

Something was playing around on the logs in the water. However, when I tried to get a good angle to see what it was, it slipped into the water and never came back. I tried to wait around to see if it would come back, but it didn't. In the meantime, I did manage to get a couple more pictures!

While I was sitting here, some geese on the water started honking. Shortly after, a flock of geese flew over and landed. A little while later, several more came and landed. A few minutes later, another group joined up. When I heard another couple coming I decided to video tape it.

Last but not least, here's the best tree I could get a picture of. I saw some great looking ones across the river, but I couldn't get good pictures of them.

It sure was a pretty time of year to visit Ohio! It probably helped that I was missing a snow storm back home. Instead, I enjoyed a nice hike in 80 degree weather! I'm not so sure it's such a nice place to visit in the winter.

And one final picture of my new little bud. That's a picture perfect smile. He must have a lot of pictures taken of him!

Ohio - part 1

2008-10-27T13:10:00.011-06:00

In addition to all the fun I was having that I described in the previous post, I decided to take a week off from school to visit some friends in Ohio. These are the same guys I hiked Timp with this summer (the first time).

It was a great trip. I'm dying to go again! There were cross country races, soccer games, bonfires, smores, birthday parties, games, visits... It was a busy week! So here's a brief recap. The first night they surprised me with a birthday cake. What a great start! The next day was another birthday party for Lucas.

Saturday was the day to play. There was a cross country meet and 3 soccer games. I didn't get pictures of the soccer games, but I did get some of the meet! Here's Lissie:

And here's Nico:

I also got the opportunity to meet and play with Jeremy. He was my little bud following me around, helping me work, and insisting I take time to play each day. What a great influence!

And finally, the stuff I was able to do. I really should have thought to take before and after pictures. Anyway, for whatever reason, when the house was built few if any light fixtures were put in. The switches control outlets. I guess the thought is to plug your lamps into those outlets. However, lamps don't light a room as well as overhead lighting. Especially when it's a big room like the living room. It would get so dark in here at night that everyone would move to their bedrooms or other rooms. We spent Friday evening (til 2 am) and Saturday buying then installing the recessed lighting. Part of the fun of remodels is trying to run wire, etc without creating excessive repair work. I should also mention that I spent Thursday and Friday painting the ceiling, so I really didn't want to see it get destroyed!

I guess the main difference between these pictures is this one shows it after everything has been cleaned up. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes!

We ended up adding 10 lights to the living room, as well as moving some outlets, light switches, and the thermostat. The fireplace was also new, although that was added by professionals. Not bad! The best part was I also got to witness the benefits! Wednesday through Friday nobody was ever in the living room once the sun had set. Saturday Nico and Lucas were reading and Lissie was doing her homework in there. Sunday some visitors paid a surprise visit and we all hung out in the living room! It looked great (if I say so myself)!

After thought - I was going through my pictures and came across this one. It's not the best picture - sorry guys. But is does show how the room looked when lit with the lamps.

What I've been up to...

2008-10-24T11:24:00.003-06:00

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything! I have been keeping busy, so now to catch up here. I had a very cultured week about a month ago. There were 4 things I got to do that are worth sharing.

First, I got invited to go to the "So You Think You Can Dance" tour. It was great! Definitely not the type of place you would expect to find me, but I had a great time! If you don't know, this is American Idol for dancers. There approach is to take dancers from all types of backgrounds and then assign them a dance style and partner for each week. So you could have a classical dancer doing hip hop one week and vice versa. Here's one of my favorites.

I also came across discount tickets to CATS. I didn't know much about it, but did know it's pretty famous so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go. My take - kind of a scattered play. There's no real cohesion or organization. But then again, it's just a bunch of songs taken from TS Eliot's poems about cats, so it's not too surprising. I decided that most of the people there paid a lot of money to here this song.

I was also able to make it to BodyWorlds. Now maybe it's because of my research, but I was fascinated by it! I gave up trying to find a date because I wanted to be able to stay as long as possible. I'm pretty sure most people would just want to get through it quickly. Anyway, the poses are a little interesting, but when you read the accompanying signs, you realize what he was trying to show. It was amazing to actually see these different muscles, tendons, organs, etc that I've always studied.

Also, since the bodies are donated, the donors generally know they are dying. That means the opportunity to see all types of disease states. They had the smoker lungs, pacemakers, stenosis, arthritis, valve replacements, obesity, cancer, etc. Very insightful and oddly enough, enjoyable.

Finally, the music department here put on Pirates of Penzance. The acting was ok, but the music was great! There are some great, witty songs in that play! I'm still singing them (no surprise for those that know me)! It was a lot of fun!

Next up - my trip to Ohio!

If something's worth doing...

2008-09-08T19:59:00.004-06:00

it's worth doing twice! So two weeks later, I hiked Timp again! Here's my favorite pics of this hike.

First Falls

Some random stream running down and across the trail

Second Falls

Second Falls - closer

Second falls - close up of bottom
I think this one is my favorite!

Close up of the boulder. My second favorite!

Look around, see how far you've come...

2008-08-19T20:09:00.009-06:00

I've always liked hiking, but for some odd reason I never go. It took a trip to Europe of all places to get me started here! When in Germany, I spent half a day and 20 EU so I could go hiking in the Alps. I got back here and realized I had all these mountains around me that are just as pretty, yet I never went. Since then I have hiked Timp every year. This year I got to go with some of my favorite people!!

We stopped for a snack after a couple hours of hiking. Here's about half the group. I love how Lucas appears to have learned his photo face from me! I find it funny that here are all the teenage girls and...

here are all the teenage boys! In case you're wondering where I was sitting, my backpack is next to Cosette (middle of all the girls ;-p).

It was a great stopping place. There were decent size rocks to sit on and a great view. You can see the cliffs here above Nico.

In this picture you can see the view we had while we ate.

I think I had the setting on my camera wrong. However, it ended up taking a pretty cool picture I think. Granted, you can hardly see the people, but if you pretend, it looks like I did some cool photography trick.

We had about 15 people at least in the group. However, we got pretty separated. Here's the advanced party. We had the youngest hiker with us, too!

Another picture of the lead group after a little rest. It's amazing what some shade and water can do! I have to point out that Lucas is making that great photo face again!

I was quite proud of this one, too!

Heading up the switchbacks. This is the place where I shared the story about mom on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon. Here's the view going up.

Here's the view going down. It's a pretty steep drop off!

Taking a lunch break at the top. Not a cloud in the sky! You could see for miles! Also, you could get really sun burned. I'm sporting a particularly brilliant red neck... No pun intended.

And yes, some goofy picture of me. I had to be in at least one of them!

The chinese were on to something...

2008-08-06T15:23:00.004-06:00

Where else do you look forward to eating a cookie that tastes like cardboard? Only after going out for Chinese, right? Well, if you open enough fortune cookies, you may eventually come across one with a fortune that you at least hope is applicable to you!

Regardless, I finally got one that is worth posting.

For any of you who that worries, let me be sure to point out the "would" in that phrase. That would indicate my current track (bioengineering) is not related to wacky inventions. I'm pretty sure this won't prompt a career change, but funny none the less.

Homemade Ice Cream!

2008-07-30T00:20:00.005-06:00

A couple friends came by tonight after going for a hike. We decided to make homemade ice cream. However, it's important to note that this wasn't just any flavor - this was a request for my modified dark chocolate ice cream. That deserves a little explanation.

Last year for my birthday, my sister in law had the great idea of having a combined birthday party (w/ my brother) and making 4 flavors of ice cream. I was a particular fan of the french silk chocolate ice cream, so I got the recipe from her.

At the same time, my friends found out I had an ice cream maker. They immediately demanded some home made ice cream. I had just got the recipe, so I was pretty sure I'd memorized it. I got the ingredients and put it all together. One of my friends immediately fell in love with it. She said it was the best dark chocolate ice cream she'd ever had. She is quite the connoisseur, so I was intrigued. I found out why. When I double checked the recipe, it called for 1/3 cup of cocoa. I had put in 1.5 cups!!! Whoops! It must have been good, though, because she had 2 bowls. She never has more than a spoonful!

Tonight, she and her friend both requested that same flavor. So we made the super dark chocolate. It came out perfect! Not too runny, not too hard. Not bad for my first time with ice and salt!

We had some cookies and ice cream while recovering from the hike. It was a nice finish to the day.

Can you be a proud chef if you don't actually bake something? I guess I did have to cook the initial mixture...

Big names vs. singing talent

2008-07-28T12:08:00.010-06:00

The first broadway show I ever saw was Mamma Mia. I loved it! It made me laugh... cry... and blush? Well, it was a great musical experience. The story? Ah, it could use some work!

My memories of the show were good enough to convince me to go ahead and splurge on the $8.00 tickets to go see it in a movie theater with great surround sound. By and large it was good. However, they REALLY should have gone for singers instead of big name actors, in my opinion. I would pay money to have a picture of my face when Pierce Brosnan first started singing! The lady next to me agreed it was bad, but said he could get away with it because he was cute. I'll tell you what - His being cute wasn't doing anything to help my ears!

It just makes me laugh that our music appreciation has dropped so low that this is able to fly! And so, for those of you who have yet to enjoy this musical masterpiece, I give you selected songs sung by Collin Firth and Pierce Brosnan. Feel free to let me know if you agree! Oh, and one good one. I think Amanda Seyfried did a respectable job. Of course, her being cute DID do something for my ears!!!

I think Kermit the Frog made a guest appearance in "Our Last Summer"!

Surrounded by family

2008-07-20T23:58:00.011-06:00

Nothing brings the family running out here quicker than new grandkids! Ok, in all fairness, my sister and her husband have been planning on coming out here for a while. They flew in last Saturday, and on Sunday Payton decided he just had to see her. (for those who missed, there is a post below about that. I've just added my pictures, too)

We met up with Jim's family Thursday and decided to visit the local copper mine. I've been meaning to go see this place since I moved here, but never got around to it. Well, check one more tourist attraction off the list - we all made it! And since I was dazzled by these monster machines, let me impress you with some of the details.

Here's a nice perspective shot. The biggest machine closest to us is the excavator. The bucket on it is something like 40'x60'. Each scoop grabs about 90 tons of dirt. The rock here only contains about 1% copper, but they move such a large quantity of earth that they are able to turn a profit. This mine alone supplies about 17% of the US' copper. On the middle right there is another excavator doing the same thing. You can barely see it! This pit is HUGE! The pit is roughly 3 miles across and 3/4 mile deep.

They have pretty much gotten all the copper they afford to get out of the pit. It was supposed to close sometime in the next year, but they've now undertaken an expansion project. They are expanding the pit 600 feet towards us and 1700 feet down before they get to the copper. It is predicted to take 5 years! Wow.

To move this much dirt the equipment used is enormous. Is this next picture, the backhoe and bulldozer are your typical large ones you see working on highways or large construction jobs. The dump truck is even bigger and carries between 270 and 320 tons! The excavator (mostly hidden by the cliff) is huge! It is by far the largest piece of equipment. The sizes are mentioned above. It takes only 3-4 bucket loads to fill of a dump truck!

And now a perspective shot. This is how big just the tires are.

Here's a final picture of the trucks lining up at the crusher. Now that you know how big they are, you can appreciate how big this mine is! The crusher is in the bottom middle, and the line of cars is the dump trucks. The mine can be seen from space!

And finally, a video of an excavator loading a truck.

When it rains, it pours! (now w/ pictures)

2008-07-16T12:07:00.009-06:00

In addition to tons of wedding receptions, it appears it's also the season for babies to be born! I've had 3 nephews born in the past month (1, 2, 3). It wasn't originally supposed to be that way, but Payton just couldn't wait until September 16, so he was born Sunday morning, 10 weeks early. He had to be medflighted to a NICU, so the family has a little commute to come down and see him. My mom flew in to help watch the other kids, and I drove her up yesterday, taking full advantage to spend a couple hours with them. I've got pictures coming in a bit, but for now, enjoy these two video clips. Besides, Nikki already put up plenty of pictures!

Pictures just don't show how tiny he is. However, trust me. He's tiny!

Chris showed up w/ Mykenzie and Jaxon just before I left. Here they are washing up. You have to scrub for three minutes prior to entering the NICU. It is apparently quite entertaining! And bright!

I'm not sure if this is the first time the kids got to see their new brother or not. They couldn't touch him, and could only be in the room for 15 minutes. They only allow 4 people around an isolette at a time, so mom and I had to go out in the hallway. You can see her through the window behind them.

I think Chris was explaining the different waveforms shown on the display on the wall. They had heart rate (~140 bpm!), SPO2 (blood oxygen saturation, ~96%), and respiratory rate (~40 bpm!). The real reason this picture is shared is because I managed to jump in it!

Sorry Jax, but Kenzie was blocking you. The picture is too cute to not put it up.

The kids came out of the room higher than a kite. They were so excited to see Payton. I wish I'd recorded they're reactions as we walked down the hall.

'Tis the season!

2008-07-12T10:17:00.007-06:00

By the time this month is over, I will have gone to 6 wedding receptions! Who knew July was such a popular month! One that definitely merits a blog post is one of my former roommates, Dave. We've known each other since y2k, and lived together for probably 3 years at least. That was the best apartment of roommates I've ever had. It's made it hard having roommates since! I managed to get a picture of three of the six - Dave, Allyn and me.

They got married in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. The sealing was performed by Elder Hafen. That leads to two funny stories. First, when I was in Germany, Elder Hafen came and gave a fireside based on the Man From Snowy River. Well, the evening before I'd watched part of it, and was thinking about it. When the sealer walked in, I didn't recognize him, but I sure thought he looked a lot like the guy who'd given that fireside!

Second, he was brutal to Dave (and Korina). These two have dated on and off for the past 6 years. He made the comment that he'd asked them just before coming in if they were sure they didn't perhaps want to wait a couple more years!

It was a beautiful day, which made for great pictures. I only grabbed a couple. Enjoy!

Here they are coming out of the temple.

Just outside the doors posing

One more on the lawn. I had to work around the photographer and videographer. They had the best angles, but I wanted some of the flowers. Here's the result.

The reception hall was gorgeous. The flowers were in bloom, and everything looked amazing. Dave was always one of the classiest guys I know, so it's not too surprising. Allyn and I were extremely grateful these stayed in the boxes!

And finally, leaving. They'll be living in the DC area, so who knows when I'll get to see them again. It won't be too long!

Happy Fourth!

2008-07-05T12:31:00.009-06:00

My sister and her family came down for the Fourth. I'm grateful - it saved me at least 7 hours of driving! We went swimming in the afternoon. She's got some good pics of that, so you'll have to check her blog for those.

My other sister, Betsy, stopped by for a little while. She showed up to see the new baby (Taylor) as well as get some hugs from the kiddies and then had to go. I, of course, got a picture of the group. Well, except for me. I was taking it!

This is the first 4th I haven't seen any professional fireworks. Why? Well, her in-laws do their own. It was a blast! The kids got so excited. It started with 2 packets of poppers for all the kids. Some of those things are tricky to get to pop!

By the time they finished, there must have been 1000 of these things on the sidewalk. I was impressed how the little kids would just run across it barefoot! Those are some sharp rocks in there!

When it got dark (and everyone got there) they started lighting off their fireworks. The kids were told they had to sit on the grass, so while all the adults were up near the house, the kids sat right on the edge by the sidewalk! Pretty funny! In case you're wondering, I was in the second row just behind them! Some adult figure had to be up there in case one of the fireworks tipped over, right? Yeah, so that's why I was there!

They were super excited! There couldn't have been a more exciting show for them! I think it's mostly Alex you here cheering here!

Lissie's smile is great in this one! How does life get any better? Looks like I caught Digham at a bad time though!

All the cousins enjoying the show here.

I guess the show went a little long because the kids started getting quiet. Digham even fell asleep before it all ended! There were, of course, no complaints from the parents! I snapped this picture near the end. Alex looks dead! I guess all the kids slept not only through the night, but until 8!

And now for the grand finale. It consists of taking about 200 of those flower fireworks and cramming them into a #10 tin can. The result is a huge flame. Apparently this year's wasn't as cool as last year's, as you'll hear a "that's it?" from someone.

I love technology!

2008-06-25T16:58:00.007-06:00

About 2 weeks ago I received the cutest voicemail from my niece. Ok, fine, she had some serious prompting from her dad. Still, it was great. I figured out how to conference call a few family members from my phone so they could hear it. Still, it's so cute I had to share it with everyone! It took a while for me to figure out how to do it, but ladies and gentlemen, I got it! For your listening pleasure, I present Sophie's voicemail.

(it's kind of quiet, so you may have to crank the volume)

Up for discussion is what she actually says when dad prompts her to say "How are you?". My money is on "I love you".

Hope you're all jealous!!

Success!!!

2008-06-12T08:47:00.007-06:00

One of the nice things about research is the opportunity to travel to research conferences. One of the bad things about research is having to write abstracts and papers to submit to research conferences so you can attend. For those of you who know how painful it is for me to write (or how painful I make it at least), you'll appreciate the miracle it is that in the past year, I've been able to go to two conferences: ASA and IARS.

At the last one, My adviser happened to be the moderator of my poster session. When our session ended, we got to talking about some additional abstracts we would like to submit. The catch - we talked on Saturday (see here, last paragraph), and the deadline for submission was the following Tuesday! I returned home and started writing an abstract focused on what we had decided on. However, I just didn't have the time to process the data needed to come up with the results section. In the process, though, I noticed something and decided to write up a quick abstract about that.

To be honest, I was a little nervous. I wrote this one up on my own. Nobody looked at it before I submitted it. I'd gotten into a little trouble for doing this before, but in our discussion I'd been instructed to get an abstract submitted to ASA, so I did.

Well, it paid off I guess. Yesterday I received the following email:
"Please be advised that your scientific paper submission titled, 'Simulating Remifentanil-Propofol Dosing Schedules that Allow Esophageal Instrumentation' has been accepted for a POSTER session during the October 18-22, 2008 ASA Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida."

I've never been to Disneyland (or is it Disneyworld? I have no idea which one is there), so I may have to take an extra day to visit. I have a couple friends that are convinced we should make a vacation out of this. Not sure that it will feel like one for me, but we'll see! I'm not even sure I'm going yet. I'm just glad my abstract was accepted!

For those not able to attend

2008-06-07T11:41:00.004-06:00

Thursday and Friday were the viewing and funeral service for John (see my earlier post for details). I don't have much to say, but wanted to share some thoughts for those of you who perhaps knew Emily but were not able to attend.

I arrived at the viewing towards the end. I was glad to see several friends from our former ward, as well as hear of several others who had been able to make it. It was a slow moving line, and I passed the time listening to those around me share stories of John. He definitely had an impact in many people's lives. As for Emily, she looked tired and drained, but calm and appreciative. When I finally reached her, I again had no idea what to say. She beat me to it, thanking me for coming, and for this or that. I almost felt bad - I had come hoping to say something to make her feel better, and instead she was making me feel better!

She did mention she had been able to feel the many thousands of prayers that have been offered on her behalf. So even if that is all you can do, please do so. It is helping. I've also been reading the different blogs and accompanying comments. There are some great things being said. I mentioned that, to which she did comment she is reading them. So if you have a little message or thought you'd like to share with her, comment on her blog - she is reading them all. Also, from the emails that circulated in the Aloha ward, I gathered a couple people felt the same way I do - I want to do something (Russell, Jared). I offered our collective services (hope no one minds!) to do anything she may need. Right now there are plenty of people around to help, but perhaps in a few weeks/months... I'll let you know.

The funeral service was well done. I appreciated it because it offered an insight into John, whom I had only met once at their wedding reception last July. For example, over the last 3 months he was busy every Saturday with service projects. This was done despite the demands of pilot training. The interment service was also touching. I was too far back to actually hear anything, but John was buried with full military honors. This included a missing man formation fly over, honor guard, 21 gun salute, bag pipe player and taps. The military sure knows how to show respect and gratitude for those of its ranks who have died.

Emily again impressed me on Friday. I'm sure she cried a couple times during the service, and no doubt her heart is broken, but I didn't see it. Either way, she cried less than some guests (of course, she has probably cried more in the last two weeks than all of us put together). She entered and exited without leaning on anyone. To me that shows amazing faith as well as strength.

Once the services had ended, those not in the family were asked to leave. Those of us "alohaers" who could went to lunch. My final impression is that Emily has an amazing support group. Right now she is surrounded by family and friends both local as well as those who have flown in to be here for this. In time, some will have to leave. However, no less than 6 of her former roommates live in the area. What a blessing it will be to have so many good friends so close.

Motivated to start working...

2008-06-05T11:05:00.004-06:00

I've got this habit of going to the city library and checking out DVDs to take home and watch on my laptop. I've gone through most of the movies I recognize, so now I'll quickly go through a stack looking for some that look interesting. This week I got one called "Something the Lord Made". It's set back in the 1940's, and tells the true story of a gifted surgeon and his african american lab assistant. The two discover a couple techniques that contribute greatly to modern medicine. Their greatest contribution is performing the first heart surgery.

Conventional wisdom at the time said that you could not operate on the heart. In fact, if you touch a beating heart, it stops beating. They didn't know how to get it started again. Anyway, I was enthralled. Granted, it pertains somewhat to my field of study, so I found it intriguing. It's so motivational. Their research saved countless number of lives. I'd like to accomplish that some day!

Here's the trailer:

There is a book and documentary about it called "Partners of the Heart". I plan to start reading that one as soon as I get a copy. A link the a portion of the documentary can be found here.

High Performance Meet

2008-06-04T15:41:00.010-06:00

If you know me or read my brother's blog, you know we used to be very into running. It's been a long time since I've gone for a run, but track is still a huge part of who I am. To fulfill my craving to be around running events without having to go through the rigors of training and racing, I started helping out at local track meets back in 1996.

I never really had much desire to certify as a USATF official until a couple years ago. I was helping out at the State Cross Country Championships. There was discussion of disqualifying a couple runners for wearing sweat bands. I thought that was ridiculous. What advantage does that possibly give you? However, because I was not certified, my opinion wasn't considered, and I wasn't included in the discussions. Never mind that I have run in tons of races, or that I competed at a NCAA division 1 level. However, a 16 year old high school student who, thanks to his parents, was a certified official was allowed to participate in the discussion. That irked me enough to get me to certify.

Ok, that's a side story. The benefit of certifying is that I am now informed of meets and invited to help officiate (before I had to find out when and where they were taking place, show up and offer to volunteer). I've helped at developmental meets (kids 2-12), high school and collegiate events. Two weeks ago I was able to help out at what is called a High Performance meet. This is a meet designed to give top level athletes opportunities to qualify for the Olympic trials at the end of June.

I will admit I was extremely apprehensive of going. I just didn't feel qualified to officiate that level of athlete. These are, for the most part, professional, sponsored athletes. Many were nationally and internationally ranked! And just from the numbers game, I knew I was going to be asked to officiate an event I knew very little about.

I decided to go for it, and am very glad I did. I helped officiate the hammer throw, discuss, long jump, triple jump, high jump, as well as all running events from the dash to the 1600. One of the coolest things they did was combine the meet with a youth track meet. It helped space out events for the high performance athletes, and gave them some spectators who could appreciate the level they were performing at.

The second day I was the clerk, meaning I made sure everyone knew what lanes they were in for the start of all the races. I was right at the starting line and talking to everyone. It was really fun to talk to the little kids. They were so excited. It was nostalgic listening to them "talk track".

Don't get me wrong, it was also fun to watch the top athletes. We had many amazing performances. I know we had some of the best hammer throwers in the world there. The 100 meter dash was won in 10.04, the 9th fastest time in the world this year. The Canadian women's national pole-vault record was broken, and several athletes reached Olympic qualifying marks.

Some of the more interesting things - the hammer throwers were throwing so far, they almost hit an official at the other side of the field - 230' away. We had a couple foul throws that almost hit people warming up on the track. And this is being thrown from a cage that catches 90% of all foul throws. Those that get out have to go quite a ways to hit the track. It was impressive! You need to understand that the week before at the state meet, an official was hit by a discus (in the hand - small cut and big bruise), and a photographer was impaled by a javelin (not serious), so we were all already a bit on edge. We ended up having to put an official on the track to watch out and warn athletes of incoming hammers. They also had to stop the hammer throw when we ran races.

Another event that I found particularly interesting was the women's shotput. The week before I had helped out at the state meet. The winner was invited to participate in this meet (some coach connection or something). The final round I observed had 3 throwers, including the high school state champ. First place threw 18.71 meters, putting her first in the nation. Second place threw 18.13, good enough for second in the nation. Third place, the high school state champ, threw 13.24. I know she had no misgivings of how she was going to finish, but I just found it interesting that the week before she beat everyone, and then on this day she lost by 5 meters!

My favorite conversation, however, was with a bantam girl (8-9 yrs old). She was telling the other girls that she preferred distance races. She didn't like the 400. The 800 was hard, and her favorite race was the mile, and the race that was four times around the track. Ah, that was funny. In case you don't see the humor in that, the mile IS the race that is four times around the track.

Also, to show it's still a small world, I ran into a former teammate of my twin brother. He thought I was Bryce, and I honestly didn't recognize him, but wasn't sure so I played along with it. It wasn't until one of the starters told me a former teammate of mine from Dartmouth was running in that race that we figured it out. He was a cool guy, and I enjoyed talking to him on and off for the rest of the meet.

The burn I'm sporting 2 posts below is a result of working this meet. I never peeled, though, so I've now got a nice tan!

Words come short...

2008-05-30T13:55:00.001-06:00

I've been struggling for the past couple days with exactly how to say this. Last July I attended a wedding reception for a long time friend. We lived in the same complex while I got my undergrad. She even did an internship in Boston one summer, so I was able to invite her over a couple times for the famous Sunday dinner of Boston Baked Beans and hot dogs. When I started grad school, we ran into each other again at institute. It's one of those friendships that just can't die.

I received an email from her last Sunday informing me that her husband was missing. Following up on the website they set up, his body was found on Memorial day. How quickly life can change. The contrast between my memories while attending her reception with all our friends to this is stark. What can you do? What do you say? Is there really anything you can do?

It is just so unexpected. They hadn't even been married a year yet. They had just announced they were expecting a baby in October. Life can sure change fast. This has caused me to become quite introspective. You never know what is going to happen. Routine and habit have a way of killing the moments that matter. Make sure you don't let that happen. Tell those around you that you love them. Smile more often. Mend broken fences.

Last night I tried to pick out a sympathy card. Have you ever noticed how corny they are? They don't seem to get the words right. I don't know if you can. Nothing really said what I was feeling. Perhaps nothing can.

More pics of Agnese

2008-05-27T12:30:00.003-06:00

I discovered that Agnese has probably added close to 500 pictures to her facebook page in the last 4 days or so. I saved a couple of the ones I was in.

I need to mention that I had spent the weekend working at a track meet. I went straight to the party at the end of the second day. I was therefore a little sunburned.

It's a small world after all...

2008-05-26T12:19:00.006-06:00

It amazes me how small the world really is. It is so easy to travel, that you really never know when you are going to run into someone you know. Again, unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me, but I ran into Agnese. Agnese is from Latvia. She is a good friend of Katy's. I first met her when I visited Katy in Latvia just before she returned from her mission. I stayed an extra day there, so I spent it with Agnese and her friends.

The next year I was in Europe again for the summer. Once Agnese and her friends found out, it was not a matter of if I was coming back to visit - it was when. I therefore returned for a weekend. It was well worth the trip.

In the few years since, I've been able to see some of them as they come here to leave on their missions. Such is the case with Agnese. A former missionary was throwing a party for her Saturday evening. I stopped by, and again is was great to see a friend from so far away. She's on her way to Russia. She managed to take a couple pictures, so I'll have to see if I can get one and post it.

Katy's Wedding

2008-05-26T12:03:00.008-06:00

I know I'm far behind on this one. My little sister got married on May 10th. This is the same sister I visited in Latvia at the end of her mission. I forgot my camera, got delayed on both flights heading there, discovered you now have to pay for your checked baggage, and then on our way out of the airport, discovered that the highway was closed. It's like I wasn't supposed to be there or something!

Coming out of the temple

The happy new couple

The fam

The happy couple with the sealer. He was one of Katy's primary teachers. He was also our bishop when our ward was first formed.

And this picture has become a staple at every wedding.

It was getting a little late. Pretty much everyone had gone down to the chapel to get ready for the luncheon. With such a small crowd, I felt comfortable enough to be myself. Great picture!

I did take advantage of being home - I brought my ice cream maker back! Now I just need some decent weather before I do anything with it!