maBlog

Them people

2012-01-29T16:31:00.001-07:00

I heard on the radio that some people somewhere were asking for legislation to prohibit ocean liners from sailing within a certain distance of certain Italian shores. They want the laws because of what happened with the Costa Concordia. I think such legislation is ridiculous. How often have cruise liners crashed in those waters? If such a law already existed, would it have prevented the reckless captain from making the same choice? The captain ought to be punished; and people will learn from the experience.

I've been thinking political thoughts lately. Sometimes, I wish I had a quiet place, like a moon base, where I could go ponder in peace. And sometimes I wish I had a quiet place, like a moon base, to which I could send politicians.

I want to vote for a normal American: someone who has worked hard to earn their living. I would really like to vote for someone who does not want to be a politician. If a farmer ever ran, I think I would vote for them. Good farmers don't do stupid things -- they just get the work done. Ammon, I would vote for you. I would also vote for someone who did no fundraising. Why should you need to spend a lot of money to become elected?

I have other thoughts, but I haven't yet sorted them through in my head.

Also, sometime in May, Christy and I have an appointment to meet a little girl at the hospital and bring her home to live with us for a few years. I expect she'll want a name. And probably some food and clothing. She'll likely cry sometimes, too.

I hope she can do math when she arrives.

Malaika Wangu

2011-11-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

I married an angel.

After being dumped once by a girl, I wrote this poem:

Where have all the butterflies gone
Whose wings once tickled my heart?
Why does the fire's flame now burn so low,
Which before, from the blaze made me start?
Where is the apple at the top of the tree
That beckoned me up to such heights?
Where are those eyes, those star-shaming eyes,
That smiled at me those warm summer nights?

They're gone.
It's spent.
Beyond reach.
They're closed.

A soft echo's all that remains...

And a hope -- a sure hope!

That new butterflies will come,
That a flame will arise,
That I'll find that sweet fruit in the tree,
And that this time,
Not eyes, but a heart I will find,
Who will smile with love on me.

And I found her! All the pain of dating seems laughably insignificant now. Christy is so good, so genuine and so true. And she's cute :)

To the discouraged daters: keep trying.

10K

2011-10-26T09:08:00.000-06:00

Today is a great day. Today I turn 10,000 days old. Happy Birthday to me!

I know because of www.wolframalpha.com.

sad wizard :(

2011-10-19T21:09:00.002-06:00

I'm testing blogger's new interface. This is only a test. Do NOT read this. I repeat: this is just a test.

So sad

This wizard is sad. Poor wizard.

There's a location option: Yukon.

I scheduled this to come online at 9:15pm tonight.

Lions

2011-08-07T11:23:00.002-06:00

Lately we've been reading about lions and wardrobes and witches. It has been great. Most recently, we finished The Silver Chair. Here are some parts of the story I liked best.

Jill meets Aslan in his land, a high mountain overlooking Narnia. Aslan tasks Jill with finding the lost prince and tells her four signs she will use to accomplish the task. After giving her the signs and making her repeat them until she had them memorized he says:

"Stand still. In a moment I will blow. But first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to your clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as your drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters." (p.560)

Taking Aslan as a figure of Jesus Christ, his words have direct meaning for us. We have distinct spiritual experiences. At those times we can see clearly and feel as though we're on mountains looking down on common life. And we may be told to do something in the future: to know the "signs" or scriptures by heart; to remind ourselves of the time we spent on the mountain. And it's true! Common life happens and the signs or scriptures seem not to fit. But they do and we should follow them.

Near the climax of Jill's and Eustace's adventure, they must decide whether or not to untie a dangerous person from the silver chair. Their reason for untying him: one of the signs Aslan gave Jill indicates that they should. Their reason for not untying him: they think he will kill them if they do.

"Do you mean you think everything will come right if we do untie him?" said Scrubb.

"I don't know about that," said Puddleglum. "You see, Aslan didn't tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he's up, I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off following the sign."

That's faith! Either The Lion is right or He is wrong. If He is right, it doesn't matter what happens in the interim from following what He has commanded.

Life is Grand

2011-07-27T19:00:00.004-06:00

Christy is visiting her sister this week. But it's okay. I'm not one bit sad. Life is pretty much the same.

I sleep.

I shave.

I get food out of the fridge.

I scamper off to work.

I drive to work.

I work.

I leave work.

I drive home.

I eat delicious dinners.

And even delicious desserts.

Don't even worry about me. I'm totally fine.

Oh, things

2011-04-20T10:51:00.002-06:00

I was looking at Salt Lake's weather today and was presented with this:

The popup asks, "Would you like to save this location?"

YES! Yes, I'd like to save Salt Lake City! Is it going to be torn down? What do you need from me in order to save it? I'd donate funds to keep it around! Please, everyone, I plead with you to go to weather.com and vote to save Salt Lake City!

Also, I'm getting married this weekend.

Boneless, skinless, chicken breast

2010-11-19T14:40:00.003-07:00

I'm having Elevensees right now: leftover chicken pot pie from Tuesday night. I'm about half-way through my piece. It's late. It's dark. And I just thought, whilst staring admiringly at my pie, "Wow. I made this." As I told my dinner group, this is the first time I've made pie crust unsupervised. And it turned out quite well. The crust has mellowed a bit during it's stay in the fridge. In its prime, it was crisp and flakey.

My exact position right now is rather remarkable. I'm seated on a wooden chair, in my warm house, typing on a portable computer under the light of both incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Most of the pie resides inside me, now -- only a rind of crust remains. Yum. All gone. That pie was made of flour, water, shortening, peas, carrots, lima beans, green beans, boneless, skinless chicken, salt, pepper, oil, cream of potato soup and cream of cow. The water came through pipes right into my kitchen. The vegetables came frozen, in a plastic bag. I've never grown lima beans... and without instruction would not be able to grow them. Yet I can eat them. I've also never grown wheat or green beans, nor have I ever harvested salt or pepper. I'm not sure how I would go about harvesting salt. I imagine a shovel would help. Cream of potato soup comes from cans -- aluminum cans (They're no longer tin, right? Who cares anyway?). I wonder how many hours I'd need devote for the cream of cow I used...

But back to meatier matters. Boneless, skinless, chicken breast! Of all God's children, how lucky am I? I've never raised a chicken. I've never killed or plucked a chicken. I've never skinned a chicken, or removed it from its bones. And yet I eat boneless, skinless, chicken breast? In colloquial parlance, I can claim that the pie was "made from scratch." But really, I have no clue how to make that pie from scratch. Imagine the hours I'd need to dedicate just to get one part of the pie. Pick any part! Oil? Flour? Pepper? Aluminum? The oven?

I live like a king. And so, likely, do you.

Here's my castle:

It's that time again

2010-10-14T12:02:00.002-06:00

I feel like this again.

I love the Fall after a wonderful summer. Yes, I capitalized one season's name and not the other. Autumn feels like a slow ending to a good movie. Things are wrapping up; preparing to die. Somehow, though, there's a sort of freshness in the decay.

Sleeping Beauty

2010-09-27T13:21:00.002-06:00

My niece came over to Grandma's yesterday with a Disney princess sand pail. I asked her the names of all the princesses on the pail, which she knew. She even knew who Sleeping Beauty was. I don't think I could pick Sleeping Beauty out in a lineup.

So I asked Meleah to tell me the story of Sleeping Beauty. She related the story in its entirety: "Once upon a time, there was girl named Sleeping Beauty. She liked to sleep a lot. The End."

From bash?

2010-06-23T09:32:00.003-06:00

This one, too.

From bash?

2010-06-23T09:32:00.001-06:00

This post brought to you by Google's command line tool

A recent purchase

2010-06-06T17:40:00.007-06:00

Guess what I bought. Can you guess? Here's a hint:

Do you know what it is? Here's another hint:

Can you tell yet? No? Here's another hint:

A lawn mower! It's an old-school reel lawn mower -- the kind you push. I really like the exercise I get from pushing it. I also like how quickly it starts and stops. It gets approximately infinite miles per gallon (beat that, Prius!). And it's quiet enough that I can mow in the wee hours of the morning. (The wee hours of the morning are when the Scottish awake) I don't know how long I'll keep the mower, though. It leaves a lot of grass behind (even with a bag attached) and doesn't always cut evenly. I'll give it a few more chances.

Along with purchasing a lawn mower, I also bought a house. The house gets zero miles per gallon and doesn't cut grass nearly as well as the mower. Despite those defects, though, I think I'll keep it for a while.

A few things I like about my house:

1. There's a sink in the garage! I repeat: a sink in the garage!

2. I have a drawer to keep all my scissors in:

The scissors drawer is right next to the kitchen towel. "But Matt," you say, "how would I know where your kitchen towel is?" Good question. Perhaps this is a satisfactory answer:

3. The shower head is actually a shower head and not a shower sternum or a shower belly button:

4. My room is not purple:

I specifically like the non-purpleness of my room because it used to be purple -- this purple:

5. This room:

6. And, of course, the beautiful yard full of plants whose names I don't yet know:

You should come over and see it sometime -- I'll have a housewarming party soon.

My friend, Ted.

2010-04-28T21:28:00.003-06:00

I like this -- you should watch it:

For those of you who didn't watch it, stop reading this post and watch it.

I've been thinking a little about gun control lately (largely because of Miri's post; it wasn't actually the point of her post, but I managed to completely derail it by my comment -- sorry, Miri). I don't think I actually care so much about gun control as I do about the legislation about gun control. I don't own any guns currently. I might later. Shotgun shooting is really, really fun. But if I never own a gun, I'll be okay. However, some people really want guns, and I'm fine with them owning and using them responsibly (<--- deliberately vague term).

These are guns painted like toys:

Hello, Kitty. May I borrow your knife?

Though I don't particularly care about guns, I do care about excessive regulation and legislation. Like Mr. Howard says, "Life is too complex for a software program. All these choices involve value judgments, and social norms, not objective facts." Laws that attempt to cover every eventuality never will... but in the process of trying, they will restrict freedom rather than secure it. Says Mr. Howard: “we've been trained to squint into this legal microscope, hoping that we can judge any dispute against the standard of a perfect society, where everyone will agree what's fair, and where accidents will be extinct, risk will be no more. Of course this is Utopia, it's a formula for paralysis, not freedom.”

I listened to this speech while I was driving to St. George over the weekend. As I was driving, I started to think about the laws for driving. Cars pass me. I pass cars. Cars speed past my car within a several feet -- but it doesn't worry me. And what prevents me from worrying? Paint. Yellow paint and white paint. Yes, sometimes cars cross the paint when they shouldn't. Accidents happen. (I'll use “accident” and “crash” interchangeably, though they aren't the same -- most things people call accidents are avoidable crashes; but that's a tangent) We could try to prevent all accidents by putting cars on rails and making them all go the same speed. That would be insanely expensive and impractical... and idiotic. And, even if cars lived on rails, we would still have malfunctions, and bad weather and accidents.

How beautiful is paint! It's flexible and cheap and works well. In the cases where a human needs to use their judgment and break outside of the boundaries to avoid an accident, he can.

Let people have agency. Let some use it poorly. Let most use it wisely.

And lest you think I'm advocating anarchy or getting rid of all law, I'm not. I am advocating simple paint solutions. Draw some general lines and let people fill in the spaces. It is not a government's job to eliminate all pain or possibilities for pain.

This one about octopus and dragonflies was interesting. So was this one about simplifying legal jargon; and it's short.

...now I'm hoping that I don't get in a car accident tomorrow... or accidentally get shot.

Karamazov

2010-04-18T21:27:00.002-06:00

I forgot to write about The Brothers Karamazov! That book is the second, long, boring, Russian novel I've read (Anna Karenina being the first). It took me about a year to get through. I recommend it if you're patient. By boring, I mean that the book is slow, and relaxed. There are times of intensity and suspense -- but it's largely a whale chewed bit by blubbery bit. For example, the opening paragraph informs the reader that the story is about the murder of a man. But that man isn't actually murdered until almost exactly halfway through the book.

I actually finished it before East of Eden, but never got around to reviewing it. Like East of Eden, here's a few favorite quotes:

"He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. 'I love humanity,' he said, 'but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,' he said, 'I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity."
Father Zossima, quoting a doctor he knew (p.49-50)

I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on stage. But active love is a labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.
Father Zossima, to a lady (p.50)

"...the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward."
Ivan speaking to Alyosha (p.218)

Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Every one can love occasionally, even the wicked can.
Father Zossima (p.296)

"...We peep into the Gospel only on the eve of making speeches, in order to dazzle the audience by our acquaintance with what is, anyway, a rather original composition, which may be of use to produce a certain effect -- all to serve the purpose!"
Prosecuting lawyer in final "sermon" (p.703)

And here are the words (there's a little overlap from Eden's list):

abashed, abject, abnegation, absolution, accede, acquisitive, adroitly, affable, affably, afface, anathema, antipathies, antipathy, apiary, apprehend, apropos, aquiline, arch, archimandrite, ardent, ardour, arrogate, ascetic, aspect, asperse, aspersed, austere, austerely, avowal, balsam, balustrade, barrister, benefactor, benumbed, bereaved, besmirched, brooked, burdocks, caddish, callous, calumniated, calumny, caprice, cassock, casuist, casuistry, censer, censorious, censure, charing, charlatanism, chattel, churlish, consiliating, convalescence, copse, coquettishly, coxcomb, crape, cupola, cursory, decoction, demur, demurely, derision, derisively, despatch, despotic, diffidence, diocesan, dirge, disavowal, dissipated, dissipation, dissolute, doggerel, doles, drivelling, dyspeptic, echeat, effrontery, effusively, emancipation, emasculate, epoulettes, equanimity, erudition, evinced, expansive, expiate, extant, extenuate, extortionate, extraneous, fain, fixity, foundered, freak, gesticulating, gibes, gibing, goading, gratuitous, hetaira, homeopathic, hurdle, ignominy, imperious, impertinence, importunate, importunity, impudent, impudently, impunity, incisive, incorrigible, indefatigably, indignation, indolence, ingenuousness, ingratiating, inoculated, inscrutable, insolent, insolently, insoluble, inveterate, irascible, jackdaw, kaftan, ken, knout, laceration, lackey, latent, lavished, lenten, licentious, listlessly, locker, lorgnette, loth, loutish, lumbago, lurid, mawkish, morass, mummery, novitiate, obdurate, obsequious, obtuse, opined, opulent, paltry, paragon, paroxysm, parricide, parsimony, particoloured, pedantic, pedantry, pernicious, peroration, phlegmatic, pining, piquant, piquante, poseur, prate, prating, precocity, prevaricate, privation, profligate, propitiate, prosaic, punctilio, pusillanimous, quadrille, qualm, rapacious, repine, reprobate, repudiate, requiem, restiveness, sallow, salutary, samovar, scrupled, scruples, seething, self- effacement, self-immolation, sententiously, solicitude, solidarity, sordid, sot, sottish, sphinx, spleen, staid, stint, stole, stolidly, straitened, subterfuge, suffused, supercilious, superciliously, surmise, surplice, swinishness, tallow, timorous, unexampled, unmannerly, veriest, verst, vociferated, vogue, voluptuary, vouchsafed, waggish

Some of these words I've included because they are used abnormally. For instance: freak and apprehend. From the book:

Of the commercial value of his scheme he had no doubt, not the slightest, and was only uncertain how Samsonov would look upon his freak...

...that we cannot apprehend the reality of things on earth...

I like books that are smarter than I -- almost as much as I like "I" supplanting "me" in an effort to sound smarter :)

Sometime soon expect a post more about me and less about me reading.

Timshel!

2010-03-24T09:25:00.002-06:00

Blog Post Section 1

There's a small test I run against various things to probe their greatness. It's highly scientific. If, after experiencing or using or seeing a certain thing, I find myself spontaneously exclaiming, "that was amazing!" or, "I love that," then I know that thing is great. Once or twice I've shouted at myself, "Man! That was fun!" after an exceptionally fun date. Frequently at work, "I love git," escapes my lips unprovoked.

Monday night, East of Eden by Mr. Steinbeck, passed my test-o-greatness. What a fantastic story! I like John's writing style -- how he moves quickly, leaving some things un-described. And the characters in this story seem both realistic and metaphoric. How can I describe that? He has embodiment-of-evil Cathy that could actually be someone you know -- though I don't actually know anyone that evil. Make sense?

And I feel inspired reading the book. Timshel! I can make my life wonderful!

I didn't like Steinbeck's crudeness and vulgarity, however. In fact, due to unnecessary crudeness (I use this word as it's used to describe oil, not stupid bathroom humor), I loathe The Grapes of Wrath. This book had some "rawness" (that seems to be the current, politically correct way to describe something that's not politically correct) that was not needed -- but it didn't flavor every swig of the story as it did the Wrathful Wine.

So, setting that aside, I give East of Eden five stars and a hearty recommendation.

Blog Post Section 2

My last English teacher once remarked that some people spend their whole lives reading the scriptures like they read bumper stickers. I'm considering making a bumper sticker with something like that on it. Therefore, when I share these nice, bumper-sized snippets from the story, don't let that be your only encounter with this book -- these are, after all, only a few of the many that I recorded:

And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
Narrator speaking of weather in Salinas Valley (p.6)

It was well known that Liza Hamilton and the Lord God held similar convictions on nearly every subject.
Narrator (p.178)

"You know, if chickens had government and church and history, they would take a distant and distasteful view of human joy. Let any gay and hopeful thing happen to a man, and some chicken goes howling to the block."
Samuel Hamilton remarking about the chickens being killed by Lee in celebration (p.258)

Every man has a retirement picture in which he does those things he never had time to do--makes the journeys, reads the neglected books he always pretended to have read. For many years the sheriff dreamed of spending the shining time hunting and fishing--wandering in the Santa Lucia range, camping by half-remembered streams. And now that it was almost time he knew he didn't want to do it. Sleeping on the ground would make his leg ache. He remembered how heavy a deer is and how hard it is to carry the dangling limp body from the place of the kill. And, frankly, he didn't care for venison anyway. Madame Reynaud could soak it in wine and lace it with spice but, hell, an old shoe would taste good with that treatment.
About Sheriff Quinn when he came to see Adam (p.559)

"When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too."
Abra speaking to Cal about Aron (p.576)

Blog Post Section 3

When I read good books, I often write down words I read that I (1) couldn't use in a sentence of my own making or (2) like. Here are those words from East of Eden: abetted, acumen, alluvial, astringent, bacchanalianism, baleful, battens, bellicosity, bindlestiff, bollixed, brogue, bumptiousness, busby, caisson, chiseler, cloy, coagulate, codicils, concupiscence, convalescence, coquetry, dawdling, demure, derisively, dissemble, dour, doxology, efface, entrained, eructation, ferment, foppish, freshet, garrulousness, incipient, incontrovertible, indefatigable, inimical, inscrutable, intransigent, inviolate, latigo, litany, lucent, obsequious, opulence, palaver, panocha, pantomime, paragon, paregoric, perfidy, pique, plait, poultice, precocious, preternaturally, ptomaine, puling, querulous, quirt, rakishly, ribald, stultifying, surrey, swagger, swale, tarpaulins, toilet water, torpor, tractable, trestle, truculence, truculently, valise, and vulpine.

Please consider including at least one of the above words in a comment you make about this post.

Accompapianomanianist

2010-02-07T15:49:00.003-07:00

The Internet doesn't visit the place I'm living right now, and for this cause I haven't posted to my blog. It's refreshingly nice and surprisingly tolerable to disconnect from the tubes while I'm at home. I can't email or blog or check the FacenBok or mindlessly surf. However, did you know you can download the entire Wikipedia? Well, you can, and I have. So I can browse the Wikipedia despite my webless abode.

Another great thing about my current home is its proximity to work (and Apollo Burger). Most days, I walk to work. I love walking to work. I absolutely love walking to work. And thankfully, I also like walking home from work. A few times, on my way home, as I've passed the Catholic ... I'm going to call it a church even though it's labeled "Catholic Center." So as I've passed the church, in the dimming light of the evening, the bells start ringing while people go inside to worship. It makes me smile.

Penultimately, I'm now the proud owner of a piano. I've been considering buying one for several months and have been saving up for it. Finally, yesterday, I got it. It's electric (thinking that I'll probably still be living in apartment-style dwellings for a least a little longer and should use headphones), but the action and weighting is nearly true to an acoustic. Also, the title of this post corresponds to this paragraph and should be attributed to Barb, who, if I remember right, coined the term for Mr. Hill's benefit.

Finally, since the Super Bowl's going on today (right now, eh?), I must offer an obligatory cheer to my team:

Go Tigers!!!

Those cool tickers

2009-12-13T16:26:00.003-07:00

Everyone has those cool tickers and badges and things on their blogs. And since this is a blog, I feel like I should fall in line.

So, here's my marriage countdown timer:

Here's a stick figure drawing of my family, not unlike the version stuck to the back of SUVs. (Do people take the time to update those?)

Here's my baby timer:

... send in the butterflies!

Holidaze

2009-11-29T18:19:00.002-07:00

Yesterday was Saturday. So was the day before. And so was the day before that. Tomorrow is Monday. Today, when I first remembered that tomorrow is Monday, I couldn't remember what projects I'm working on and thought, "I wonder if I still know how to program..." Time will tell.

One of my family's best traditions is Practice Thanksgiving. Here's a good way to imagine it (remember these from elementary school?):

Practice Thanksgiving : Thanksgiving :: Rehearsal : Performance

After this year's two practices, the real thing went very well. We elected for the "healthy" yams instead of the healthy yams, the rolls were butter-sodden and fluffy...

Aside: I'm pretty sure I'm going to leave this earth clutching my failing heart as it struggles to pump blood through my dry, sealed arteries. Either that, or the butter and bacon grease lubricating my veins will ease my heart's burden to the tune of 40 extra years of life. End aside.

...I made a banana cream pie with a pecan, graham cracker crust (ingredients: 1 pkg graham crackers, 3/4 c. or so pecans, 1 Tbsp sugar, 1 stick butter). Definitely my favorite pie. The turkey, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce (made fresh by Mom), gravy and green beans all tasted great. And it was fun to spend the day with my family.

No pic today. But the square root of 689 is about 26.3

Arranged Marriage

2009-11-15T17:06:00.002-07:00

I just signed into Family Search to follow through with a request made by my stake. On my pedigree chart there's a link below my name that says "Add or find wife." I clicked on it hopefully, but then it asks me for her name. How is that supposed to help me find a wife?

I'm thinking I might just fill it in anyway...

:)

Squarish Roots

2009-11-08T16:11:00.008-07:00

I love math and I love solving clever math problems. This guy is pretty cool. Well, he's a nerd, but he's a pretty cool nerd. Also, Donald encounters square roots here.

Anyway, for the longest time I've wondered how to quickly find the ballpark square root of a number. The square root of 9 is easy, but what about 10, or 11, or 8,387? Chace once said that his dad knew of a way that was pretty quick, but we couldn't figure it out. Or maybe Chace figured it out and never told me :)

Well, I finally found a way! So.... here we go:

How I figured it out:
What's the square root of 10? It's probably just bigger than 3 because

3 * 3 = 9

Squares can be represented with squares. Go figure. Here's a 3x3:

000
000
000

We'll define

A₁ = x² = 9 (area of square)
x = 3 (side of square)

Then let's define:

A₂ = (x + Δx)² = 10 (area of new square)
x + Δx = ? (side of new square - this is the answer to the original question)

The new square has four sections:

1113
0002
0002
0002

section 0: area encompassing the original 3x3 square
section 1: additional area on top
section 2: additional area on the side
section 3: additional area in the top right corner

A_{section 0} = x² = 9
A_{section 1} = x(Δx)
A_{section 2} = x(Δx)
A_{section 3} = (Δx)²

And here's the cool part! (You didn't think there'd be a cool part, did you?) Δx is less than 1, because otherwise x + Δx = 4 (or more) which squares to 16. And since I just want the ballpark answer, I can ignore the area of section 3. That leads to:

If we set the total area of that shape to 10, then we can easily find Δx:

A₂ = x² + 2x(Δx)
... (math) ...
Δx = (A₂ - x²) / 2x
  = (10 - 9) / 2(3)
  = 1 / 6
  = 0.16

√10 ≈ x + Δx
   ≈ 3.16

Which is close to the real answer:

3.16227766

Steps for any number:
Given any number (let's call it N):
1. Choose a number, x, whose square is just less than N

N = 8,387
100² = 10,000 (too big)
50² = 2,500 (too small)
90² = 8,100 (perfect)
x = 90

2. Take the difference of N and x² (and call it d)

d = N - x²
 = 8387 - 8100
 = 287

3. This equation:

(x + a)² = x² + 2xa + a²

tells us the difference effected in a square by incrementing the root by a. For example:

2² = 4

(2 + 1)² = 2² + 2(2)(1) + 1²
        = 2² + 5 (so adding 1 to the root increases the square by 5)
        = 9 = 3²

(2 + 5)² = 2² + 2(2)(5) + 5²
        = 2² + 45 (so adding 5 to the root increases the square by 45)
        = 49

So choose a to get as close as you can to d without going over (and call that value b):

2xa + a²
2(90)(1) + 1² = 181
2(90)(2) + 2² = 364 (too big)

b = 181
a = 1

Add your chosen a to make a new x:

x = 91

4. If you want more precision (x is already within 1 of the answer), subtract b from d:

d = 287 - 181
  = 106

then divide that number by 2x:


106 / 2x = 106 / 2(91)
         = 106 / 182
         = 53 / 91
         ≈ 5/9
         ≈ .55

Add that result to x and you've got a pretty precise answer:


√8387 ≈ 91.55 (estimate)
      = 91.58 (real answer)

So here's one done really quickly with even less precision:


√127 = ?
10² = 100
127 - 100 = 27
27 / (2*10) = 1 + 7/20
7/20 = .35
√127 ≈ 11.35 (estimate; not bad)
     = 11.26 (actual answer)

On that one, if I knew that 11² = 121, then


11² = 121
127 - 121 = 6
6 / (2*11) = 6 / 22
           = 3 / 11
           = 3 * (1 / 11)
           ≈ 3 * .09
           ≈ .27
√127 ≈ 11.27 (even better)
     = 11.26 (actual answer)

67th Post

2009-10-25T22:59:00.004-06:00

My mom rarely paints her nails -- she "doesn't like the suffocating feeling." It therefore follows that my mom rarely removes paint from her nails.

With my mom's help, I dressed up as Frankenstein for my orchestra concert last Tuesday (or rather, to satisfy the prescriptivists, I dressed as The Modern Prometheus). I had the bolts, the dark hair, the dead-looking flesh and blackened nails -- only the fingers; I neglected painting the toes since I'd be wearing shoes.

To complete my getup, I bought a nice suit from D.I. (parenthetically, how does one punctuate the end of a sentence in which the last word ends with the mark you intend to use? It feels a little silly to write it again. People might read it like they're descending a flight of seven stairs expecting six) . The suit fit right about my waist, and fit most of my legs nicely as well. See for yourself:

I enjoyed the concert -- we played some fun "scary" songs:

Danse Macabre - listen to this one if you have time for only one song.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice - but in real life... not cartooned.
Baba Yaga something something - the conductor on this video is funny, though I wouldn't enjoy playing for him. He hasn't always a very pronounced ictus.
Pumpkin Eater's Fugue - can't find a recording,
and Noon Witch Overture - it's okay... not my favorite.

And I scared some kids.

Finally at home I unscrewed the bolt from my neck, showered out the darkness from my hair, cleaned the deadness from my face and asked my mom to help me remove the blackness from my fingers' nails. She pulled out the bottle of remover (that she probably bought when she was four years old and hadn't used in a decade) and only managed restoring six nails to life before running out. So I went to work on Wednesday as an emo kid. Without the goofy hair.

Contemplative Frank:

Drum-playing Frank with fellow drummers:

Hundreds of Thousands of Words

2009-10-13T22:41:00.004-06:00

Here are some things I've been working on lately. I'd put them on my more nerdly blog, but I'm not explaining anything technical here... so... here:

This demonstrates a simple watchdog timer thinger. The circuit will activate unless in receives a signal within a certain amount of time.

We (at work) used that circuit to power this fan so that when our website went down, the fan would turn on:

I fixed the dome light in my car. No, this was not the cheapest way to fix it. Yes, it was fun to do. Yes, it's pretty bright. And it makes me smile when I get in my car at night.

(and no, the light isn't just dangling from the ceiling -- this photo was taken before I put it in the cover)

And this is one of my mom's flowers before we pulled them all out before winter:

Persist

2009-09-28T14:01:00.002-06:00

Originally Emerson's thought, this was Heber J. Grant's motto: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased."

I nabbed it from the Gospel Principles book. Most often, I've encountered this quote in lessons at church designed to motivate us to be persistent in strengthening weaknesses. And it has been motivating to me. I see it when I practice the piano, or exercise or speak eSpanish -- we really do gain ability in the things in which we persist.

But this last week, I realized that the idea works in the negative sense, too. To rephrase: "If we persist in being a jerk, being a jerk becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of jerkitude has changed, but our power to be a jerk is increased." Same goes for lying, sleeping too much, plucking the heads off of flowers, not doing dishes, petting cats up their spine instead of down, watching TV, being critical of others, eating chocolate oranges, etc...

I'm not sure I've concluded anything yet from this thought, other than to take pleasure in the little victories of agency well used. In what do you persist?

Unrelatedly, I found this snippet from Ralph whilst searching for the quote up top:

"I hate quotation. Tell me what you know." - Emerson, Journals (May 1849)

To borrow from the Bible: "Amen!"

Geneous

2009-08-30T23:00:00.002-06:00

What other name comes to mind when I mention the names Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il? Obviously, Jason. Jason, the former Korean Dictator of Mountain View's Italian Club circa 2001, who narrowly (it may actually have been a landslide) beat out our only authentic Korean (sorry, Dan). Jason, the eater of hot dogs. Jason, the both selfish and generous consumer of popcorn. Jason, the Netflix. Jason, the man who-just-made-it-through-this-week. Jason, my (former) roommate.

He's in Texas now, which is weird. I've lived with him for the past three solid years, starting from the time I bumped into him in the Clyde and he asked, "Do you want to come live in the Glenwood?" Jason's great, and I'll miss him. We had fun in high school (ask to see the movies sometime (the jingle was ... ba, da, da Rob or something like that)), and we've had fun in college. He really is a great guy. May you sweat well in Houston, Jason :)

By far, Jason's greatest quality is his salad, which is what prompted me to write this post. I made his salad today for my family. And they liked it. In fact as my brother, Dan, pointed out, today was the first time we've ever heard the sentence, "Can you pass me more salad?" spoken by my dad.

Which leads me to another thought about which I've been thinking recently: generally speaking, I like heterogeneous things more than homogeneous things. This was not true growing up, specifically with food. I used to prefer my food to be consistent throughout -- no surprises. But now, I think I enjoy a sandwich which has a little more tomato in one bite, and a little more meat in another. A couple weeks ago, I had the Big Apple from Gandolfos on Center Street in Provo (it's the best Gandolfos I've found). That sandwich was awesome! Every bite was a little bit different. Random variety really makes life more exciting, and enjoyable.

Similarly, a heterogeneous mixture of humans is generally superior to a predictable section of society. And a picture of asymmetry is more beautiful than symmetry would be. But, and I haven't thought this all the way through, it's a little more difficult to appreciate the heterogeneous. Just like my younger self, if you're unwilling or unable to appreciate the different things, the brilliant flavors, views and personalities will be lost on you. Or worse, you will detest the difference. (Oh, the reason Jason's salad led me to this thought is that it is very heterogeneous -- forgot to mention that)

That is NOT to say that everything which is different is good, as modern relativists claim. Nor does it mean that any crackpot notion of reality or opinion or persuasion is made good by its crackpottedness. It IS to say that the "good" umbrella is an umbrella, not a raincoat.

This is a picture I took of a flower my mom planted:

And in the words of the skeleton: I sleep now.

maPost

2009-08-18T22:33:00.002-06:00

I'd like to dedicate this post to Megan. And since this is my blog, I can do whatever I'd like on it. And so I will dedicate this post to Megan.

This post is dedicated to Megan. It became dedicated upon my writing the previous sentence.

I moved home yesterday. Last night, I slept in my old, very comfortable bed with a cool breeze blowing through the wide open window.

As I came into the kitchen this morning for breakfast (bacon, eggs and grits ala marvelous Mom) I noted how different Mom's kitchen is from my former kitchen. There are cookies everywhere! And unlike in my apartment, when a cookie is eaten, the quantity does not diminish -- there are an infinite number of cookies! There's bowls filled with fruits and vegetables. Nearly all the things in the fridge are both consumable and not pickles nor carrots. So, that's great.

I had a mullet on Friday. But my camera cable's packed away somewhere, so the pictures will not be in this post.

Also, I finally joined Facebook.

That's all for now.

Except that, for this post to be properly dedicated to Megan, it must include a playlist:

All the Music on This Computer's Desktop Playlist:
- Major Tom

2009-07-30T11:57:00.000-06:00

This is a real update.

2009-07-21T18:25:00.000-06:00

This is a test

Edge of the World

2009-05-12T21:54:00.002-06:00

I had a really good day last... I think it was Thursday.

After working for a little in the morning I went to Harmons for lunch. I drove to a nearby church, snatched the red checkered blanket from my trunk, chuckled to myself that it was, indeed, a red checkered blanket, layed it on the grass at the edge of a tree's shadow, took off my shoes and slowly ate my lunch. If memory serves, I also had a package of Pepperidge Farms cookies -- either the butter-sodden, shortbread Chessmen or the thin-n-crispy, chocolatey Brussels.

To save the entire package of cookies from extinction, I cut my excursion short. On a side note, I have a goal this summer to purchase a package of cookies -- whether Pepperidge Farms or otherwise -- and to eat only one cookie per day. I don't know if such a goal is possible; my gut says that it wants to eat the cookies, so I'm thinking it'll be difficult.

Anyway, a couple hours later I left work and headed home. But, on my way home, on a whim, for the first time, I stopped at the Edge of the World park and flew my kite. The park has always invited me to visit: it sits atop the bench overlooking University Avenue (as well as the rest of the valley) with no fence or foliage guarding the drop. From within the park looking West it really looks like Earth ends with the lawn.

I don't remember what else happened that day... but at least the remembered was excellent.

I made the following video from the web cam in the testing center. 10:30am is particularly exciting.

And this comes from the Brimhall building's web cam.

Harses, harses, harses

2009-04-29T22:16:00.004-06:00

So, I never wrote about a few Tuesdays ago when I went horseback riding with my cousins. I took the day off of work and homework, and drove out to Spring City (near Manti) for a very relaxing and very fun day.

We ended up combing the horses a lot,

galloping a bit, going up a mountainish place and chasing a small herd of deer. Jacob's horse seemed to have asthma... he was wheezing the whole time. But Jacob was breathing okay.

After riding we played a few games then went for a "hike" in one of the local canyons. We only went a little ways up and played a lot in the snow. Here's one of our guides juggling:

Everyone after all the snowball fights:

As I was driving home that evening, I just kept smiling -- it was so fun. I love my cousins (and my aunts and uncles).

In other news, I graduated from BYU last week:

You're invited

2009-04-01T11:15:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow (Thursday) from 1pm to about 4pm in the Garden Court of the Wilkinson Center:

That's my senior project. The car uses a camera to navigate a course of pylons. Come see!

Also, this is my FHE group's video:

http://vimeo.com/3860150

Three years ago

2009-03-25T20:07:00.003-06:00

Wow... I can't believe it's been almost three years. In October, right around General Conference, it will have been three years. Time really has flown, and so much has happened to me since that day.

Nearly three years ago, I bought this bottle of hair gel:

Now the goo's depleted. Goo. I guess most of it's... on my pillow... huh... that's a strange thought. Some made it down the shower drains of the 'Oood and my current bathroom. Campus has received a fair dusting, as have California, St. George and Arizona -- though in very small, very dry flecks. My usual strategy is to gloop my hair up, let it harden, then run my hands through my hair until it's soft.

The stuff runs at about $3 per bottle. As a diligent saver, I would have needed to put away 5 cents from each pay check to save up enough for the next bottle. That's neglecting earned interest and inflation. Supposing a 4% annual savings rate and 4% annual inflation, I would then need to retain 5 cents from each pay check. Still pretty cheap. I suppose I could devote one day in 15 scouring parking lots and sofas for a nickel. And if luck turned up a dime, I'd be set for an entire month.

On two unrelated notes:

I've been studying like mad for my EcEn 451 midterm, and as I've been studying, trying to learn (and succeeding in learning) various things for the class, once in a while, I've been struck by my overuse of commas, and I've also had feelings of, "Hey, you're learning something that you could actually use to find employment -- you're learning useful things." You might say that this contradicts the last sentence of my previous post... but the feeling is more of "this is useful, you're putting good things in your head." It's similar to learning some Spanish, then being able to speak to someone in Spanish -- you know? that satisfying feeling of accomplishment?

And:

We spoke today about Post Modernism in my English class. It was kind of eerie. Post Modernists (should that be capitalized? ... well post modernists wouldn't care) are relativists... and don't believe in convention or standards -- reality as we perceive it isn't real... it's just become real because of how we perceive. Anyway, it's all very circular and makes only half sense. Following it to its end seems to lead one to atheism... and don't-believe-or-stand-for-anythingism.

BUT, it was eerie because a lot of what I do follows post modernist thought -- the things I think are funny. I'm rambling... so, you know how your having a conversation amongst a group of people, and then you start conversing about yourselves conversing -- that's post modernism. People of earlier ages didn't ordinarily do that. Or when you make fun of singing in a song. Or when you mock dating conventions as you date. Or speaking conventions as you speak. Or blogging conventions as you blog!!.

Okay, enough of that.

That's a daffodil from two nights ago.

Wasteland

2009-03-15T21:04:00.002-06:00

One day this week I wore white shoes, my fancy blue jeans, a brown belt, a grey and blue sweater over a brown shirt with a black jacket. Is that okay?

(This picture depicts how we went to the BYU-Utah basketball game. Ammon's year is accurate. Steve's and mine are not)

Also this week, in my favorite class, Dr. Talbot read aloud T.S. Eliot's poem, The Wasteland. Dr. Talbot speaks Latin, German, French and Spanish (as best I can tell -- I have a feeling he started with Latin), so he had no problem switching to the various languages as he read. It was so nice to go to a class and just listen to poetry. No PowerPoint (aside: PowerPoint is to education as Agent Orange is to forests). No equations. No code optimizations. No bickering about points on homework. And in fact (this one deserves another paragraph)...

Dr. Talbot revealed a great secret just prior to reading the poem. He spoke for a minute about how intellectuals and professors find all kinds of symbolism and meaning in The Wasteland. They find great ideas and wisdom. It was truly a revolutionary poem. "But," he said, "do you want to know the reason I like it?" (he actually repeated this question several times during his explanation of the poem's intellectual merits)

"I like it because it sounds nice." He enjoys it in much the same way that we enjoy good music, not because of the words at first, but because of the sound and the feeling it evokes. "In fact," said he, his love of literature and poetry in general is primarily not from intellectual study of the works, but whether or not he likes it. What a relief! Since my first English class in Jr. High, I've wondered what's wrong with me! All these teachers naturally find all these deep meanings and expect essays to be written in comparison and contrast. Find the theme, find the point, find the technique, get inside the author's head. Finally I have an English teacher who's honest enough to admit the true reason he likes literature -- and it's the same reason I like to read: I just like it! I enjoy reading the stories. It's fun. I like the puns and the tricks. I like meeting characters and watching them go about their lives. I love alliteration.

After the initial draw, secondarily he enjoys an intellectual perusal of the literature. So, stop it, all you English teachers. Stop making me feel like a dolt for just enjoying the "music" without listening to the "lyrics." I don't mind learning deeper meanings, but don't pretend like you read it primarily for those deeper thoughts.

No one will have made it to this paragraph... I usually stop reading posts that are this long. But one more thing I noticed. During Dr. Talbot's reading of the poem, I noticed one kid, in the back of the class -- a kid in my major with whom I have a class or two -- doing his homework. He couldn't be bothered to care about dumb English. He's too cool for that, I guess. How could English possibly help in real life? I'm just glad that I have been trained to enjoy things that aren't redeemable for cash.

Three things

2009-02-26T19:48:00.010-07:00

So... if you want to have all your clothes clean at once, you've got to be risk sitting around naked while they are washed. If you don't have a washing machine, completely clean is impossible (or not worth it at best). Life's like that: you've got to live with imperfection ... or be naked.

Whilst still lying in bed this morning soon after I awoke, out of nowhere I realized how to fold those flower-like games from elementary school. So I grabbed a piece of paper from my backpack and folded one... and it worked!

I don't know what made me think of it, but I was happy that the design in my head worked in real life. Usually twilight thoughts don't translate to reality.

This week, I've been eating fresh strawberries cut into strawberry yogurt infused with pecan bits. I like it a lot.

And I can't take very much credit for this because my duties on our Senior project team haven't dealt much with vision or navigation yet, but I'm still helping out. The car in the video below is following the green water noodle with a camera mounted on top of the car.

Bijana, Bijana

2009-02-14T18:44:00.002-07:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

My dad shared an interesting article with me about Joshua Bell, violinist extraordinaire, playing as a street performer during a D.C. rush hour. Only a handful of people paid any attention to him. (I think it's interesting that the most consistently interested demographic were the young children). If you've got several minutes this article is worth reading, not only for the content, but for the fact that it has at least these GRE words in it: cupidity, banal, castigating, mendicant, august, coalesced and encomium (I never thought I'd see "encomium" used).

Someone else shared another article (through Google Reader) about alone time. I'm very much guilty of constantly being connected. With my iPod, I can always get my email or chat with people whenever I have Wifi -- and all the places I tend to be have Wifi. With my little EeePc, I can use my computer in class and connect to the ether.

Driving home a day or two ago, I listened on the radio to a discussion about watching TV -- about what people think is okay for kids and adults. The "expert" pointed out that TV viewing has become less of a family activity (as it was decades ago) and is now an individual activity. He refuted the claim that TV-watching habits can be reduced to "hours watched;" the content matters too!

And then I saw this commercial on TV for Dentyne. Yes, I was lazily watching TV after listening to the radio program on bad TV-watching habits.

So... all these combined have given me a desire to interact more and compute less -- to unplug.

And so, today we fixed an old PlayStation (thanks Amanda!) and were playing Grand Tourismo. You'll note that the PlayStation is running sans cap, like an fusty turn table.

(Using "fusty" was a stretch... yes, I know)

Change

2009-01-25T23:09:00.001-07:00

Things keep changing in my life. Some of the changes I welcome... some I do not... but my life's history leads me to believe that even the undesirable changes end up being good after some time.

But in another vein: some time ago, I was washing my hands in a restroom in the Wilk. As I was rinsing, another guy came up to the sinks to wash his hands. He startled me as he furiously pumped the soap dispenser for his soap. He must have pushed the thing 6 or 8 times. "Sheesh, man... a dab'll do ya," I thought. My mind continued: "I'll bet that he..." and sure enough, he ripped out 4 or 5 paper towels to dry his hands, then chucked them in the trash. That's a little excessive.

Two or three years ago I realized that one paper towel is sufficient to dry one's hands, and I made the switch from my customary two to one. From my casual observation, I think most people take two towels -- there's something satisfying about the roll turning over twice, I guess. Kachunk. Kachunk. Anyway...

People -- Mr. President -- talk about great changes that need to happen to "fix" things. I'm eager for him to try. I feel like he's a good man and has both the clout and the desire to cause change to happen. I just hope he doesn't use the rubber from the back tire to fix the front tire. And I hope he doesn't feed the lazy with the bread of the worker. Sometimes we need to trust that the invisible hand will move things where they need to be. And sometimes we need to move them. I think now needs a little of both without an excess of either.

So back to hand-drying:

What if everyone started drying with one towel instead of two? Kachunk. Our paper towel consumption would be reduced by 50%. And who needs hard numbers? Using half as much stuff is better than using twice as much as half as much stuff. Extend this to water usage: a 10 minute shower uses 33% less water than a 15 minutes shower. A sink filled up half way with shaving water uses 50% less water than a full sink. What if, instead of regulating and redistributing, people were conscientious in their own lives?

You can effect change from the top down or from the outside in... or you can cause change from the bottom up and the inside out.

Just some thoughts. No pic... sorry :)

On the Morality of Conspicuous Espionage

2009-01-15T22:16:00.004-07:00

Today in the library, I saw a girl with her laptop (a Mac) on it's side opened toward her. I thought it might have been a new kind of computer... or a book dressed as a computer. I approached her from behind the computer, then circled around to the user side and discovered that she was reading a PDF that a teacher had photocopied sideways. I would have spent hours researching how (and likely writing a program to do) to rotate a PDF. Good for you, girl... and thanks for the laugh.

On Wednesday, I was sitting in one of the alcoves of the JFSB writing an essay for my English class. Those alcoves are prime spots for sporadic people-watching -- the traffic isn't heavy, but very noticeable. Anyway, I heard a girl approaching, chatting on her cell phone -- it sounded like she was leaving someone a message. And when she came into view, I remarked to myself that she was quite attractive, quite tall, and ringless. As I was remarking that to myself (and here's the point of the story), she started saying her phone number into the phone! I retained it in memory just long enough to think, "What are the rules about getting a girl's phone number... from herself speaking it in your presence?" But I tossed it away instead of writing it down, deciding that my calling her could only lead to the police beat. Gave me a good laugh anyway.

We've been using colored pencils in my class about processor/gate design and manufacturing, so I snapped this photo (and the one up top) after sharpening my little, little pencils that my wonderful mother got for me. Hey, if the CivEs get to play in sandboxes, then the EEs can color!

Wish me luck on the GRE this Saturday!

UN Nukes

2009-01-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

This deserves a post :) Thank you, Onion.

distrub be gone

2009-01-03T00:32:00.002-07:00

So as not to distrub Barb any longer, here's a quick post.

Christmas (both the day and cushion of no school surrounding the day) was really, really good this year. Lots of times, I feel completely useless and unproductive during school holidays - but I actually did things this holiday which made it fun. And I got to spend it with my friends and family, which is always nice. Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks:

1. Mo.. Santa got me a nutmeg grinder. I love fresh nutmeg! I'm eager to make some spice doughnuts to try it out.

2. Also, we got these really cool helicopters (my brothers and I got them). When mine's repaired, ask me to fly it.

3. I went with Martha to a Utah Jazz game. We inherited some really nice seats, which is what motivated us to go. They were playing the Mavericks, and they won, which was good. But the best part of the whole night was Art, the man sitting next to us. As soon as we sat down, he heartily shook my hand as he introduced himself. He's a wizened man with a hoary head (I'm studying for the GRE), hearing aids and a nearly blind wife at his side. He was as enthusiastic as any other fan -- I think he lives to attend these games. He gave me a few high fives after some excellent plays and was generally just enthusiastically fun. He also liked it everytime the dancers came on :) Thank heavens for enthusiastic people.

4. I saw Valkyrie -- very good.

5. We made Godzilla in the snow:

and finally, two of the best things:

1. I went shopping for clothes with Martha, Ashley and Tresa. (Coincidentally, the first letters of their names spells Mat, which is the root word of Matt, which is my name) I've been wanting to buy clothes for myself for a long time. Except for a few shirts from DI and my $15 jeans, I can't think of ever buying clothes for myself. And yet, I budget a part of my paychecks for clothing. So we trucked around the mall and found some great clothes. I'm pleased with my purchases. I'll see about posting some pictures of Stylish Matt ... our runway is currently broken, but when it's fixed, you'll get a peek. Oh, Shawn came too -- I can't forget Shawn.

2. I made pasta and chicken-flavoured white sauce from scratch tonight for dinner. Making the noodles reminded me of my mission a bit -- when I learned how easy they are to make. And I wish I had that machine my mom has for flattening them. I think the noodles could have been a little flatter and the sauce would have been extra nice with some chicken in it. But it was still good.

Also, I finally met my nephew, Lincoln. And he was awake and everything! I'm glad I have married brothers.

Ladies: Don't worry... Scruff Matt can still be found below. You'll just have to scroll down a bit.

Toothbrush

2008-11-22T21:14:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday I woke up feeling sick and promptly threw overboard the offending stowaways from the ship that is my stomach. I retired to my quarters only to return repeatedly to the deck to have a few more walk the plank. Eventually, I signaled the Mothership for aid. She came out to sea and towed me back to harbor where I stayed until Wednesday afternoon.

In the process, I got some great scruff:

I have some residual treasures at home that always make staying there convenient. I have a change of underwear, an unoccupied bed, a drumset, a piano and a toothbrush -- at least, I think I have a toothbrush. I know that I left a toothbrush at home; it was in the mirror on the right. I left it on the second shelf when I moved out in 2006. I'm pretty sure it was white.

There's still a white toothbrush in that mirror -- but it's been moved. And it's next to another fancier, mechanical toothbrush. So every time I brush my teeth at home now, I put some paste on the brush and think, "Is this really my toothbrush? Or is this Dad's?" But every time I elect benign ignorance over sure understanding and brush my teeth with the white brush.

And I'm happier that way. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. :)

Mlneagd

2008-11-20T00:07:00.001-07:00

Keep rnediag, it's pbisolse to raed tihs. You may rembeemr tihs pmnhneoea bieng pasesd arunod as an eimal a whlie ago. It sdpupseoly cmae out of smoe rasreceh dnoe at a Unirsteviy. Tihs guy cmmontes on the oraginil (wihch may not alaculty be all taht aruatcce).

Awayny, I've adedd a btoutn on my bolg (oevr tehre on the rhgit) taht if you prses, wlil mkae evrey psot manlegd in the smae way this one is. Feel fere to psers it, tehn wiat a few sdocnes to see if tgihns cganhe. I've olny tsteed it wtih FFeroix, so I'm not srue how the ohetr bersrwos wlil frae.

Hree's the botutn too:

ilanga liyaqanda

2008-10-20T18:13:00.003-06:00

I have a lot to do, but I feel like writing for a minute. Here's what's left of the trees in my backyard:

The weather right now is perfect, to me. Walking the colorful streets of Provo reminds me simultaneously of two wonderful places: Gweru and Manti. I can't specifically remember ever visiting Manti in the fall, which makes me think that I'm reminded of Manti by my remembrance of Gweru.

Gweru is the third or fourth largest city in Zimbabwe and is situated about half-way between Harare and Bulawayo. Crossing Zimbabwe from east to west, Gweru seems to be the last city before the authentic African savanna begins -- tall yellow grass dotted with Acacia trees. And if I were to pick one word to describe that city, it would be sleepy.

My stay in Gweru was the shortest of all the places I lived as a missionary. I stayed in Bulawayo from July to November, Harare until August, Lusaka until January, Harare again, then Gweru from May until the end of June -- just one transfer. As a result, the Gweru of my memory is in a permanent fall. And in that fall, I love retracing my steps and rides through Lundi Park, the Bata factory, Southdowns and Ivene. I miss talking to the members of the Church there, and I miss eating a half-loaf of bread with a sack of milk for lunch. I miss the relaxed life that they live there. I miss bags of biscuits. I wonder how Omega's doing. I wonder where George ended up -- I'll never forget the day that he literally gave me the shirt off his back. I wonder if I'll ever again get to taste one of those lemon-doughnuts from the bakery in town.

Mentally walking through Gweru (or Gwelo as it was once called) reminds me of Manti -- peaceful Manti. Small houses without sidewalks and old, tall trees. I love simple Manti. Life is so simple there.

I'm glad that I will forever be blessed with remembrances of Gweru when the fall comes around -- it's nice to remember a simpler time.

I've been flipping through the end of my mission journal and found this gem (from after I came home):
"I ... attended the Single's Ward. I didn't like parts of it, but it was mostly okay. The talks, all of them, were very well-prepared, but, let me copy down a thought I wrote in my study journal: 'Being intelligent can be a downfall because it draws the user of the brain to leave out the unintelligible feelings of the heart. Never forget your heart... Live by your heart.'"

Here's the street I live on -- just took this picture on my way home today:

To stumps

2008-10-01T22:26:00.005-06:00

This week, something happened that I never really thought would happen. In my backyard grow two enormous Lombardy Poplars.

They've been growing for (let's see... I think my parents moved there in 1979... so) about 29 years. The mathematically astute will note that my age lies to the left of the trees' age on a standard number line -- they've always been there as far as I'm concerned.

The two giants are the grown remnants of a family of dead-looking sticks, which arrived in the mail some 30 years ago. My mom planted several of the sticks along our back fence looking forward to a beautiful wall of leaves. My dad accidentally (wisely) mowed over all but two of them, foreseeing the wall of leaves annually becoming a lake of leaves to rake up. And the two became the poles for our hammock.

But last week, because they're beginning to die, they're chopping the trees down. I went over after one had already been half cut down. This is what's left:

I'm sad that the trees are going -- it's almost like they're part of the family. But that's the way life goes, I guess.

After saying farewell to the trees Saturday morning, I went hiking with some friends around Y Mountain. We started in Rock Canyon and came down Slide Canyon (to the South of the Y on the mountain).

The leaves were spectacular!

We only took two "detours." I'm really glad we took the second detour because it landed us in an enormous, deep valley. That's where this picture was taken:

and this grovey picture:

Val brought Buster, who buried several biscuits along the trail:

We had to move through prehistoric leaf-bushes:

There were bugs:

and flowers:

and logs:

and helicopters:

and sun:

We stopped for a picnic at the meadow just inside Slide Canyon. I had bought bags of fresh peaches and pears from a fruit stand on Canyon Road the day before, so I delighted on those, some graham crackers, Ammon's butter crackers, some cookies and a spoonful of peanut butter in the meadow.

And then we descended to the Y:

This is the first time I've hiked down the Y without having first hiked up it. My knees hate hiking down the Y.

After getting off the mountain, I completed my adventures with a trip to the French bakery on State Street. I had two wonderful fruit tarts. And later that evening I enjoyed a French movie, "The Chorus" at the International Cinema.

So the trees are gone, but life goes on. And General Conference is this weekend!

Not a lot

2008-09-19T20:22:00.001-06:00

I take a variety of ways to and from work every day. During the summer I would consistently take University Avenue to and fro, but now that school's in session, it seems like the roads are a little more crowded. So it takes me 10 minutes longer to travel, but I enjoy the calmer drive.

On one of my out-of-the-way escapades this week I found a lot for sale:

I'm thinking of buying it. I'll use it for storing my boat and my sports cars. If anyone wants to go halfsies with me, let me know. I think this sign could be a.... sign reminding me that just because something's big and red and for sale doesn't mean it's a good deal.

And no, Cambridge boy doesn't come with the lot.... unless you're female and free tomorrow night.

Cambios Zvakanakas

2008-09-11T20:03:00.004-06:00

I've changed.

A week prior to the first day of school in the fall of 2002, you would have found me amassing supplies in preparation for my maiden semester at the Y. My impressive arsenal included several notebooks of college-ruled, perforated paper (each of a distinct color corresponding to a class), new folders branded with the class name of the papers they would soon hold, my schedule printed on a 3x5 card, a new box of pens, and a pocket-sized planner.

I also had my first experience exchanging appendages for books at the bookstore. For some reason, though -- and I've never found out why it happened – they had all my books waiting for me in a cardboard box! They gave me the one with my name on it, I payed, then hefted it home – buying books is easy!

One thing more made my preparations complete: my map. But not just a map... a color-coded, hand-highlighted map. Each building was highlighted, as were each of the paths I would be traveling between classes. I clutched the thing vigorously that first week.

Yes... I was ready for school.

Now I'm a week and a half into my ninth semester here. And I'm mapless. But not just mapless... I only have one notebook so far – it's a light blue 70-pager leftover from my hardware design class... and my technical writing class... and part of my Spanish phonetics class... and the first week of a CS class I didn't end up taking. It's also got the scoreboard from a game of Greed – Ashley had 6200 points when the game ended. The final pages contain token notes from each of my current classes – notes with headings like: REL 3something Day 2. I've got three old folders sitting empty in my backpack. My CS textbook finally arrived yesterday – so I'll either diligently catch up on the reading I missed, or I'll absorb what I need from the lecture I didn't attend today and make it through.

I'm writing this in the CAEDM lab on the fourth floor of the Clyde Building. I've just finished a lab for one of my classes and don't really want to start any of the other homework I have. I'll be walking home shortly, then go to Thirsty Thursdays.

So. I've changed. I wouldn't say (though some will) that I've become more lazy, though I've definitely relaxed a lot since the first semester. I aim for good grades, but don't stress over them.

And in April, I will graduate with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. Supposedly, that means that I will be able to engineer electrons. And though I can make them dance in certain ways, I am by no means an expert – nor do I consider myself all that competent in many of the dance moves.

What I do know, however, is that voltage is directly proportional to current and resistance, AND that I will keep changing. I suppose I'm not much different from everyone else: I like most of the changes I see in myself, but dislike some of the others. It seems that those I like have come out of either conscious effort, or through struggling against a challenge, while those I disdain have just happened out of living lazily from day to day.

Anyway...

I wonder what the next 6 years will bring.

/musings

Here's a flower whose picture I took:

Ode to Bus

2008-08-30T09:49:00.003-06:00

(On a side note, the title to this post just reminded me of the time I played "Ode to Joy" at a piano festival. I forgot to play the middle part of the song -- it seemed awfully short to me when I had finished, and I was puzzled until I figured out my mistake. I still got a Superior. Woot.)

I spent three of the past five weekdays riding the bus to work while my car was having some body damage repaired. There's some things about riding the bus that I've always liked:

I like the interesting people you meet on the bus. On the first evening ride home I met Elsa, a ninety-year-old Chilean "who still dances." She lives with her son in Provo, but rides the bus to Orem every day to volunteer at an assisted living place. She's 90 and volunteers to help old people! She's probably older than a lot of the people she's assisting. She's in good health "because she keeps busy." I hope to get old like Elsa.

And I didn't meet, but observed, a pregnant lady riding the bus with her two young daughters. She was very much pregnant but not at all grouchy or "look-at-me-it's-so-hard." She was reading the signs in the bus to her daughters then interpreting them: "No offensive language -- that means you don't say mean things. No vandalism -- that means no writing on the seats." At the end of their ride, she helped up the youngest daughter so she could "pull the line" to signal a stop. I like good moms who enjoy just being moms.

Oh, and the BYU road maintenance crew needs to think a little more when they do things. Riding the 830 up past the Wilk one morning, we encountered heavy conage. Bookending every single, freshly painted, white, lane-dividing line were two small orange cones. So there was no way to change lanes. Our bus driver had changed lanes just prior to the cone derby and thus found himself stuck in the left lane as we approached a stop. Luckily, there was no one at the stop and no one wanted to get off... but good heavens, painting crew! Take the lane-changing out of a double lane road and you've broken the system.

I also like that the bus is slow -- that you have to wait for it and that it takes forever to get anywhere. I'm not being sarcastic. There's something good in not getting exactly what you want when you want it -- of having to wait for something. And there's something... relaxing about just getting there when you get there. Reminds me of my mission.

And lastly, I like that you have to walk more than 20 feet to get to work when riding the bus. Every day after work, walking beyond the parking lot to the wild unknown, I would follow a dog down the sidewalk. And you too, if you were to walk that way, would follow the same dog. As far as I know, he only made the trip once, but he chose to do it soon after the sidewalk makers had done their job thereby leaving his footprints in the slabs.

And this is funny:

The Miserables and Angel's Landing

2008-08-19T12:54:00.003-06:00

I spent the past weekend with my roommates and Amanda and Val and my grandparents in St. George. And we had a blast! My grandparents fed us like kings (thank you, Grandma and Grandpa) and the weather was great.

Oh, but before I begin... I dedicate this post, or rather, the pictures in this post to Martha, who mentioned here that one of the things that "blows her mind" is "people who take pictures to make it look like they're having tons of fun. it's one thing to document your trip, quite another to take a trillion pics of big-grin-right-in-the-lens. get over yourself." Knowing that before going down, I made a special effort to "document" the trip.

Here's my comrades and me on the shuttle to the bottom of the mountain:

Here's me part way up the mountain (I'm the one looking at the camera).

Here's another part way up (I'm the one occupying the right half of the picture).

Here's Scout Point (where you stop if you're afraid of heights)

Practicing lightning avoidance. I wish the pictures could do some sort of justice to how pretty it is up there.

Another shot of me (I'm near the bottom part of the picture. The mountain is behind me.)

And finally on our way to Tuacahn to see Les Miserables (that's my head in the middle obscuring the view of Tuacahn)

And I loved Les Miserables! That was my first time ever seeing any sort of production of the story. I've heard the music all my life, but I'd never seen it. Because the Tuacahn is outdoors, they could do cool things like have horses, pigs and goats, fireworks and a cannon. The pit orchestra was great and all of the performers sang and acted very well. It was quite a moving play.

Timpa No Go Us

2008-07-26T11:25:00.002-06:00

I've never hiked to the top of Timpanogos.

I've always wanted to -- I've lived at her feet my whole life. It's just never happened. But this morning, I awoke at 5:00am so that I could make it happen. Yesterday, in fact, I gathered all the necessary (and superfluous) preparations -- fruits, nuts, food, water and a slightly earlier bed-time. But...

...every once in so often, I'm reminded that I'm human -- that despite my strongest intentions, I may not be able to always do everything I want. This morning was one of those "so oftens." I felt queasy on my way down the stairs to the grassy knoll (our ward's official meeting spot for all activities), but thought it would go away. It didn't. A few blocks out, I made Jason pull over and I... to euphemize the act... made an addendum to the gutter.

Hindsight says I should have just gone back home... but I truly did feel better. Anyway, we made it up to the mountain... and las cosas que viven adentro querrían escaparles. Escaparon.

And so, we had to come back home. I'm glad everyone was willing to drive me home and sacrifice their hike -- though I feel pretty darn lame about it. They dropped me off and did a different hike.

On the positive side: it's beautiful up there. It felt great to breathe the mountain air. Now I have a greater desire to hike to the top.

So, I've still never hiked to the top of Timpanogos.

Here's us not hiking:

And here's my niece -- just because she's cute:

Two Good Books

2008-07-05T14:31:00.003-06:00

Recently, I finished reading two good books: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens two Sundays ago, and the seventh Harry Potter yesterday. (As a side note about the Harry Potter books: I've met a third person who refuses to read the books out of "principle." The principle seems to be simple stubbornness, though some argue literary quality; all seem to eschew bandwagonness.)

I'd like to try a technique I learned from past English classes by comparing and contrasting the two books:

Analyzing the data from this comparison, you will probably reach the same conclusion I have: the days between August 2006 and June 2008 had less hours than the now-typical 24 we've been experiencing for the past couple weeks. That's why it took me so long to finish David Copperfield. In some ways, I feel like I was reading in real-time as David grew up :)

But it seems silly to me to compare the two books. Yes, they're both British, take place in London, involve a crummy-step-parented orphan boy who can make things magically disappear. But beyond that, I see little resemblance. They don't even have the same name!

Comparisons aside, I enjoyed both of them thoroughly. I recommend the Potter books as good, easy entertainment–they're fun. And I recommend Copperfield as good, laborious entertainment. As I've written before, I enjoy boring things–though "boring" is perhaps the wrong term: quiet, unpretentious, slow are probably more apt adjectives. David Copperfield was definitely that, loaded with details of surroundings, situations, people and thoughts, it's the kind of book you can leave to the dust, then pick up and continue a few weeks later.

Dickens is also a lot more thoughtful... less Roman, more Greek. Here are a few of my favorite gems:

From the financially unsound Mr. Micawber: "My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time; -- collar him."

David reflecting on his own life:
"I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfillment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self, and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, I find, now, to have been my golden rules."

And his descriptions about loving the women he loved at various times are spot-on. This one, in which David has built up the courage to give flowers to Dora, can be likened to asking a girl out on a date: "I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them so near her. But I could n't manage it. She was too bewildering. To see her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all presence of mind and power of language in feeble ecstasy. I wonder I did n't say, 'Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!'"

Thank heavens for good books!

I know I don't really read wordy posts, and I don't expect anyone else to, so here's another picture to look at. I took it at the parade yesterday:

Argggg

2008-06-18T18:19:00.005-06:00

I've been working on a paper for my Technical Writing class for the past few days. It's kind of a fun project, but I'm getting a little tired of the tedium. I've got most of the content down, so now I'm going back to make sure that I meet all the requirements. And I'm stumped. Here's the requirements for the Front matter: (remember, this is a technical writing class)

So, for the four pages, this is what I think it wants me to do:

	Count	Number	List in TOC
Title Page	i	No	No
Letter	ii	No	Yes
TOC	iii	Yes	No
Preface	iv	Yes	Yes

The one I don't understand is the Letter... why do I not number it, but list it in the Table of Contents?

Argg.... English majors... :)

What a fun week

2008-06-15T19:36:00.009-06:00

This past week has been so fun!

Monday
Celebrated my birthday with my family at home. We made homemade ice cream and it was just as good as I remember it.

Tuesday
Celebrated Meleah's (my niece) birthday. She's one! We tried to teach her to say "hawk" using some cool flash cards she got as a present.

Wednesday
Celebrated my birthday again at my apartment thanks to Judy's banana cream pie! We also played pickup sticks:

Thursday
Ward intramural kickball team took 2nd in the tournament.

Had my very first mint julep at Thirsty Thursdays at the Ashley's. I took the experience to heart and sat on the porch sipping the mint julep. Can't say I'm a fan though–my mom noted that it's probably popular as a source of alcohol, and that since ours was without... maybe. Also, had a really good blender-burning chocolate smoothie. I think the sucker had 5 different kinds of chocolate in it.

Friday
Hostile Work Environment Day at work. During this annual celebration, employees can vent their frustrations by blasting coworkers with Nerf weapons. This is my brother before he went terrorizing:

Also, we watched Rear Window outside on the grassy knoll Friday night. I liked the movie. I liked that it was intense without the unnecessary gore or over-the-top, horror violence (I don't like horror movies). Some may say it was weak... I liked it just fine.

Saturday
We hiked to the top of Y mountain! It was a beautiful hike. We ate strawberries along the way. And this is the first time I made it all the way to the Y without stopping. Here are some of the flowers:

Here's Martha flying:

Here's my hair flying:

Here's Ammon after he ripped two apples in half:

Here we are at the top (I think that's the Pacific Ocean in the back):

Here's where Elaina almost died from a rabid, prehistoric fern-dwelling, Brown Wolf Recluse Black Widow Spider-Snake:

Here's those ubiquitous, nest-making caterpillars:

And here we are at the bottom:

Then we played some water basketball in the pool to cool off (didn't actually cool off -- the game was a little intense).

Then we celebrated Tiffany's birthday with cake.

Then we saw Kung Fu Panda! What a fantastic movie! I haven't seen such a well-done movie for a long time. The animation was fantastic; the fight scenes were original (especially the dumpling fight); and it was funny! I recommend it.

Then we saw the fireworks at Orem's Summerfest. People had been staking out their spots for several hours so that they could get a good view of the works... We just took a spot right next to the fireworks on the road.

Then... I went home and slept a good sleep....

Life is good.

It's My Birthday!

2008-06-09T08:20:00.002-06:00

It's my birthday today! I've now circled the sun 24 times (give or take any astronomical-calendarical discrepancies). So, to celebrate my birthday I'm going make a list of 24 things -- just like what I've seen done on other people's blogs.

Here are the best 24 years I've lived in:

1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007

Happy birthday to me! :)

Boring Things

2008-06-03T23:00:00.004-06:00

I haven't written in a while... but I've been taking pictures.... so here's what I've been up to since the RKelli wedding.

I've been under two waterfalls. Here's Bridal Veil Falls -- the other was Stewart Falls.

Are named waterfalls plural or singular?

I got a new computer to use at work. It's a beautiful new iMac. I have it hooked up to another external monitor that I had been using with my laptop -- so I have a ridiculous amount of screen in front of me. Every time people come behind my desk, almost without exception, they exclaim, "Wow... that's a really nice screen." I'm lucky for sure.

And lastly, something about me: I like boring things. I really do. I sometimes tire of our American life (I say "American" because not all "modern" lives are the same): constantly doing things; constantly stimulating our senses; never letting the earth hold any sort of sway in life.

Today I walked to Harmon's for lunch -- for the Matt Value Meal (corn dog, big croissant, string cheese, mnms, pint of OJ, banana, can of Pringles -- all for $4.50). I've driven to Harmon's many times -- it's a trivial drive, though it consists of too many left turns. But I've never walked. And as I walked today past all the old-style houses... some with unkempt lawns, others with very kempt lawns, some with wooden fences, some with none, some with kids swinging or playing... and a whole lot of birds singing... I remembered how wonderful life can be when we're not rushing from place to place or worrying so much about everything. All this time driving to Harmon's for lunch, I've been skipping something great -- I'm glad I caught it today.

Around the corner from the oldish neighborhood and set off by a small field, there's a much larger and much newer house. It's a beautiful home -- it seems like it has a room for everything. It's not any larger than many of today's homes, but juxtaposed with the old neighborhood, it seems a little gaudy. And it reminds me of a thought I've thought many times before:

I am much happier living patiently and contentedly with imperfect things than I am living with exactly what I think I want. I could come up with reasons for having every single room in the larger house. And when compared with the smaller houses, if I could afford the larger, it would seem foolish to take the smaller. But so many times, life is just better when I don't get everything I want. There, that's how I wanted to say it:

Life is so much better when I don't get everything I want. It's nice to want for at least some things.

Healthy?

2008-05-12T22:00:00.003-06:00

I'm finally doing it. I've always wondered what it would be like to eat exactly what the experts say you should eat: all the fruits, all the vegetables, all the not potato chips. And this week, I'm doing it.

Also, I've often had a goal to gain some weight. Girth has never been one of my strong points. So, in conjunction with the idea of healthy eating, I've also decided to increase my eating. I've planned out a daily 3000 calorie diet for each day this week:

After doing it for one day... I'm sick of eating. I'm most surprised by the quantity of fruits and vegetables I've got to eat. A cup and a half of carrots is a lot of carrots!

I'll let you know how the week turns out.

And Richard&Kelli were married this weekend! Their wedding was great... and they're married. It was very fun. Here's some pictures:

The happy couple:

The green-tied bachelors:

The Jordan River Temple:

Dum da doo da da da dat dat dum

2008-05-04T00:06:00.005-06:00

I failed my Women's Conference, candy counter, picture-taking mission. Every time I was around the counter... it just wasn't busy enough. I meandered through the bookstore for a while. I even stood for a while on the phone with my mom trying to look inconspicuous. But to no avail -- I'm left with only my mental picture of myriad mothers clamoring for chocolate covered cinnamon bears and "just a little" fudge.

In other news, the bongos have returned. Last year, the bongos were the staple bane of studying during finals. This year they waited (thankfully) until after finals before coming out to play. (Though I actually did better on last year's finals...)

If you haven't played them, you're welcome to come over. It's a little like Guitar Hero -- but with four people, and a lot more violent smacking.

And if one set of bongos isn't enough...

And here's some of the flowers on campus:

Barefoot Contessa Night

2008-04-26T16:16:00.004-06:00

Last Saturday, we held the first semi-bi-annual Ina Garten night. Ina Garten is one of the fantastic cooks of the Food Network, and like Julia Childs, her philosophy seems to be: if it doesn't have at least a pound of butter or an udder of cream it's not worth eating. She makes fantastic food!

Here's who came:

We each made a dish or two using only her recipes and came up with this:

And the desserts were three:

An amazing strawberry cheesecake from escratch:

Broiled berry custard:

And peach raspberry cobbler (I don't know how I forgot to take a picture of that... they were all sitting right next to each other)

If I am ever wealthy, I will live in a small house with a big yard, I'll drive an old car, I'll wear my clothes threadbare and spend all of my money on really good food.

Walk quietly... carry a big stick

2008-04-18T13:43:00.002-06:00

Or maybe just carry a big stick...

A ship full of munitions sent from China to Zimbabwe recently landed in South Africa to unload. This article explains a little bit about it. At first the dock workers refused to unload the vessel, but have now been forced, it seems.

I don't really know what's happening, but it seems like the lesson is: if you lose a contest, beat up all of your opponents.

Life isn't fair

2008-04-14T16:58:00.003-06:00

I normally try to post only once in a week, but I feel like writing about this today. I think it's really important:

I cut my finger.

I have a cut on the end of my right index finger and it's bugging me like crazy. Even right now, I have to write this post without it because it stings whenever I put any pressure on it. It makes life really rough... playing the piano is harder, I bump it on things and it hurts... cutting the fresh pineapple open yesterday really stung. It's just very annoying. Life can be so hard sometimes.

And then, this morning I read from Sokwanele's "This is Zimbabwe" blog - a blog maintained by a small opposition group in Zimbabwe. Three weeks ago Zimbabwe held combined parliamentary and presidential elections -- and the results have still not been released. The current president, Robert Mugabe (Bob), has been in power since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980. At first he did great things for the country, but he liked power so much that he stayed as president at all costs -- and ruined the country. Right now, he is doing everything he can (both legally and illegally) to maintain his rule, and it makes me sad.

Currently Zimbabwe suffers from about 150,000% inflation. This means a dollar today is worth 20 cents tomorrow. Two days from now that dollar is worth 4 cents. Three days, and your dollar is worth less than a cent. Money is basically useless. And it's useless in two dimensions: 1) it doesn't hold value and 2) there's no food to buy.

And somehow, people keep on going.

Whenever I talk about Zimbabwe, most people think I'm just telling "another mission story." Returned missionaries immediately revert to the "yes, but let me tell you about my mission" mode. Those who haven't served acquire a glazed look and start looking for an escape. I've begun to just stop talking about it... as it never promotes dialogue, only back and forth monologue.

But for me... it's hard to believe that I live the kind of life I live while others live such completely different lives. I cut my finger this week, but take a look at this (it is graphic... don't look at it if you are squeamish). This man was beaten for supporting those who oppose the president.

Today, I woke up late, took a warm shower, went to school, bought some yoghurt-covered pretzels and a caramel-pecan myrtle with my plastic card. Then I sauntered home enjoying the beautiful weather. I cooked some hash browns, sausage, ham and eggs for lunch, then took my car (I'm 23 and I have access to a vehicle and the means to pay for gas) to get it inspected. And I didn't have to bribe the people that inspected it! I stopped by the intramural fields and flew my kites whilst laying on the grass. Then I grabbed a Jamba juice and came back here.

I have never in my life (you are probably the same) gone hungry without choosing to do so. I've often wondered what it would be like to be hungry and not have any hope for quenching the hunger. I've never had to worry about being beaten up by the government (that sounds kind of silly to think that the U.S. government would send people just to beat me up). I have carpet! I have toys... I have free time... I have a mom and dad... I'm not sick

I feel like shouting, "LIFE ISN'T FAIR!" Why do I get all this and someone else, right now, is being beaten to death? Why do I get to worry about how to best invest my money, while someone else has to worry about finding raw grain so that they can eat some mush? Why do I spend my time thinking of creative or fun dates while others spend time thinking of ways to get home at night?

The biggest question I'd like to answer is, "Given the disparity, what can I do to help?" I know I can't fix it... but I'd sure like to get to the other side and feel comfortable sitting next to those who had a much worse time here.

Thanks for the indulgence.

Okay, a pound

2008-04-11T18:20:00.004-06:00

On Thursday morning, I got a hankerin' for some chocolate covered pretzels. When I told the candy counter (she who counts the candy, not that which displays the candy) what I wanted, she asked me, "How much?" I stammered for a second... I mean... I'm not really that familiar with the pounds to pretzels ratio. Sensing my dilemma, she grabbed a bag and said, "This is a pound." Gratefully, I said, "Okay, I'll have a pound then." (Here's Mikey and Todd sharing in the spoils)

As I was paying, she felt to explain (or maybe I asked) why they carry pre-weighed bags of their stuff: Women's conference is coming up, and all the ladies feel like they have to have a pound of this chocolate and a pound of that... just to help the fudge go down.

So, I'm taking upon myself the assignment to photograph the candy counter during women's conference... last year it was a complete mess.

And here's a picture I took this last week. I feel like it needs some words written on it... what should it say?

Hare Finals

2008-04-07T14:41:00.001-06:00

As finals approach, I think it prudent to remind everyone to get their tests done early. This is what happened last year on the last day of finals: (I recommend watching from at least 2 feet away with squinting eyes -- otherwise you might get sick. And... as all good home videos should, this video comes with an out-of-place sound track just to keep you watching)

And here's a few pictures from Holi, the Festival of Colors celebration at the Hare Krishna temple in Spanish Fork. Todd has all of the pictures I took on the MyFace if you wanna take a gander there -- I've not included all of the best ones here.

My mom doesn't like this picture:

Taken off the edge of the temple balcony

After the carnage. I think I like best the two girls on the right, who were very eager to join the picture:

Why, yes, I am really light:

Disease sets in:

Posing like... Egyptians? in front of the temple before the fray:

Todd building up the courage to ask Holika on a date:

A few seconds into the throwing of color. I'm so glad I wrapped my camera in a plastic bag:

Are limbs worth going out on?

2008-03-31T15:58:00.000-06:00

(Yes that is a preposition dangling at the end of my title)

I feel sort of silly asking this, and I might delete this post when I've thought better of it :) , but I wonder what others' opinions are. (I have my own ideas.)

Given that you have an interest in both girls:
Is it better to ask out a girl for whom the asking out is comfortable? Or is it better to ask out a girl for whom the mere prospect of asking out is terrifying?

I refer specifically to first dates as it seems ridiculous to ask out a girl on a fourth or fifth date when she terrifies you. And I know that the two choices aren't exactly mutually exclusive. And by terrifying I mean that your brain shuts down when you think of asking or think of going...

What say ye?

Shoes

2008-03-28T17:40:00.001-06:00

Somewhere, a tight-rope walker is missing his shoes.

Tetris III

2008-03-24T15:45:00.000-06:00

My high score is 110 on level 9. How about you?

I should explain the scoring:
1 row = 1 point
2 rows = 4 points
3 rows = 9 points
4 rows = 16 points

(it only works in Firefox)

Amicelli Wangu

2008-03-22T11:58:00.000-06:00

This week we finally let Jason the Grouch out of his barrel on the balcony. Now that the weather is warming up, there's really no point making him stay out there.

Also this week, I polished off the last of the Easter candy my mom gave me. I love the Cadbury caramel eggs, and the Lindt eggs, but my favorite are the Amicelli!

Imagine a Pepperidge Farm Pirouette -- it's the thin, cylindrical, butter cookie filled with some kind of sugary goo. Usually the goo is chocolate, or french vanilla stuff or (my favorite) hazelnut-flavored chocolate.

Now ask yourself, "How could I improve upon the near-perfect Pirouette?" What could possibly be better than a thin butter cookie filled with hazelnut chocolate? How about dunking the whole thing in chocolate? Yeahh..... oh man... they're good.

And, two other fun events: I got to go to the VocalPoint concert on Thursday. It was awesome! I had no idea how fun it would be. I loved their Christmas songs, and their reproduction of Vitas was pretty impressive. My two favorite songs were Grace Kelly ("I could be brown, I could be blue....") and September. Fantastic!

And last night, I went to Classical 89's showing of the silent movie: The General with Buster Keaton. They had the organist accompanying the action throughout, and we got to boo at the villain and cheer on the hero -- it was hilarious! Look for tickets next year.

That is all.

Happy Easters!

Amazink

2008-03-13T20:35:00.001-06:00

I stumbled upon this little thing I wrote a while ago... I wrote it whilst I was in a ponderous mood. We live in a strange time:

A few months before I flew to Zimbabwe, I remember sitting in my kitchen filling out forms so I could get a VISA. I enlisted the help of Mom's electric typewriter, excavating it from it's grave in the desk downstairs. My parents saw me using the typewriter and began telling me about how their days in college. They used to type entire reports on typewriters! They had a few strategies for correcting mistakes, but it was mostly a one-chance operation. They thought it strange that they had relied so heavily upon typewriters, but that I didn't even know how to really work the device.

Technology changes -- it becomes more and more amazing. Not having gone to college when my parents did, I can not give a comparison between then and now, but I'd like to relate one small anecdote that shows what it's like for me in college.

A month or so ago, I was sitting in my circuits class. The class was taught by Wade, a graduate student, who stood at a podium in the front of the classroom. From there, he controlled a PowerPoint presentation that was being projected onto the screen at the front of the room. He drew on the slides (nowadays they don't slide, but we still call them 'slides') with the mouse for emphasis.

I had procrastinated doing my assignment, so I had to work on it during class. During class, I finished all of the assignment except the part that would be easier to do on a computer. Once class ended, I pulled my lap top computer out of the bag at my side, opened it up and started typing. I copied and pasted a few times for the assignment (didn't even bat an eye) so I wouldn't have to retype anything -- because that would be too much work.

Once I had all the code written, I pulled it into Word so that I could format it nicely onto one page. I shrunk the font size down so that it would fit. Then I had to print.

Still sitting in the same chair, I turned on the wireless network connection of my laptop. Once it found the network (a 5 second wait), I told Word to print my document to the campus printers. Once it sent the job (through the air), I closed my laptop. Mind you, I had been looking at a screen that is thinner than a spiral notebook.

I stuffed my laptop back into my bag, slung it over my shoulder and headed downstairs to the printer in the front of the Clyde building. I touched the screen of the printer to awaken it, then slid my school ID card through the reader on the side of the screen. For some reason, this printer wasn't working. So, I wandered over to the Widtsoe building, walked up some stairs, then around to the computer lab, where I again slid my ID card. This time it worked. The screen showed me that I had just under $2 left on my account. The money got there in the first place by me transferring $5 from my credit card a few months earlier -- a transaction I did online; no money was ever touched. The pages printed; I stapled all my papers together, then turned them in.

So, that's how homework's done today. I wonder what my kids will do...

(end)

And this is my keyboard in the dark:

Tetris II

2008-03-07T21:23:00.000-07:00

I did it! I finally finished it. I made Tetris in hardware!

You might ask, "What do you mean by that, Matt?" Or equivalently: "Huh?" Well... do you want the accurate explanation, or the analogy-rich obfuscation? I'll start with the latter:

Inside every computer is a magick box filled with Smurfs. But these aren't garden variety Smurfs... they're extra, extra small, and they're very fast. Just like humans, these Smurfs come in only two stereotypical varieties -- short, squatty Smurfs and slender, stick-like Smurfs. Unlike humans, these Smurfs are constantly at war with each other. Fueled by mutual affronts effected long ago, a girthy Smurf will always attack a gangly foe... and the gangly foe (though he will not call himself so) will never deny himself the satisfaction of dealing the low blow.

As luck (or you might call it fate... depending on your altitude) would have it, the lurpy lot nearly always defeat the smaller Smurfs, and were it not for the huge population of the shorters (owing to their remarkable ability to reproduce), the taller Smurfs would have long ago taken control of the magick boxes.

The warfare is important, but the real reason companies like Intel and AMD breed and captivate these Smurfs is because of their uncanny predictability. On any given day, at any given humidity, you can predict with certainty where a Smurf will go for a walk, what he will say, the joke he will tell you and the place he will dine. It is this predictability that powers modern computing. A hardware designer's job is to create the avenues and cafes that will drive the creatures where we'd like them to go and to stop -- sometimes this means sending a short Smurf to be annihilated by a gang of tall ones. It's brutal, perhaps, but you wouldn't be able to read this on your computer if our society wasn't willing to make that sacrifice.

So, that's what I did today (and every day for the past eight days). I put the Smurfs to work that I might amuse myself with moving colors on a screen.

Brief, boring explanation:
To make something in hardware is different than just programming software. Software requires a processor and memory (both pieces of hardware). Hardware requires electricity. The stuff I did to make Tetris II lies in between software and hardware. I described the hardware in a language (similar to programming software), then downloaded the resulting design to a piece of hardware that can be programmed. Also, if I had the money or a benefactor, I could make the design into a standalone chip ... so I could fabricate something that would run Tetris... you could hold it in your hand, then plug it into a monitor and play. Oh, it was so fun to make.

Tetris

2008-03-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

Last week I decided to make Tetris. I egged Todd on until he bet me that I couldn't write it in an hour. He won... it took me 2 hours to get it working, and I fiddled for an extra hour on making it better. The thing that let me do the program so quickly is this Python module called Pyglet. Pyglet makes the graphics really easy, so I could just concentrate on the logic part of it.

Anyway, I'm nerdy, but I've made Tetris... here it is:

In other news, I arm wrestled and defeated Ashley and Alicia. And lest the results are ever contested, here is the evidence of my victories:

Coke

2008-02-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

They were selling Coke in glass bottles at Macey's earlier this week. For only a dollar I had to buy one.

The first time I ever had Coke came nearly 10 years after the first time I smelled Coke. I first smelled the stuff at the BYU tennis courts where it was soaking the grass, and in turn soaking up the sun. Sun-soaked Coke will never become a cologne nor a fancy candle.

That's my first memory of Coke.

I was 19 when I first drank Coke. I drank it from a chilled, glass bottle whilst seated in the Rishando's house in Nkulumane, a suburb of Bulawayo. In many ways, Nkulumane reminds me of a slightly more populated Manti. It's a beautiful place with beautiful sunsets, beautiful landscape and beautiful people. It is one of my most favorite spots on this earth.

We had just finished teaching a lesson to the Rishando girls when, as is the kind custom in Zimbabwe, we were offered a drink and biscuits. Oh, how I miss those biscuits. I love dusty biscuits. One of the best gifts I ever got as a missionary was a package (a huge package) of Petit Beurre butter biscuits from Elder Fitzgerald.

Anyway, so Mrs. Rishando (she wasn't officially Sister Rishando at that time) popped the caps off the bottles and I took my first draught. I first thought, after the juice had grated down my throat, "How did Coke ever make any money selling this stuff?!" It took everything I had to finish that bottle! But like any good drug, the next bottle was easier, and the next easier, and so on until I actually started to like it.

So, I bought the bottle at Macey's, chilled it overnight, popped the top and took a memory drenched draught of the familiar liquid. It was good. Though I still wonder how Coke ever convinced people to take a second gulp -- it's potent stuff.

Lampshade > Homework

2008-02-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

So, a week or so ago I started thinking: "I wonder if I could make a lamp out of my cell phone charger..." Turns out that I can!

Here's what I used:
6 LEDs
1 paper cup
about 3 inches of wire from the binding of my Spanish notebook
(to honor MacGyver I also used some safety pins, paperclips and tin foil... but ended up discarding them)

At first I just twisted the LEDs together, taped them in place and plugged my charger in. Then I could hold the glowing mass above my paper as I read.

But then, on Tuesday, I happened upon a brilliant thought: "I could make a lampshade out of a cup!" And so, as any diligent engineer would do, I set my homework aside and made a lampshade.

Now all that's left is a stand for the lampshade and an improved hookup for the charger. This was the BEST Valentine's week EVER! :)

Boring details:
The charger puts out 6.25V at 350mA which means it deliver up to 2.19W of power. (6.25 * 0.350 = 2.19) I first bought these LEDs from the shop at the Clyde that run on about 2V. But as I was taking some measurements, Justin came in an offered me some of his higher powered LEDs. Those guys each run at above 3.2V and draw about 25mA. Since each LED has to have at least 3.2V and can't handle more than 3.7V I decided on two groups in series to split the 6.25V. Each of these groups has 3 LEDs in parallel (so 6 total).

It sounds so forlorn

2008-02-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

The other day, I got together with some friends who were forming a band. I seem to remember mention of a quintet, but there were seven or eight people there when I arrived. Oh well :)

I had assumed they wanted me to play the drums, but it turns out that they desperately needed someone on French horn. I’d seen plenty of horns and trumpets played and knew the basic principles, so I decided to go for it.

Luckily, they had an old horn there that I could use. I opened the case and put the horn together. I was a little hesitant to put my mouth on the mouthpiece and considered going into the kitchen to boil water and cleanse it, but I ended up just going for it. It had that taste distinctive to old metal -- kind of dusty-like.

I blew once and no sound came out. Then my mind was caught back to the many times in Jr. High band when Mr. Hill would explain proper blowing technique to the lung-users. I suddenly remembered the word “embouchure.” Just as I thought of “embouchure”, I thought the thought I always think when I think of that word: “How do you spell embouchure? It starts with an e.... and it has a ch somewhere near the end... and then there’s that French-ish ou ‘round about the middle.”

By now the horn was responding well to my buzzing puffs and I eagerly tried keying some notes. I rummaged through the case and found a book describing all the fingerings... and though the instructions didn’t seem all that consistent, I felt confident in my ability to play in the group.

About this time, a man entered the room and took a seat in front of us. He seemed drunken, and he seemed to be in pain. He sat slouchily in the chair with a wincing look on his face. He reminded me of William Wilburforce (from Amazing Grace) when he was in pain. He turned out to be the conductor. And though he was drunk, he was agreeable. We practiced a bit before I left...

And then I woke up.

I recently heard on the NPR (I think that’s where I heard it) someone’s theory that our dreams are really emergency training simulations; that we dream through situations in order to prepare ourselves for potential emergencies. Phew! That’s a relief! Now I can feel confident if the Wincing Drunkenman ever needs a horn player. And no big deal if I suddenly lose my ability to fly... or if someone needs me to do a ventriloquist act with a shaggy, blue parrot for a high school basketball game half-time show.

What are you prepared for?

(And this is a picture of a walkway lightly covered in snowflakes - 10 points to whoever knows where it is)

San Diego

2008-02-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

I went to San Diego a few weeks ago for a funeral. My aunt passed away. I'm sad about it. She's a great lady -- one of the most cheerful people I know. She has great kids -- I love my cousins.

But I've got to say, that her funeral was one of the most wonderful I've ever been to. She really is as good as gold. I have more of my own thoughts about all of it... but they're my thoughts -- not my blog's thoughts :)

While we were there, after the funeral, my mom, dad and I went to the beach (where this picture was taken). The water was cold, but the weather was fantastic.

If there were less people, I might love to live in San Diego.

In other news, I haven't done any homework today. (and this is for Megan:)

THE END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Music List

2008-01-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

Copying Megan's an okay thing to do, right? I thought I would also jot down a playlist. Here's a few favorites:
"Take On Me" A-ha
"Land of Make Believe" Chuck Mangione
"The Moldau from Má Vlast" Smetana
"Don't Stop Believin'" Journey
"Hampster Dance" the Internet
"Brown Paper, White Paper" Flight of the Conchords
"It's Friday" www.matt.com
"Grace Kelly" Mika
"Fields of Gold" Sting

Okay... really I just have a computer on my lap... and... well... I really do like these songs.

Amélie

2007-12-26T01:11:00.001-07:00

I want to show you something amazing. Taken at face value, the occurrence is rather ordinary, but to the thoughtful observer it is something remarkably telling.

The weekend before Thanksgiving I went to see International Cinema's presentation of Amélie. I didn't know much about it, but it looked fun, and I wasn't doing anything else. I've been to several other movies at the IC. The usual crowd for an IC movie consists of a handful of people dispersed by asocial diffusion to chairs with a two-seat buffer in between.

But for Amélie it was different. A line had formed outside of the theatre thirty minutes before showtime. And when they let us in to be seated... every single seat was filled -- even the broken one in my row. (By broken, I really mean absent: "lacking that upon which to sit." The girl just sat on the floor with her back against the seat's back). And when all the seats were taken, a mass of people sat on the floor in front of the screen with two lines of standing people leaning against each wall.

And then we watched the movie. It was very good. It was colorful. It was funny. I left thinking, "that was a really great movie... no wonder so many people came to see it." That thought was followed by, "wait... why would people mob to see it instead of just renting it?" My observant head then observed, "probably because it was edited."

Sure enough, the MPAA said "R, R for sexual content." You've got to be kidding me?! That movie was rated R? The version I saw had no holes in the plot... there were no sudden jumps in scenes... it all flowed together to create a wonderful artistic piece -- it was delightful!

I want to show you something amazing; and the you to which I refer are the people who make movies. A throng of college kids waited in line, sat on the floor, and stood against a wall to watch this movie -- edited. This was their chance to see the movie. They can't rent it, because the superfluous smut they would have to endure is not worth it -- in fact, it ruins the movie!

Take note: we don't want the salacious slime you sneak into otherwise great movies. We're tired of saying: "It's a great movie except..." When you include graphic portrayals of sex or violence: nothing is gained; everything is lost.

It's not amazing that people want to see a movie - it's rather commonplace. What's extraordinary are the lengths to which people will go to see a clean movie - in the face of Hollywood's trend.

Here's to more filmmakers that get it!

Thego Rilla

2007-12-22T01:30:00.001-07:00

This is our gorilla. His name's Thego.

Loud Music

2007-12-22T01:27:00.001-07:00

I don't like loud stuff. My mom raised me to keep my ears alive. We always took earplugs to movies... or if we didn't have ear plugs, we would put coats over our heads or stuff our ears with tissue from the restrooms. The first movie I ever remember seeing without ear protection was The Mask of Zorro, starring Zorro as himself. And I remember cringing every time the swords would collide. It was so loud!

I was also our High School drumline's chief proponent of salvaging hearing. I once even gifted ear plugs (and home-made caramel) to every member of the drumline for Christmas. They thought I was silly.

All that being said... every once in a while... when it tickles my fancy... when it buoys up my boat... I pump my music, whether in my car or by injecting the sound from my iPod directly into my skull. I remember one day... about a month or two before my mission, when I was coming home from work, the mood struck me: and I rolled down my windows and blasted Arise O God and Shine as sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. What a feeling!

And just this week, I had another loud moment: After work one day, as the sun was setting, I turned my car onto Geneva Road. As I straightened my wheel the guitars started to build... then they broke into full tilt. I turned up the volume to hear the sweet wailing theme from Top Gun. Conveniently, Geneva Road feels a lot like a runway when there are no cars in front of you. Likewise, driving a manual transmission feels a lot like flying an airplane. So, I pumped the stereo, and put the pedal to the metal (until I reached 5 over - I'm still safe when I pump it up) and flew home. It put a smile on my face.

...but I still don't like loud things :)

and here's a desktop

2007-12-13T17:08:00.001-07:00

Sources and Sinks

2007-12-13T17:07:00.001-07:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: Sources and Sinks.

Earlier this week, I was sitting in the Southern basement hallway of the JFSB waiting for my Spanish class to begin. As I sat and studied, I also listened to a conversation between two girls (whom I'll call Alice and Betty) who were waiting for their sewing class. Betty, a shortish brunette wearing some sort of red (if I rightly remember), was busy sewing something while Alice, a more buoyant, taller, depressed-looking girl was sitting next to her project.

I first perked up to eavesdrop because of how sad Alice seemed to be. Every word seemed to sap strength from her sadly sorry soul. More than that, however, her gloom felt almost intentional -- like she enjoyed it.

Eventually their conversation turned to dating, as conversations at BYU tend to do. It turns out that Betty has been dating a boy for just over a year... they talked about how some people only date for a short time before marrying, while others take a while. I'm not sure of my opinion on the matter... I could see myself dipping into either bucket when the time comes.

Alice thought their story of meeting (in a class they shared) was cute -- the same way a dreary rain cloud thinks the cumulous are cute. Then she started talking about some of her friends and how they had met their respective spice. After every story, she sighed a miserable sigh and gave a wan, faraway look -- which I could only interpret as yearning for a "story" of her own.

The topic drifted to work:

"So what do you want to do?" asked Betty. (Throughout this conversation, I noticed a change in Betty. At first, she was just cordially answering Alice's questions. But then she began to see that this person needed a little more than an unhearing ear. She started to be interested in her -- kudos to you, Betty)

"I kinda don't want a job," said Alice somberly. "I hate working."

At this point, I inwardly exclaimed, "Good heavens, girl! I feel like I'm having a bad day now." Soon after, the rooms emptied their people into the hall and we all went to our classes.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Sources and Sinks; Fountains and Drains; Happys and Sads; Optimists and Pessimists. The Sinks sap energy from every situation... spreading gloom and despair in their wake. And soon, the Sinks have created the miserable hollow they imagined their life was, which brings down the dark rain even more. Sources have the opposite effect: There's not many situations in which you can't laugh at yourself or your folly. And they live the line: "There's no situation bad enough that complaining about it won't make it worse." It's fun to have Sources around you. Life seems better when they're around.

Probably we alternate between being Sources and Sinks... some days/events are just rough. But I think we can choose more often than we do to be a Source rather than a Sink. No body likes Sinks... they smell bad and house dirty dishes.

Be a Source.

Followup

2007-12-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

And...... we now have a whiteboard:

It's Friday night... I went to see Devdas, a Bollywood movie. It was very colorful. It ended sad, but I wasn't as devastated as many of the weeping women were. The Indian dancing was pretty cool, and I liked the camera angles. And the leading lady was cute.

After the movie I went and played the piano... transcribing a song.

Here's some more desktops. The first was taken at Temple Square. The second was taken in Arizona... the two rings belong to J&E.

Chalkboard

2007-12-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

Every day this semester, our EE 380 teacher has commented on how hard it is to write on the chalkboard in our classroom. And nothing ever happened to fix it.... until Thursday.

Here's a picture of the hard-to-write-on chalkboard:

The thing you should notice about this picture is that it's lacking our teacher. That's because, just prior to me snapping this, our teacher, in frustration said, "Alright, I'm going to go get the Dean. You all stay here!" And he left.

Then he came back with the Dean of the college:

And just as the end-of-class bell rang, two workers came in to put the new whiteboards up.

It's amazing what can get done when the right people know what to do.

And here's another wallpaper of mine:

Maybe...

2007-11-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

Megan says I should post on my blog. Maybe I will. But, I like writing in my journal more than I like posting a journal. I mostly like to keep my private thoughts private. But, I guess I could treat this more like writing letters.....to an indeterminate audience.

Well, one thing I like to do is take pictures. Here's a few of my favorites that I use for my computer-box's desktop.

Binder. Oh if you could see what was written on that page :) This photo was taken atop the JFSB on the balcón on the east side.
A flower. One of many flower pictures I've taken. The camera's flash was the only light used to.... light this flower.
A balloon of hot air. Taken from the ground on either the Fourth or Twenty-Fourth of July this year.

Yes, I know that pictures with people in them are more interesting, but these are desktop pictures. Feel free to use them if you'd like. I'll probably post more some time. (I cycle through 44 backgrounds currently)

SQL Alchemy

2007-11-21T11:24:00.001-07:00

I hate SQLAlchemy. I hate Pylons. I hate Cheetah, I hate Django, I hate superfluous features.

I'm tired. I just want things to work.... but they don't. It's at times like these that I want to change my major; that I seriously evaluate what life will be like for me as a programmer or engineer. I would love to teach school... but then that stereotype would haunt me for the rest of my life: "Those that can't, teach." Because I will be driven to teaching by my inability to make things work in the real world.

Computers are too complicated... and my heart isn't into learning them. My heart is into other things.............

India Fest

2007-09-16T16:20:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, we went to the Hare Krishna temple in Spanish Fork to watch the Ramayan celebrations. I don't know what Ramayan is, exactly. In fact, I still don't really know what Hare Krishna is. What an uninformed American I am... but at least I'm cultured!

Here's my favorite pictures from the event. I thought for sure that I would be spat upon by this llama...

And this is my favorite llama picture of the whole event:

And this is one of many pictures I took of temple.

Friday Night

2007-09-14T21:11:00.000-06:00

So, it's Friday night... and I'm programming. Probably I'm lame for doing it, but I enjoy it. I'm trying to see if I can open a sound file for analysis in C++. I think Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is pretty cool. I have a class in it right now, and I'm enjoying it. I'll let you know what I find.

Testing

2007-08-31T14:31:00.000-06:00

Does this work? This new-fangled, blogging contraption?