Denim Chicken?

Check out the six day turnaround on blog posts. Not bad, eh?

I am mostly writing because I forgot a very important even in the last post. I went to Disney World. (Hey, I was rushed...)

It was pretty awesome; here are some pictures,

Awesome Castle Show (Forgot the name of it...)

Untouchable Buzz Lightyear Score

Derek Enjoying an Epic High Five Adventure

Umm.... Zebra Man?

Jeniece went to every length to ensure that Derek and I had a great time, and she did very well. Hopefully it was enough to pull through to the end of the semester.

Meltdown Imminent

It has been well over a month since I last posted anything on here, so I will give a quick recap of what has happened since February 3rd.

• I got into ASU.
• I went to Wyoming for a job that is in the middle of nowhere, that would be interesting, good experience and pay well. However, it is in the middle of nowhere.

That is about it. I have also assembled a really sweet gun. It is a .308 and I haven't taken it out yet. I plan on eventually hitting something at 1000 yards. Just for a point of reference, if you shoot completely horizontal, it will take the bullet more than a second to fly that distance and will drop more than 35 feet. It will be a challenge, but I have 40 rounds to try and pull it off. If I can't do it with those, I will just buy more.

I have also spent a liberal amount of time this past month playing a game called "Fallout." It is set in post apocalyptic Washington DC and is massive. I have been checking some walkthroughs on the internet as I go mostly because I don't want to waste exorbitant amounts of time doing things that don't really matter. Fun game overall. I think that if I do decide to go up to Wyoming, I will buy the next one to spend my free time on this summer.

Derek is currently on "operation: don't look so damn fat" and I've decided to join him. Mostly because I feel like crap and don't exercise and I'm gaining weight. I ran a mile and lifted a bit today, but not a whole lot. We'll see how long I keep it up. I figure that if somebody else is doing it as well, I might be more motivated to actually keep up with it instead of quitting like I do every time.

Thanks to my geophysics class, I know exactly how many Joules of energy were released in the 9.0 Japan earthquake from a few days ago. Correction: I know where to look up the equation. I don't have it memorized. I have better equations to memorize to be honest.

There remain 36 days between me and the end of my BYU career. I am very excited to finish up and get out of there. Overall, they have been really good to me. I am just sick of the SSDD outine that I go through there. I am hoping that by not spending much time at ASU, I don't develop the same feelings for that university.

Current shows:

Dexter: Just finished season 4.

Rescue Me: Middle of season 4.

There really isn't anything else on right now. Everything is taking sporadic breaks and I never know when it is on. I think that I am going to start saving entire seasons until they are done. I will definitely burn through them faster but I think that I would enjoy them more. I will likely still acquire them as they come out though.

Anyway, my room looks like total crap and I have resolved to clean it today. Something smells like fire. Better check it out.

HaHA!

For some reason, whenever I'm bored, I never think to post to this thing. Except for right now. Right now I just remembered.

Dave sold Derek and I some cards for a nursing thing fundraiser. Last night we went to Trafalga with them and each got two free games of mini golf. We didn't play our games sequentially, we played six balls at the same time. These were the rules:

1. If you were playing on an odd-numbered hole, you shot one ball, then the other. After you, somebody else did the same thing and the hole was played in this fashion.
2. If you were playing an even-numbered hole, you shot one ball, then the next player went, and the loop continued in that fashion.
3. If you were playing a prime-numbered hole (and later perfect squares as well) you had to shoot both balls at the same time. This rule supersedes the previous rules when determining the style of hole.
4. If somebody gets a hole-in-one on a prime-numbered hole, they got to shoot all six balls simultaneously on the next prime-numbered hole.
5. Bad-Ass points are awarded for doing something awesome.
6. Dumb-Ass points are awarded for doing something stupid.
7. Dick Treason can be called if you rob somebody of a shot within 6 inches of the hole.
8. The 18th hole is treated as prime if a hole-in-one is made on the 17th hole.

It seems like there were a few more rules that were made up, but you get the idea. Also, if you're reading this, you were also likely there...

This semester sucks. Capstone needs to go away. It is one semester too long. I've been spending a lot of time down at USS and we had a design review last week where we were told "you should be afraid of not finishing." I don't really care.

Geophysics isn't too bad. The teacher isn't too spectacular, but she does try to make it interesting. The class's redeeming quality is that the class number isn't preceded by "ME EN" making it a change from the standard I've been experiencing for the past four years.

Tonight, Dave is hosting "Geektober" which is odd, because it is February. "Geekuary" really doesn't have the same feel to it though.

The distributor that I use for my weaponry is currently out of stock of anything and everything that interests me. It is a bit of a pain in the ass. I can't say that I am overly pleased with the fact that I have no guns to sell right now. I have my AK, but as indicated, it is mine and I won't be selling it anytime soon.

I have posted a picture of a magazine that I created. The last gun that I sold initially came with two mags and a hard case. I sold it with one mag and no case, but for less than I initially intended. I did this to one of the mags and quite enjoyed the project.

Yes, you could hide amongst a herd of zebras and nobody would even know you were there...

Also, I've decided to post a picture from last September, when Derek and I went off on a grand adventure around the world. It is entitled "Derek Picked Horrible Breakfast, So He Can't Criticize Brian For Horrible Dinner"

This was at breakfast. Derek carried a similar expression at dinner.

Bombachus

• I'm gonna live forever!

The Final Stretch

So I'm simply going to give a rundown of what happened last semester with the classes. If you need to brush up on what the predictions were, you can read about them here. <- You can click on that...

• Capstone: Sucked. My group was pretty horrible. I've learned that MET's for the most part are useless. There is nothing that they can do that a mechanical engineer can't do better, faster, and more efficiently. I thought it was going to be fun, but I was very, very wrong.
• System Dynamics: Wasn't too bad. I understood the material for the most part and did fairly well in the class overall. I didn't necessarily enjoy it, but I had a really good professor.
• Fluid Systems: Great professor, loved the material, got destroyed on the tests. I felt like a hero walking into the exams, and felt like the stupidest peasant walking out of them. I still did alright in the class.
• MEMS: Didn't enjoy the class as much as I thought I was going to. I really had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the weekly labs, but the coursework was less than pleasurable. I threw a hail-mary on the final which worked out and got me a good final grade.

Now for this semester...

• Capstone: Crappy as crap could be. I can't wait for this to be over.
• Geophysics: Supposedly the biggest fluff class you can take as a mech. I'm taking this just to be able to get an A in...
• Heat Transfer: One of the hardest required classes for a mech. I'm not actually too worried about it.
• Gas Turbine and Jet Engine Design: This class has a 99.8% chance of getting dropped. I will keep it as long as I need 12 credits. If I don't, goodbye. I would really enjoy the class and the material, but I am ready to be done and want to wash my hands of this degree.

Christmas was really fun. I got a remote helicopter which as been more fun than ever imagined. Derek and I have played a week's worth of Donkey Kong. I went out shooting with a bunch of friends on my birthday (Mark, Grant, Brent, Derek, Dave) and did basically nothing for New Year's. Oh, and I got a new calling at church. I'm an assistant ward clerk. I deal with money. Simple enough.

Also, I'm buying an annual pass to Disneyland this year.

...or Puff the Magic Dragon

Today is Thursday. This means:

• Community
• 30 Rock
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Burn Notice
• The Office
• Bones

It is a horrible night for productivity (which is a lie). I don't usually watch any of these shows on Thursday night. I usually "DVR" them and watch them on Friday and Saturday.

So I just took a three hour break from writing this to finish up some homework. I don't know where it came from, but I suddenly realized what I had to do to finish a project that I've already spent about 7 hours on. Myself and some comrades at school had to do some work with supersonic flow and produce some experimental and theoretical results. Experimental was easy; theoretical wasn't. We couldn't figure out how to get the data we needed from what we had. I realized in about one second tonight what I tried to figure out for two hours yesterday. However, after realizing it, it took me three hours to do it.

Speaking of school projects, here are some images of some of the cooler things I've had to do at school so far this year.

• This is an analysis showing the speed of air coming off of an airfoil (wing). The redder, the faster. You see all the blue? That is where the air pretty much is stopped and just hangs out behind the wing. This is for Mach 8, and and 8 degree angle of attack. That means that it is moving 8x the speed of sound and pointed 8 degrees above the horizon.

• This is what I just did. These are contour lines showing air pressure as it moves across a shock wave. Shock waves happen as supersonic air (Mach > 1) suddenly goes subsonic (Mach <>

• These are little, tiny switches. We made them by depositing various liquids, selectively hardening parts of those liquids and desolving other parts, over and over. Each of the longer switches is about 100 microns long (which is less than 0.005 inches). There really isn't even anything you can give for comparison. Just imagine that if you stacked 200 of these switches from end to end, you'd still be under an inch.

There has also been a lot of code writing, but nobody wants to see that. Nobody wanted to see this either, but this is what you get.

Call of Duty: Black Ops came out last Tuesday. Since getting it, Derek, David and I have wasted quite a bit of time with it. I'm currently enjoying it more than I remember enjoying modern warfare, which is saying a lot. The campaign is confusing, but it is supposed to be. There's a bunch of shadowy crap going on and you're supposed to figure out the over-arching theme. Its fun. Also, it has uncle gazpacho, which is fun.

Flight 25: jfk-...home

So I'm sitting here in JFK, waiting for my last flight. It has been intense this last month, but I'm glad I dropped the $700 and decided to do this. I got to go places and do things that I likely never would have done if I was buying individual tickets. The pass kinda forced us to get creative in our destinations and amusements. I don't know when the last post was, or even what I posted, so here is a synopsis of our weekend travels.
1. Puerto Rico: very physically taxing. It was a really good way to kick off the whole thing. Derek and I rented a car and pretty much just drove it around the island. We spent a lot of time on the beach swimming and peeing into the Caribbean,obtaining coconuts and getting caught in a torrential downpour. It was really fun. We special t the night in the car since we had a way early flight and didn't want to deal with sleeping for like two hours and trying to make it to the plane. Derek slept, but I didn't. It was a little sketched by the thought of being attacked by wild Puerto Ricans in our sleep. We had a total of about 35 hours in the air for 19 hours in Puerto Rico. Worth it though.
2. Orlando: much less taxing than Puerto Rico. We got a Disney hotel so that they would pick us up from the airport and take us back the next day. It was only $70 or so for the whole thing. I got to meet Derek's cousin Jeniece, who basically did everything you could ask for to accommodate us. She got us free park tickets and we went to three of the four parks. Animal kingdom, magic kingdom and Epcot. We really didn't get to do a whole lot at all the parks, but we knew that coming into it. Time constraint were our biggest downfall on all of our trips. Anyway, we also went to downtown Disney before heading back to the hotel and dying.
3. New York: way fun. We went to 30 Rock and we were gonna get some standby tickets to snl, but we never would have gotten in with how high our numbers would have been. We went to the MET, which was amazing and got lunch at a Romanian restaurant. We went up to Yankee stadium but didn't get in. I however could see the huge TV through the columns at the entrance, so I saw a game at Yankee stadium, right? Time square yielded a new Ferris wheel picture and then little Italy. It was a really fun trip, but there was a lot of foot traveling involved.
4: Orlando again: this time we went to a Universal park, which wasn't as good as any of the Disney parks, with the exception of the Harry Potter land. It was incredibly well done, with one of the best conceived theme park attractions I've ever encountered in my life. The food was good at "the three broomsticks" and butterbeer is glorified cream soda. We still spent loads of money on it though. Gotta live it up while you can. Jeniece was again an amazing host to the state of Florida and even put us up at her apartment in addition to being airport transportation. By the time we got back to her apartment, we were ready to die. We crashed for the night and now I'm on my way home and Derek is headed to Boston tomorrow.
I've punched all of this out on my phone so excuse all the grammar errors and typos.

Ginger Ale and Cranberry Juice

Derek and I are sitting in the Long Beach Airport. It is the sixth time I've been in this airport this week.

We just saw some kids doing some lewd things. They need to be punished.

Anyway, so we're in the LGB airport just waiting for our flight home. We have been flying and waiting in airports all day. We left Aguadilla this morning at 4:00 (their time) and we will be getting home around 23:00 (Utah time). So do your own math if you care how much time it was in the air.

We somehow missed the fact that if we had been willing to wait in JFK for another 2 hours, we could have gone directly from New York to SLC instead of coming through Long Beach. We don't know why this happened like it did. I am pretty sure that I just thought that since we had to go through California to get to Puerto Rico, we would have to come back through it to get home. Dumb move. We'd be home about now. Its all good though; we had some awesome mexicano food here since we had a chance to leave the airport.

I am trying to upload a picture from Los Puerto Ricos right now, but my phone is stuck at 47%. I'll post if it eventually succeeds.

Here is a bit of a rundown of all the events of our glorious trip.

Yesterday when we landed, we rented a car. We were expecting some sort of a POS, but we got a Lancer instead. It was actually really nice. It got great gas mileage and had some good acceleration to it as well.

We drove down through the main part of Aguadilla and down by the beach. We stopped in a little sandwich shop and had some lunch. There was a crazy man (Franky) there who tried to rent us a room for the night. We chatted with him for a bit until he left. It was enjoyable and the food was really, really good. I got a Monte Cristo and Derek got a Cubano. We're not entirely sure what is in them, but that is what we ate.

We decided to go check out the mall. Neither of us took any flip-flops, since we were just planning on buying some there. Neither of us bought any. The mall was pretty american, just low-class american. The main store was K Mart. Not even Sh0pKo. They went with K Mart. I suppose it is okay when you are planning on selling more horchata than mountain dew.

We went to the beach next. We had pretty much the entire beach to ourselves. We were gonna try to build a Bear Grylls raft, but got tired of it after we collected all of the wood. We found a bit of rope to use, but then never ended up using it. We occupied our time there trying to get coconuts out of a tree. We tried to throw some boomerang-shaped sticks at them, but they remained unaffected in the tree. We went back into the Caribbean to hang out for a while, and we saw a native headed for the same tree. He had much more success than we did. Needless to say, after he left, we took another shot at the tree. I climbed an adjacent tree and used a long bamboo chute to poke the coconuts enough to cause them to fall. We used a board with a nail in it (which was just laying on our forsaken beach) and punctured the coconuts to drink their precious juices. Having just come from the tree, it was somewhat bitter, but better than the juice that we got on the flight. We had a coconut that had already fallen to the ground, and we punctured that to drink as well. There was a capri sun that somebody had left on the beach which provided the straw for our tropical beverage. Gross, but we just kept thinking, "What would Bear do?" He'd use the straw. We cleaned it out with some ocean water first... After emptying the coconut, we broke it open and ate some of the horrible meat inside. It was a long time on the beach, and we're both sunburned, but it was awesome.

After leaving the beach, we got some street vendor food. Kabobs to be more exact. Derek got chicken, but I was more adventurous and went for pork. Right as we bought them, a torrential downpour started and we made a beeline back to the car. We were still soaked from the 100 yard journey, so we tried to dry off a bit in the car. It was mostly unsuccessful. We got sand everywhere and had to drive around looking for a gas station with a vacuum so we could clean it up a little bit.

We took an hour nap in the car and decided to drive around the island for a bit. We drove for a few hours and it was spectacular. As the windows were down, it sounded like the jungle cruise from Disneyland/world. Driving through the winding roads of Puerto Rico was pretty awesome. It was the best part of the trip. It was somewhat surreal to be in a place that was so drastically different from the mountains that we are accustomed to. We may have driven around 150 miles or more. It was great. We just kept going and going, and were never disappointed.

We eventually just parked the car in a close proximity to the airport and tried to sleep for a few hours. I couldn't. There is something about trying to sleep in a car in the middle of Puerto Rico that prohibited me from relaxing enough to sleep.

We returned the car and went to the airport. I had trouble printing my ticket for my LGB-SLC flight so I called JetBlue to resolve it. There were a bunch of dumb excuses as to why I couldn't do it, so I just took care of it when we went to JFK. We Pictochatted in the airpot and just hung out until we could get on the plane, which was spewing a strange mist in the cabin when we boarded.

The flight up to JFK wasn't bad. The layover wasn't pleasant though. Derek took a nap on the floor and I did some homework. That was pretty much it.

We got into LGB and walked about a mile to get some mexican food. Yup, it was good. We're now just here in the airport waiting for the last flight, which is where we started. So here is a picture:

From Travels

This is just a pic I snapped as we drove down the Puerto Rican cost. There were better pictures, I just didn't take them with my phone. Battery life wasn't great and Derek had 3G versus my edge. He provided maps, so I didn't have much time with a living battery.

Thank You For Using Long Beach Airport

So I'm in Long Beach, and I'm sick of homework. I'm just sitting here, enjoying the ocean and having never been more pleased in a single purchase of a plane ticket. Granted, it was a massive, all encompassing plane ticket, but still... just one... kinda.

Tomorrow Derek and I are going to Puerto Rico. We won't actually be there until Saturday morning, and we'll be leaving at the break of dawn on Sunday morning. I am way excited. I am still debating as to whether or not I am going to be taking much homework with me. I might just take my laptop and call it good. It depends on how much homework I have to get done by Monday. I may be up for a while tonight trying to get everything done that I need to.

So, I am at the airport now. They have free wifi here in Long Beach, so I'm pleased. Everything else was done by phone tethering, which has all but killed my battery. I quit the battery hogging and killed all my apps so that I could use my maps to make it back to the airport. It must have worked because I made it here.

I was going to upload an image from today, but we're in EDGE country here, so here is one from yesterday.

From Travels

It was taco Tuesday, so it was only appropriate.

I'm exhausted.

Just Loooove Yogurt.

The frivolities of the evening needed adequate recording which didn't include keeping a piece of paper on my (actual) desktop and a text on my (virtual) desktop. Derek and I were looking for something to do this weekend. We came up with a list which included the following:

Build a bad-ass tree house like by Salem or something

Go to the Devil's Anus with a sweet-ass bomb

Weaponize bees

Trick kids...?

Rock Canyon mine

Animal traps (catch a skunk)

Make a silencer (for the skunk)

Make a boat and go down Provo River

Timp Cave

Hamster house

Make a film

Guam

Jamba Juice

Steal the Jamba Juice girl

Ikea Adventure

Pimp my Nerf Gun

Rock Climbing

"Serve" kids at the mall

Melt gold

Dip a hedgehog in blue paint

But it comes with a free frogurt! That's good! The frogurt is also cursed. That's bad! But it comes with a free choice of toppings! That's good!

Alright, these are the cool stories that have happened as of late:

I went climbing 4-ish times last week. It was pretty spectacular.nthrope last one was even a multi-pitch climb where I had to belay Jon and Dave from the top. Way different. Way fun. One of the other times held a great story which will be told in conversation form...

(Jon climbing, me belaying, Dave wandering)
"HEY GUYS! THERE'S POT OVER HERE!!" - Dave
"Really? Like, just growing?" -Jon
"No, in Dixie cups. Five of them." -Dave
"You sure? Bring one over. I want to see if it is" -Brian
*walk, walk, walk*
"Yup, that's pot." -Brian
"What should we do with it?" -Jon
Then all sorts of ideas evolved, none of which I shall post here. The final idea was great. Lets leave it at that.

We had a poker game on Friday night. Me, Derek, Jon, Mike, Maile, TJ, Kelli, and TJ's baby. Yeah, they brought the baby. Further, TJ brought World of Warcraft and "ran a bot" during the entire poker game. It wasn't that he was running the bot, but more of the fact that he was doing all Kelli's work (betting, blinds, shuffling, dealing...) since she had the baby, and that he was actually playing WoW more than letting it just run. Way frustrating. Also, the game was 8.5 hours long. We finished at 5:30 in the morning. I won, and it became worth it. Derek would have won if he had waited for Mike and I to call his "all in" bet before showing us that he had four of a kind...

Froyo (AKA Android 2.2) "came out" yesterday. This means that somebody found where Google was harboring it on their site, gave the world access to it, and now we don't have to wait for the OTA update. Now it can act as wifi hotspot, tethered modem, supports flash (except hulu [bastards...]) and all sorts of other bells and whistles. It is really sleek now. It runs faster and is just continuing its overall awesomeness. Last night I started downloading stuff over its wifi-ness and it got about 1.8 gigs in 3 hours. Not great, but gets the job done. What do you expect from a phone anyway?

My sleep schedule is broken. I was up until about 6 this morning, then got up at 9. I slept until 3 yesterday afternoon after going to sleep again at about 6 am. I got up at around 10 the day before (which was early), after going to bed at 4 the night before. To recap...

If I was going to bed at 10 every night, and waking up at 6 every morning, these are the time zones I lived in:

Thursday night: went to sleep in Vanuatu

Friday morning: woke up in Samoa

Friday night: went to sleep in Japan

Saturday morning: woke up in the Philippines

Saturday night: went to sleep in Japan (again)

Sunday morning: woke up in Hawaii

None of this accounts for daylight savings time. I just counted timezones. It seems like I've been spending a lot of time in the pacific.

Bombachus

• 
  
  
• There's an XKCD about the shifting timezones thing (which is where the idea originated) but I can't seem to find it.

The Beginning of the End of the Beginning

Done with finals. Yesterday night actually, but then I went and helped Derek write a paper about college health issues. It wasn't that bad. Now he owes me one. When I need a favor, I'll buy the tacos and slurpees.

I graduate in a year. I'm pretty excited for that. Don't know where I'll be when I do graduate, but at this point, I don't care.

I've already lined up what classes I'm going to take this fall, so here are some plans of what I might try to get done in the next year.

• Take the GRE. I need a rockin' score on this to get into a good grad school. Speaking of which...
• Get into grad school. The more I think about it, the more I think I am going to just transition into grad school when I'm done with my undergrad. Although I don't know what my focus will be...
• Figure out what I'm going to study in grad school. Right now, I think I am headed down the MEMS path. I haven't actually taken the MEMS class, but from what I've read, it sounds way awesome.
• Find a position as a research assistant. I don't actually have to be doing any research. I just want the position in use for a padded resume... when I'm trying to get into grad school.

I think I might go biking. The trails are likely going to be craptacular, but I really want to go anyway.

Thanks Olaf

As I was talking to Derek, we discussed my new favorite weaponry.
is equipped with a fore grip and a red dot sight. Also
Ranger (Images wouldn't load.... maybe BYU blocks Akimbo Douches), which is Akimbo-ed and FMJ's. I had a ~3-1 K/D ratio last night with it (25 K). I'm sick of the P90, so I'm changing.

Pies y Piernas...

Bienvenidos al a clase de espanol!

So my phone has been out of commission for the past 3 days. I don't know if people are talking to me!!! Here is what has been going down since I wrote last, which wasn't too long ago.

• School

And just to show Derek who is boss...

What what? That's right, came through on the promise! It might not be youtube, but who cares. Still a link to a vid.

I had a test in thermo today and got killed. It wasn't at all what I was prepared for. I learned how to do a bunch of cookie-cutter problems, and none of them were on the test. It was pretty dumb. Hoping for partial credit.

There should be a huge update tomorrow. Maybe. Maybe not. As for now, I'm going to try to get some homework done.

Guess Mine...

I am studying for a math test that I have tomorrow. I have pretty much lost all sanity. There is almost no use in studying anyway, seeing as how this will be a sheer test of IQ. It will just be a quantization of how well you can wrap your brain around an obscure question and answer it. I'm pretty screwed. So here is a list of my friends and which superheroes they would be and why

• Dave- Gambit (because he gambles too much)
• Derek- Ghost Rider (because of just how bitchin' he rides that scooter)
• Stennett- Silver Surfer (because he's from a far off place with a whole surfing-thing going on)
• Hillier- The Hulk (because of how he explodes with rage while playing basketball)
• Forbes- Captain America (because he's dead)
• Gabi- Green Lantern (because I don't know what the hell he actually does)
• Harward- The Tick (because he's big, friendly, and when he's there, you KNOW he's there)
• Andrew- Spider-man (no real explanation needed)
• TJ- Human Torch (because he believes himself to be awesome)

Okay, back to math.

*Edit: Stennett complained, so now he's Batman.

Mode = "What the Hell..."

It's when the value = "What the Hell..." occurs most frequently in a data set.

So, like what? Two months since an update? I am just taking a guess here, but that is what it feels like.

Here is the current scholastic standing.

• Machine Design: Test this weekend. We were promised that it "was going to be hard, but do-able," which translated to "you're all screwed."
• Instrumentation: Test all next week in the testing center. It is completely optional. Midterms are worth 20% of the total grade. This midterm is counted only if we do better on it than we did on the first one. It is pretty nice set up.
  
• Electrical Engineering: Talking about logic. Makes no sense. Kinda ironic.
• Proofs: Don't know what the hell is going on.
  
• Statistics: The professor decided to assign a load of crap right before the end. It hasn't been way nasty... until now. Another test this weekend. Awesome.
  
• Of course, there is also a final in every class.

I think I might have to teach in Elder's Quorum this week. I was told about a month and a half ago that I was going to be teaching the first lesson of every month, but nobody has said anything to me about my topic. I am betting that I get a call on Saturday night...

My phone is broken, and has been for about a week. Luckily I bought a warranty on it and I sent it in today to get it fixed. The replacement phone is Derek's old razor. I like having a flip phone. Like I told him, it makes you feel important. I don't like the non-qwerty keyboard on it. It takes me about a month to type texts.

I am thinking that I am going to steadily move over to my google number. It makes no difference to me as long as the other people aren't on T Mobile.

I should really be studying for one of my tests, but I'm not.

I will end this post with a picture. This is the latest instrumentation project. We had to make a device that measured thrust from a rocket. We made a cantilever beam and attached a few strain gauges to it, sent those strain gauges through a circuit that amplified, removed bias, and filtered out the natural frequency of the beam, and then sent it to a DAQ for registering everything. It was pretty sweet. I'm sure you really, really give a frak.

Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked

I am about two hours away from an 4.5 day weekend. It's pioneer day (aka Mormon Christmas), and BYU is generous enough to give Friday off so that we might celebrate. In all honesty, I'm about one hour away from this glorious break from all things scholastic. I'm sitting in linear algebra (been here for 3 minutes) and I've already plotted an escape. I turned in my test (it was a take home) and listened to some kids complain a bit about how hard it was. I laughed. It was easy. I hate this class, but it is easy. Hooray for (previously taken) technical electives.

I just gave a presentation in my English class. The professor gave me a 50+/50. I'm going to be honest: I don't really know what that means. I am hoping for imaginary extra credit. I have never had extra credit in college before. I'm excited.
On the first day of this class, one thing was really clear: if the teacher likes you, you'll do well. The molester and I made sure that she knows who we are, and that she likes us. Don't get me wrong: the presentation rocked. I'm not demeaning its quality. I just think that the teacher liked the fact I spoke about Christian Bale.

If you go back to an older post, you'll see how I feel about eigenvalues. That is what we are talking about in lin alg today. Awesome...

In the spirit of my math homework taking me 15 minutes to complete, I have had a bit of free time on my hands as of late. Unfortunately, this free time usually comes while all my friends are at work. Here is what I do with it:

• Burn Notice*
• Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles**
• Lost***

I am thinking of starting up the final season of Prison Break due to the (**) reasoning at the bottom.

I've also spent an ample amount of time taking apart old phones and seeing what I can make from their innards.

Derek took me to go get shave ice two days ago. It was... poor. Well, the ice itself was great. I just somehow picked the nastiest cocktail of horrendous flavors. I have come up with a plan of how I can avoid that situation next time I go. Here are the steps of the plan:

1. Let Derek order first
2. Order the exact same thing
3. Eat it

For all you avid readers, I might be moving over to wordpress soon.

*We finished season 2 of Burn Notice in about 3 days
**Dave is a butt
***Recently started up again after hiatus

Staying Busy...

Here's what has happened over the last little while.
Last week I spent about 2 hours in my linear algebra class. There are 6 hours per week that I could spend in class. Monday and Wednesday I went for half of it and left. I didn't even go on Friday. I decided to go biking with Dave and Andrew instead....

We went up to Squaw Peak to bike down it. There is this nice little trail that starts up above Hope Campground that takes us down and lets us out where Orem Center Street intersects with University Avenue in Provo. It's really quite nice. You can just ride all the way home from the top of the trail. Said trail is pretty casual. It doesn't take a lot of effort and it isn't hard to avoid crashes. That having been said...

I crashed. Hard. One of the worst of my life on a bicycle. I'm not 100% sure what happened, but something sure did. I'm going to guess that I went about 5 feet forward and about 4 feet down (6.4 ish feet total travel). I landed on my right shoulder and elbow. There was a good amount of blood mixed with dirt. A shirt was ripped, and there were rocks in my shoulder. I had to dig out 6 little pieces of rock when I got home. The most painfully excruciating part was actually the hydrogen peroxide that made my entire arm above my elbow feel like it was being subjected to a chemical burn.

Friday night, Dave, Hillier and I all went to Cabela's. Hillier was going to buy a 20 gauge shotgun. We found a nasty wallet on the way. I picked it up. It was gross. It was on a freeway off-ramp. What do you expect?

While at Cabela's, Hiller was mocked by the salesman, who basically told him that "20 gauge shotguns were for little girls." Okay, it wasn't said exactly like that, but that is the impression he gave to us. Hillier said "Oh yeah, well I already have a 12 gauge and I'll use it to kill you and all of your family, so sell me the *&^%ing gun!" Okay, he didn't say it exactly like that, but that is the impression he gave. The first thing that the old man told us was that if we have a concealed carry permit, it was no good this late at night because the BCI was closed and Hillier would have to pay the $7.50 background check anyway. He decided against buying the shotgun that night.

We all went from Cabela's to Canfield's house. I had never been there before. It was a lot of fun. His mom is... interesting. She is unlike anybody I've ever met before, but she was fun. She stayed and talked with us for about 2 hours, but it was enjoyable. They are just all around good people. I like good people. While we were there, I got to drink some kind of blueberry juice. The only reason I picked that particular type of juice is because Hillier said "Man, if I had seen that I would have chosen that instead." So, I was like "Take that!" and chose that juice just to spite him. It wasn't that good. The more I think about it, the more I believe he just tricked me into choosing it. Here is a rundown of the people who were there that night:

• Me
• Hillier
• Gehmlich
• Canfield
• Dave
• Farnsworth

I linked all of the names to their facebook pages. Why did I do this? Because I can.
It was fun. There is a fact about the Romania Bucharest Mission: we are the tightest mission to ever grace the face of God's green earth. I have never spoken with anybody who stays in touch with former mission buddies like we do.

While over at CL's house, Ty told me that Kris Johnston passed away just a few days ago. The funeral is actually right now, and I have to be sitting in my math class, not paying attention. The professor told us that he was going to be giving us the test today, so that is why I am here. Turns out that he lied. He is giving it to us on Wednesday instead. I'm kinda mad. I also forgot about it over the weekend until Ty asked if I was going this morning. I wish I had gone. Here is a bit of background on Sora Johnston:
She is the second from the bottom right. This is one of my favorite mission pictures because it has a lot of my favorite mission people in it. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot who are missing too...


On Saturday, Hillier and I went on a spiritual quest, which is always fun. We then decided to back to Cabela's for him to get that shotgun. We took Harward this time. On the way up, we helped Hillier plan his priesthood lesson. It was about what guys look for in girls. We had a pretty good list going. Hillier got the gun, and we went back to his house. We talked with Hillier's mom and dad for a few hours, which was fun. We shared a lot of mission stories that probably shouldn't be shared with a mom. She was cool with it though. One of my favorite things that his dad said was before we left to Cabela's. Background: Hillier's mom didn't really want him to buy a shotgun. Hillier's dad asked before we left "You guys headed up north?" and Mark replied "Yup," and we then left. Right as soon as we were out of the door, I asked Mark "Was that code for 'are you going to Cabela's" and Mark just replied "Yup." And I thought it was hilarious.

We then went down to Harward's apartment and hung out for a bit. Amber came. So did Derek. We all just talked for a long while, before going out separate ways. It may or may not have been simply a day of talking with friends in just a whole lot of different locations.

Sunday came. I was going to go watch Hillier teach that lesson to Relief Society in his ward. I decided it would be extremely awkward to be the only guy in there who wasn't teaching. I decided to take off and go to my parents ward for sacrament meeting. I then went home, and fell asleep for a bit. Dave and I watched Burn Notice, which just might be one of the best shows on television. There was a lot of nothing that was done today, but the day was still full. I got a lot of homework done starting around 21:00 and watched "Be Kind, Rewind" with Dave. It was kinda dumb.

There is your rundown of my weekend.

New Slate

I know, I know, it has been a while since I have posted anything real. Here is the epic saga of my life for the last while (in no particular order):

• I finished last semester. Thermo went well (A- in a 300 level course, I will take that any day of the week). C++ did not go so well....
• I went paintballing with Derek, Dwillard, Hillier, Harward, Mike, and Mike's buddy Matt. It was glorious beyond comprehension. Here are some of the highlights: creative 4 letter combos, the GPS system, and the KFC lady seductively trying to sell us chicken.
• Adventures of various sorts. :)
  

There really isn't anything else to talk about. Sorry for not being clever. If you really need something to enjoy, here is a video of a baby porcupine eating a banana.

There are >12 Cylon Models.

So, it is Sunday afternoon and I need to start studying physics and math. Why? Because I have a few tests this week. It seems as though all my classes like to correlate when they give us tests.

Dave got a Mr. Jass television. It is quite nice to sit down and watch Dahl's sequel to the BFG. Speaking of which (Derek, cease reading here unless you've seen it), Daniel (#7) could be one of the following people:

• Starbuck
• Baltar
• Somebody else

I will go as far to guarantee he is one of those.

Yesterday was Valentines Day. I watched Jurassic Park. Not usually what people think to watch on Valentines.

In the hunt for pictures or things to post. I found this from the mission. Owens had some mittens that got a make over. This is what they looked like after Nina got a hold of them.
Bombachus

• This really made me laugh.

Here's to the Night.

It is Monday night, which means that I am frantically trying to get my physics homework done so that I can submit it by midnight. See? Can you tell how frantic I am? Right now we are working on resistivity, which is actually pretty interesting. It reminds me of this XKCD
Here is something that bothers me: when a question is labeled (for example) "Number 12," but then it has 12a, 12b, 12c and so on in that fashion. It makes it so when you look at your homework, you say "Hey, I only have 5 problems for my homework. That's pretty nice." and later find out you actually have 27, well, it just ruins your whole day.

Derek, check your spelling on your blog posts. Especially in the title. The red, squiggly underline doesn't mean "cool word."