Final-ly

I just got back from taking my last final exam. Now I officially don't know what to do with myself. I didn't get much studying done, due to the aforementioned situation, but I think I did ok on all my finals. Well enough to pass the classes, which is all I need right now. I guess that means I'm college graduate. It'll probably sink in later...

Break up

I wasn't going to write anything about this until the situation stabilized a little and unfortunately, it's come to that point. I've been dating a girl for the past couple of weeks and I had really high hopes. The situation seemed perfect, she likes me, I like her. I've never met a girl more perfect for me. But she prayed about it and felt that although she still likes me and wants to be around me all the time, we shouldn't be dating. So I'm a little depressed right now. I feel like a starving man who got one bite of a delicious meal only to have the rest locked up in a glass case right in front of him. I just wish I knew why.

PS - She isn't the reason I decided to stay here, that happened before we started dating.

Finals

I took my first of 3 (real) finals this morning, bright and early at 7 AM. The teacher was kind, however, and brought donuts and orange juice for us. I think I did pretty good on the final, considering I studied very little for it. (We just barely had a test, and I still remembered all the other stuff.) Now I just have one on Thursday and one on Friday and I'm done with undergraduate classes forever.

In other news, I finally got that big, gross mole cut off of my back. I went to the health center yesterday and they numbed it up and sliced it off. Now I have some stitches there that I'll get removed when I come back from break.

Still Alive

Here's just a little report to let you know that I'm still alive. The last day of classes is on Thursday and the crunch is on. I have everything pretty much wrapped up, except for my last big project, an assignment for my AI class. I have to program a team of 5 robots to play capture the flag and part of my grade depends on how well they do in a little tournament. Oh, these are virtual robots, by the way. It's a cool assignment, I just wish I had more time to work on it. I've been too busy finishing up assignments for my other classes (among other things). Finals are next week and as long as nothing disastrous happens, I will soon be a college graduate. Weird.

Thanksgiving Pictures

I posted some pictures of my Thanksgiving trip here.

KenJen

I'm sure you've all heard the news by now. I happened to watch the show, which I hadn't done in weeks, and saw the streak broken. Congrats to a fellow BYU CS alumnus on an amazing run.

Thanksgiving Trip

Thanksgiving break is officially over and I'm in deep with homework assignments again. It was nice while it lasted, [sigh]. I drove down to Arizona with Marisa and two girls I found that wanted to go to Mesa. The trip down wasn't too bad, except that I missed the turn off to go the way we wanted (through Page, Flagstaff) so we ended up going the Las Vegas route. That had its own perks though, as I got to see the Hoover Dam.

Russell and Lisa were great hosts and Lisa had a great Thanksgiving dinner prepared. It was delicious, especially compared to the stuff I cook up myself. And to top that off, Saturday night we had steak and shrimp. I accomplished what I went on the trip to do - veg out and not think about school - but I also got some other things done. I went bargain hunting on Friday with Russell. We stopped by Fry's, a big electronics store, and I bought a 802.11g wireless router for $15. I also picked up some DVD+Rs at Best Buy, 50 for $3 (after rebate, of course). On Saturday we also visited Hole in the Rock, a little rock protrusion in the middle of the desert that has, you guessed it, a hole in it. I'll post pictures eventually.

We drove home on Sunday and had a little bit more excitement than on the way down. We went back the way we were supposed to come down and thankfully made it home ok. There was a lot of snow in Central Utah and the roads were slippery nigh unto undriveable. I managed to drive it without falling off the road, but many others weren't so lucky. To add to the stress, I passed a gas station with a little less than a quarter tank right before the snow started. Also, one of the girls needed to use a bathroom and we ended up driving about 5 miles an hour for what seemed like forever. I thought we might actually run out of gas, but luckily there was one gas station at Cove Fort and it was absolutely packed. It probably took 15 minutes just to get to the pump and the line for the women's bathroom went through the entire store and out the door. It took about 13 hours overall to get back,

Pat-down protests

"It's like we have no rights anymore." This, from an attorney... What an outrage that someone would inconvenience her while trying to exercise her God-given right to fly on airplanes.

Turkey Day

I haven't written anything in a while, due to a furious attempt to get ahead on some of my schoolwork in order to enjoy the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday conscience free. For some reason, professors seem to assume not only that their class is the only class you are taking, but also that it is perfectly acceptable to have one project due the day before the break and one due the day after the break. So in 2 classes I finished the assignments early and in the other I successfully convinced the professor it would be a good idea to have the assignment due any time before the end of the semester. The semester is rapidly coming to a close, just one more straightaway after the break and the race is over.

I set off tomorrow for the blistering heat of Arizona. Well, hopefully it won't be quite as hot as it was the last time I visited -- in July. I'm really looking forward to the break. I need to get away from school for a while and getting away from Provo is a nice bonus. Lisa has promised to have all sorts of yummy food as long as we can make it down there. I'm taking Marisa and two sisters from the Mesa area that I found on BYU's "ride board". There's nothing like a good 12 hour drive to relax you, right? Well if that doesn't do it, then playing with 6 excitable nieces (and a nephew) ought to do the trick :)

PS - Welcome to any new readers ;)

$28,000 Grilled Cheese Sandwich

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Unusual-Tales/Old-sandwich-divine/2004/11/17/1100574501805.html

Tony Blair

I caught Tony Blair's foreign policy speech today on C-Span2. I was again impressed by him and it's always interesting to see perspectives from the other side of the Atlantic. A news story about the speech can be found here. On the page, there is also a link to view video of the speech.

Jihadist

Quotation from an interesting article about a Yemeni jihadist in Iraq:

Back at his home, he had a final dinner with his wife and children,who went to bed without being told their father was leaving. "My favorite daughter came and sat in my lap and slept there. She opened her eyes and said, 'Daddy, I love you.'"

He was weeping openly now, a thin man with a thin beard under a ragged tree in a courtyard in Fallujah. "You know these memories are the work of the devil trying to soften my heart and bring me back home," he said.

A Cappella Jam

Last night, instead of studying Bayesian networks, Kalman filters and multi-agent utility theory for my AI test this morning, I attended the BYU A Cappella Jam (yes, mother, with a girl). It was a really fun production with 6 or 7 different groups, singing a wide range of songs from parody to true barbershop to bluegrass and of course pop. The groups were enjoyable, but they all ran into pitch problems (I sound like Paula Abdul on Am. Idol...) at one point or another except for Vocal Point, who were really really good. I don't know if they're BYU's official a cappella group, but they have competed all over and with the way they sounded I wouldn't be surprised if they won all over.

Return of the Car

I called the mechanic earlier this week to find out the fate of my car after having it towed there over the weekend, and apparently my car was just being tempermental, because the mechanic couldn't find anything wrong with it. It didn't start for 4 days in a row, and after being towed to the mechanic it started fine. So the good news is that I didn't have to pay too much; the bad news is that I don't know what the problem was. The mechanic was kind enough to give me some tips for how to check if it really was a fuel line problem, however, so if it happens again, I'll be more ready. Anyway, I've got my car back. Time to go grocery shopping...

Car Problems

After starting great twice on Sunday on my trips to and from church, my car decided not to start at all Monday night. After giving it some time to think about it, there was no change, so I finally had a friend of mine who is more car savvy come over. I would hate to pay a mechanic if it's a stupid little problem. Anyway, he figured out that no gas was getting to the engine, so we dug deep into the bowels of the car and removed the fuel filter and discovered that no gas was getting to that either. So apparently the fuel pump is broken, which is of course the worse possible problem. The good news is that I know it's a good reason to take it to a mechanic, the bad news is that I'm going to have to pay that mechanic (and the tow truck guy). Oh the joys of owning a car!

Decision: Acceptance

Well, I'm 2 for 2 with grad schools. I went to Virginia Tech's web site today looking for information on how long it would take to get a reply from them and the site reminded me that they have an online application status summary. So I checked and found among the summary:

Application Status: Decision Made
Decision: Acceptance

Apparently the decision was made recently, because it also said I should be getting a letter in the mail soon, and I haven't received the letter yet. It's exciting, but now I've got a big decision to make.

School Update

I've been pretty busy this semester with 3 CS classes, but the labs I've been doing have been pretty cool. For those interested, here's an update of some of the stuff I've been doing:

Image Processing: Recently we've been editing images in the frequency domain using Fourier Transforms. The basic idea is that instead of looking at images in the spatial domain (height & width), you convert the image to relative frequencies (rates of change) and that enables you to change entire parts of the picture with much less computing. For instance, removing the interference patterns from this picture would be difficult in the spatial domain (thousands of pixels).

But only takes changes to two frequencies in the frequency domain to produce this fixed image.

Security: Our most recent lab was breaking passwords. Earlier in the semester, we had an assignment to "create passwords for the class webpage", but since grades are reported using a school-wide system, I figured this would be used later. These passwords were encrypted using standard encryption and it was our job to break as many of them as we could using several different methods. I was able to get 12 passwords, mostly from dictionary attacks and dictionary words with numbers appended. I tried brute forcing 6 character passwords, but to no avail. 8 charater brute force simply takes too long to even bother.

AI: Most recently, we used Kalman filters to estimate the future position of an enemy "agent", given only noisy readings, in order to chase and intercept. Our agents go the same speed as the enemy agents, so you have to anticipate where the enemy is going to be able to catch it.

Spam

I've gotten at least 5 emails from Nigerian millionaires in the last couple of days. I guess it was inevitable, but my gmail account is no longer spam free. Hopefully gmail's spam filters can keep up.

Mormon Minority Leader

We may have a Mormon as the new Senate Minority Leader:

"The one-time chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission is also a Mormon who stands at odds with most of his party by opposing abortion rights."

Redskins Rule is Broken

Well the election is pretty much over now. The votes are in and George W is going to continue to be our president. I watched the returns all last night and as I thought about the possible outcomes, I just couldn't see John Kerry as president of the United States. I couldn't envision him giving press reports or state of the union addresses, or meeting with foreign leaders. I think the right decision was made.

So I have a couple of thoughts about the results of the election:

1. As much as I'm glad Bush won because of the values he brings to the White House, it's almost as satisfying to know that he won despite the concerts by Bruce Springsteen, despite the Ramen and underwear (and movie) of Michael Moore, and despite the comments of actors and actresses who spouted off their opinions as if we cared. I hope it broke their bubble a little bit. I hope they're a little bit humbled. I hope they realize that they're not as influential as they think. There are a lot of red states in the middle that don't care what Hollywood is doing.

2. Speaking of red and blue states, is it any surprise that the media has a liberal bias?? Where are all the major news sources located? Very blue New York and very blue LA. Maybe if the news started out, "From our headquarters in Toledo, Ohio...", we could expect it to be unbiased.

3. Isn't it interesting how the elections results are splitting more and more on moral values than anything else? Church-goers voted for Bush and non-church-goers voted for Kerry. What with gay marriage being thoroughly banned in 11 states, this issue is sure to be the divisive issue for years to come and probably the dominating issue separating the two parties, replacing economics.

4. Only having local news channels, I was relegated to enduring the local coverage of the Utah elections. Because of the large number of breaking stories all over the state, I think they called up every reporter on the payroll, including the interns, to produce some pretty horrible journalism. Amidst all the sound gaffes and awkward transitions, my favorite line of the night: "...[he] looks to have a small margarine of victory..."

Election Day

Today's the day. That's right, it's finally "End of Campaigning" day. No more rhetoric and mudslinging. I must admit, I'm pretty excited to see the outcome of this presidential election. Luckily, the election coincides with a relative lull in my homework cycle, so I should be able to watch the coverage tonight. I hope Bush wins, but if Kerry does win, there is a small silver lining. It means Hillary Clinton won't be able to run for president until at least 2012 :)

Acceptance

I finally got my official acceptance letter from BYU today. It only took 2 weeks :) So it looks like I'm in. And they're "prepared to offer [me] a teaching assistantship" as well for Fall and Winter semesters (and possibley Spring), so a lot of the cost would be covered through that. So it looks like a pretty good deal for now.

Comcast comes through

Yeah! I have my internet connection back. I didn't have time to have the Comcast guy come during the week, so he came this morning and fixed it (sort of). It was a strange problem that still isn't completely resolved. The cable modem would give me a connection, but I couldn't get an IP address. My computer worked fine at BYU both wireless and wired, so I don't think it's my computer. However, he used a new cable modem, and that didn't work either, but when we connected it using USB, it did work. Weird. Anyway, the good news it that he couldn't specifically blame it on me, so I didn't have to pay for the visit, and the internet connection works again.

October Snow

Well it's snowing right now. I knew it would happen when it got unnaturally warm two days ago, but I was hoping it was one last spurt of summer. Not so. It's pretty wimpy snow right now, so it probably won't stick, but all the native Arizonians and such that are here for the first time are still pretty giddy. It's kind of fun to watch them try to catch it on their tongues, or play in it when it really starts to stick. I'm sure they'll be just as excited in 3 months when they've been trudging through it back and forth to school everyday, right? :) It has been kind of fun to wear warm clothes again, I'll admit, but by the end of winter... If only there was some way we could work it so the seasons were only half as long, so they'd change before we get sick of them. Now that's a campaign promise!

Campaign Posters

As someone who pretends to know about graphic design, I thought this was an interesting perspective on the upcoming election: Which campaign poster is better designed?

Is your computer safe?

Just a friendly reminder from "a new study" (pdf) as reported by The Washington Post:

"Most computer users think they are safe but lack basic protections against viruses, spyware, hackers and other online threats. In addition, large majorities of home computer users have been infected with viruses and spyware and remain highly vulnerable to future infections. Yet at the same time, most keep sensitive personal and financial information on their computers."

Although it is good note that, "The AP noted that all of the participants in the study were AOL subscribers selected by an independent market research firm."

Some good (free) spyware removal programs:

• Ad-Aware
• Spybot - Search & Destroy

Rain rain, go away.

It rained all last week here in Provo (and I mean real rain, like, all day) and this is the forecast for the rest of this week (thanks weather.com). I really do enjoy rain, but since I ride my bike to campus, rain just means a wet butt all day. But I can't complain about it, because we live in an artificial oasis in the desert. Around here it's taboo to speak evil of the rain, because we're in a "drought". Don't mind the fact that everyone here waters their lawns 20 times a day, even when it's raining. We're in a drought. We have to mention the rain in every prayer (using the secret codeword "moisture"). We have to appreciate what this will do for the skiing and the "snowpack". So it looks like I'm stuck with a wet butt for the next week, at least, and I'm not even allowed to complain about it. Isn't Utah great?

Comcast complications

My internet connection died sometime last week. I reset the cable modem, reset my wireless broadcaster, rebooted, checked all the wires and everything and it all seemed ok. I had a connection, just no IP address, etc. So I called Comcast, and the guy told me to do all the stuff I'd already done and after all that told me the only other thing he could do is send a truck, but if it is my fault, I have to pay for the visit. Frustrating. So I've double-checked everything and I'm pretty sure it's not my computer, so I guess I'll have to have them come over, because I'm going into internet withdrawals at home. It's made me realize how much I depend on the "Information Superhighway" for everything from news and weather to school and TV listings. Especially for the little things, like "What's the name of that song from that movie?" Takes about 2 seconds to find on the internet. How did we ever live without it?

Fun Toy

Read about it here.

Baseball

If there's one thing I hate, it's sitting through a meaningless regular season baseball game between two insignificant teams. But I have to admit, when the post-season rolls around and the games start meaning something, I can see why people enjoy baseball. It's pretty exciting. Not necessarily the actual game, but the suspense of what might happen. They've been showing the ALCS on Fox between the Yankees and Red Sox and it's been quite the series, what with the "Curse of the Bambino" and all the history between these two teams. At first, it looked like the Yankees were going to take it easily, winning the first 3 games in the best of 7 series. But the Red Sox won the next 3 in some very long nail-biting games to force a game seven tonight. I've got to cheer for the underdog Red Sox vs. the overpaid Yankees, but whichever way it goes, one of these teams has to play the Astros or Cardinals, both of whom are capable of making all this Boston-New York drama moot.

BYU loves me!

I got a nice letter in the mail today from BYU Grad Studies informing me that I'm pretty much accepted into the Masters program in Computer Science, as long as I submit my "Honor Code Commitment", which just requires a 5-sec interview with the bishop. It's pretty nice knowing I have somewhere to go for sure in the spring, and it's in a research area that really interests me. We'll see what happens with the other schools, but BYU is looking pretty good, especially if the financial side of things pans out.

DVD Burner

I bought a DVD burner the other day from Woot, and got it in the mail on Thursday. I finally got caught up on my homework today and had a chance to play with it. I burned a VCD (with menus!) of those shooting videos from when we shot the AK47s. I bought some DVD-Rs and copied one of my DVDs and it worked like a charm. Of course, my DVD player plays everything, but it works for me! Now I just have to figure out how to get... other... movies onto DVDs :)

W Ketchup

"You don’t support Democrats. Why should your ketchup?" The catch phrase of a funny real business. Make sure to visit the Comments section!

Carl Lewis the musician?

This is perhaps the funniest, or saddest, thing I have ever seen. Apparently, riding the success of Olympic victory, Carl Lewis decided that he was not only a talented athlete, but also a talented musician. Check out his music video here and decide for yourself... Read the article I got this link from that talks about other bad athlete/musicians (among other things) here.

Political Commentary

I had to miss the last presidential debate, due to school being a 24-hour job, but it looks like I didn't miss much from the Kerry side. There's been quite the negative backlash (1) (2) over his dragging Dick Cheney's daughter into the discussion. Best quotation of the lot:

"Kerry did come off in that exchange as politically manipulative and cold, very cold - a glimpse into at least one part of his personality that he is better off not showing on television."

Laptop feeling its age

So I was sitting on my couch with my laptop last night watching the Titans demolish the Packers (which coincidentally salvaged my fantasy week, so I was happy), thinking about doing homework which I ended up doing this morning, when all of a sudden, a vertical line appeared on my laptop screen. Apparently that line just got tired of displaying different things, so now it just displays green. I've seen those lines before, but this is the first time I've actually seen it happen. Yet another reminder that my laptop is getting old (a computer with only one USB port?? preposterous! :) ). It's still good enough for a while longer, but I think I'd better start saving...

Football Follies

It was not a good weekend to be a BYU/Redskins fan. BYU lost to UNLV on Friday in a game decided mainly by fumbles. BYU's offense was finally looking on track, but they had a very big problem holding on the ball. Even after losing 4 fumbles and missing a field goal, they still had a chance to win in the end, but simply could not get it in the end zone to overcome the 4 point deficit.

The Redskins played the Sunday night on ESPN, but just managed to embarrass themselves . The defense performed admirably, but there was zero offense. I'm starting to have serious doubts about Brunell. Is it just me or does he go back way too far when dropping back to pass? His linemen are trying to block guys around and behind him and he runs back so far he runs into them. And would it kill him to step up into the pocket? Let's just hope Joe Gibbs can get something together before the media and fans turn on him and before Snyder's short fuse runs out...

Tests and Applications

It's that time of the semester, the first round of tests is here. I took my first test this morning for my AI class. We have covered some pretty intense topics, including my arch-nemesis Probability, but thankfully the test was not nearly as hard as it could have been. As always there were things I wish I'd studied a little more and things I didn't need to study at all, but I think I did ok considering my lackluster studying effort while watching Armageddon on TV last night.

In the meantime, I've been trying to get some applications in for grad school before the deadlines, since other schools probably won't be as lenient as BYU. I submitted my application for Virginia Tech yesterday. It looks like Maryland doesn't accept Spring applications unless you are attending the school during the Fall, so they're out of the running for now.

Conference

Thanks to my parents I got some tickets to conference, so I went up to Salt Lake on Saturday to watch the afternoon session. Marisa was already up there for the morning session that her roommate had tickets to, so we met her there. I actually parked somewhere in south Salt Lake and took Trax in, which is pretty nice. It's easier than trying to park, especially during conference weekend. The conference was wonderful of course. I'm excited about the new apostles. They didn't have a viable Czech option, so I guess a German will have to do, and Elder Bednar has a Czech name (it means "cooper"), even if he did serve his mission in Germany. I heard they were called on Friday and it was announced on Saturday (and they had to speak on Sunday). I'll bet that's quite a rollercoaster ride of feelings. For Sunday I had a big breakfast at my place with some friends before the morning session.

Braces Off

I got my braces off yesterday! I had an appointment in the morning and the orthodontist decided it was time, so they all came off. It's nice to be able to see my teeth again and have them be all smooth. So I had a couple hours of freedom before I had to go back and get my retainer. It's kind of annoying and I have to learn how to talk with it in, but at least I can take it out to eat and brush teeth and stuff. They had fun patterned ones, so I got a blue one with the BYU logo on it. They said I will probably have to wear it regularly for about a year, then switch to nights for as long as it takes for my teeth to stay where they are. Fun fun. My gums are kind of puffy right now because they grew up in between the braces, but I will post pictures whe they look normal.

Forgotten Friends

So I just got a FW from my boss that is some touching poem of a girl describing her father who was killed on 9/11 during Bring Daddy to Work day, which is completely fictional and takes credit away from the original author (Snopes Report). Now since I assume automatically that all forwarded messages are frauds, this didn't surprise me. What bugged me, however, was the last paragraph:

"If you don't send it to anyone, it means you're in a hurry and that you've forgotten your friends."

I can deal with the bad luck, or hating America, or whatever punishment comes from not forwarding fraudulent emails, but being accused of forgetting my friends because I don't want to forward them a plagiarized, manipulated, coersive poem? If that's what forgetting friends means, I hope all my friends forget about me.

Kenneth Cooper and Aerobics

I just got back from BYU's monthly Forum (the non-religious devotional). The speaker was Kenneth Cooper, the inventor of "aerobics". First of all, it never occurred to me that aerobics was invented and the term was coined by this guy in 1968 with his best-selling book. I've never known life without the term. He gave a fascinating lecture, first about the positive effects of exercise and then about the negative effects of obesity. The statistics are very convincing. Staying in shape dramatically increases health and life-span, while obesity contributes to everything from diabetes to cancer to lower test scores.

He also mentioned the enormous effort of Pepsi and its subsidiaries to produce healthier snacks for kids, such as Baked Lays and Tostitos. Starting next year, they are rolling out new classifications for all their snacks, calling them either Fun, Better For You, or Good For You Snacks and will be changing all their vending machines in schools to sell only the last two. Perhaps this a company that deserves our support.

In short, his words of wisdom condensed: Do regular aerobic exercise, do not smoke, drink or do drugs, avoid saturated and trans fats, learn how to deal with stress.

Weekend activities

So apart from applying to grad school, I tried to enjoy my weekend a little. Friday night I opted out of watching BYU lose a heart-breaker to Boise State (our best player, the kicker, missed a game winning field goal well within his range) and instead went to the women's volleyball game against the U (BYU lost 3-1). Ally's brother-in-law is the assistant coach, so he got us front row tickets. Adam and Marisa and a friend of hers came as well and we topped off the evening with ice cream and a movie (Rush Hour).

I spent a multitude of hours in the computer lab on Saturday, but had some fun that evening by going to the women's soccer game. Unfortunately, it was not a good weekend for BYU sports, and they also lost, 2-1, to Washington St. They played well, but it was one of those games that could have gone either way and it went the wrong one.

BYU Grad School

I just realized I haven't blogged for a whole week. Shame on me. There has been an interesting turn of events however. On Wednesday, I spoke to one of my current professors about his research area because it really interests me. The class is image and signal processing and we're talking about photoshop type stuff like histogram equalization (auto-levels), edge detection (magnetic lasso), and kernel/mask operations (filters). He and his grad students were the ones that developed magnetic lasso ("intelligent scissors" at BYU) and sold it to Adobe. So in short, I finally found a graduate topic that really interests me, and I applied to BYU's grad school mentioning that topic, with the endorsement of my professor. It would require staying in Provo a little bit longer, but I think it would be worth it to have a research topic I really like and a cool professor as an advisor.

So I spent a lot of time getting recommendations, writing letters of intent, and paying fees towards the end of the week. The application is actually late, but my professor seemed hopeful that it could be included in the stack of apps that get considered for Spring term. Applications for most other schools are due around Oct 15, so I'll be getting those in soon.

BYU vs. USC

The good news: I got to see the #1 team in the nation play, live. The bad news: The #1 team in the nation is USC, not BYU...

BYU played surprisingly well in the first quarter and most of the second thanks to a spirited defense and some sloppy play by the Trojans, and managed to get an imposing 3-0 lead. But the whole act was precariously balanced and when the tide turned near the end of the first half, it was a long fall. BYU managed to score a touchdown on a set play at the beginning of the second half, but otherwise it was all USC. They were bigger and faster, and BYU still hasn't learned how to wrap up and tackle. All in all, I'm not too disappointed. John Beck got some good time in, playing the whole game for once and solidifying his spot as starting QB. The offense moved the ball pretty well (in the air) and the defense came up with some big plays. And of course, BYU has the best punter around. He launched an 80 yard punt that nearly stopped at the 1. Always a silver lining...

Top of Utah

My roommate has been training for a marathon for the last couple of months and Saturday was the day. It was the Top of Utah marathon in Logan. The race started early in the morning, and Ally has some friends in Logan, so we drove up Friday night and stayed at their place so Adam wouldn't have to drive from Salt Lake. We dropped him off on Saturday morning, then went back to bed. We went back to the end a couple of hours later to watch. We picked a spot close to the end where we could see him, then cut across to the finish line so we could cheer him on twice. It was pretty amazing to watch the runners come through - people of all ages and sizes - it almost inspired me to try it myself someday. It was a beautiful day, so we didn't mind waiting for him. He finally came jogging by and finished in 4 hours 24 mins. He was surprisingly coherent afterwards and didn't throw up or anything. Pretty impressive.

Need a bike?

You might want to reconsider using U-locks to secure your bike after visiting this page. Watch the video and read the comments. Interesting stuff.

Hardware Removal

I went to the orthodontist today and he took off the bands around my molars, so I have a little bit less hardware in my mouth. He also "discontinued" the "elastics", so I don't have to have those stupid rubber bands in my mouth either. He did make some adjustments, however, so he will check those next week. If it's OK, it all comes out, if not it will be one more appointment. I can't wait to have my teeth back again :)

Funny Bush Video

Warning: This video light-heartedly makes fun of President Bush (it's Will Ferrell).

Watch It (19 MB)

(You might want to right-click and choose Save Target As to save it to your computer first.)

Zombo.com

The funniest most useless site I've seen in a while: Zombo.com

(Make sure your speakers are on. Don't bother to follow the links.)

What's your name?

OK, this is a rant more than anything, but with the new semester starting and having to introduce myself to dozens of people it's an issue that has resurfaced and is again high on my list of peeves.

Whenever people ask me "What's your name?", I respond "Steven". Invariably, the the next words out of the mouths are "Do you go by Steve or Steven." [Dramatic pause] Um, if I went by Steve, don't you think I would have said my name is Steve??

Now don't get me wrong, I honestly don't care if people call me Steve. People have all my life and I'm totally used to it. Just don't ask me after I've already told you what my name is. If somebody said his name was Richard, would you ask, "Do you go by Richard, Rich, Richie or Dick?"? If you met a girl who's name was Jennifer, would you ask if she went by Jenny, or Jen?

Perhaps it's too much to expect people to utter two syllables when addressing me. Perhaps it's my fault because I feel uncomfortable making an issue out of it when I know it will be impossible for people to restrain from calling me Steve. In any case, my free advice for the day: If someone tells you their name, just use the one they give you.

School Update

School is officially in full swing and I have finally accepted my fate and resigned myself to a life in the computer lab. It was sad to let go of the carefree summer, but this is the way it must be.

School is going pretty well so far. Despite the fact that I work all day and do homework all night, I must admit I still like my major and I get kind of excited to do some of the cool labs. I'm taking three CS classes and they're very interesting:

In my security class, my first lab was to implement the Vigenere Cipher (encryption algorithm), and then crack it. It's a cool feeling when you come up with the encryption key and are able to decrypt what was once gobbledygook.

In my signal processing class, the first lab was to read in a color image and convert it to grayscale. That one was also really fun, but we used this really simple image format (ppm/pgm)that made it easier. I might try to figure out the jpg format in my free time so that I can actually use what I learn on real pictures.

In my artificial intelligence class, we're learning how to use "potential fields" to guide an "agent" through a capture the flag game. I haven't done much with that one yet, but I plan on starting tonight.

I wish I could show you these programs, but the CS department here is very anti-Windows and so everything I do only runs on linux. If any of you have linux and want to see what I've done, let me know :)

National Deficit/Debt

Quotes from a good article on the national deficit/debt:

"It goes without saying that if any private corporation had behaved the way the government has, it would soon find its executives being sentenced by a federal judge. It is illegal for businesses to keep their books the way the government does, hiding their long-term liabilities from shareholders the way the government disguises its indebtedness from voters."

"At least when a corporation misbehaves, there is an ultimate market check in the form of bankruptcy. Creative accounting can only go so far in covering up transactions that are fundamentally unsound. But national governments never go bankrupt and don’t have to worry about customers buying their goods and services for revenue. They just raise taxes or print money and keep on going. 'As a result, temptations for the government to engage in creative accounting may be even greater than those in the private sector,' Block suggested. It’s worth keeping this in mind the next time some congressional demagogue denounces corporate dishonesty."

BYU Undefeated

Football season is here!! I went to the BYU v. Notre Dame game and well, we won. Barely. It was looking great in the first quarter as BYU took an early lead, but then our starting quarterback got injured (will be back next game) and our inconsistent quarterback from last season was back to his old tricks. It was kind of an ugly game, with only 33 total rushing yards (both teams combined), but BYU had just enough points to hold back Notre Dame and go undefeated at 1-0. Somehow it didn't seem like a victory after giving Notre Dame practically every chance to win, but at this point I'll take it.

WMP 10 update?

So I downloaded the new and improved Windows Media Player 10 today. What a disappointment. Leave it to Microsoft to make an inferior copy of an Apple product. Apparently Microsoft thinks it can force its way into the digital music industry (and unfortunately it probably will). The new WMP just copies the functionality of iTunes and of course its release was timed to coincide with Microsoft's new online music service.

When I installed it, it automatically tried to get me to sign up for Microsoft's online music, not by asking me, but by putting small text above a large "end user license agreement". So I declined their service, which then caused the program to display an error picture in place of the service, but which later seemed to install itself, because an MSN butterfly later appeared anyway.

I downloaded it because I thought I could use it like iTunes to organize my music. What I didn't know was that it was going to strap my hands behind my back. You add all your songs into the library, and you think you should be able to order them by whatever you want. When I tried to organize them by filename, instead of title (the title embedded into the file) I found out that title can not be moved or removed. So you can't sort by artist unless the artist is embedded in the file, which is not the case with the majority of my files, and you use the built-in (non-editable) groupings.

So download it if you want. It doesn't do anything WMP 9 couldn't do except annoy me. Looks like Winamp 3 is still the winner.

Atkins Boring

Never having been a believer of the Atkins diet myself, I was amused to see some other reasons for its success in this article.

28, not 30

I have good news: I was approved to work more than the normal 20-hour limit. My boss requested 30 hours/week for me because of some special circumstances. First, several of the employees here will be student-teaching in area schools this semester and will have reduced hours at work, but will be back for Winter semester, which makes hiring and training new employees for one semester not effective. Also, I only have 9.5 credits this semester, so extra hours would not impede my schoolwork. Also, we are hiring some new instructors, and I'll probably be involved in the training. So apparently the administration saw the logic in this and in their infinite wisdom granted me not 30-hour weeks, but 28-hour weeks. I'm not quite sure what the reasoning was behind that one, but it was approved, so I'm not complaining. It essentially means I'll be working 7 (4-hour) days a week, but still have the weekends! And since I don't have time to spend all my earnings like I did during the summer, I might increase my savings a little :)

And so it begins...

School started again today. My last semester. I only have 3 real classes (albeit 400 level CS classes) and one PE class, so hopefully it won't be too bad. I went to soccer this morning already and got my locker and stuff already. My digital signal processing class seems like it will be pretty cool. It's mostly about image recognition and stuff and the professor seems really cool. I haven't been to my other two classes yet.

I'm still doing interviews at work. It's become confusing trying to keep track of all these people, especially when we do two interviews (one normal, one where they teach). It will be nice when our classes start again and work goes back to normal.

I see the light!

So I went to the orthodontist this morning, and there is light at the end of the tunnel! In typical fashion, my uninformative orthodontist mentioned only that he would remove the bands on the back molars next time. I was later informed by one of the assistants that this means that two weeks after that they all come off and I get my retainer later that day. So by September 30th I could be braces free! I will of course post pictures when the blessed day arrives. Now I just need to decide what I'm going to write on his wall...

Gala? huh?

OK, my previous comments about the Olympics have now turned into full-blown annoyance. In lieu of showing decent coverage of the decathlon, in which an American won a surprising silver, NBC decided to instead dedicate no less than three long segments on the "Olympics Gymnastics Gala" last night, an event that has no meaning and in which no medals are won. They at least showed the Morrocan guy win his elusive gold in the 1500 M, but I must have missed the coverage of the 3000M steeplechase, pole vault, track cycling, and weight-lifting finals. No wonder Americans don't have any understanding of foreign countries; they aren't even allowed to watch Olympic events unless a token American has a chance of getting a bronze. I, for one, would like to appreciate these events as the great sporting competitions they are, regardless of who is competing, especially since many of the events are only seen widely during the Games. But if all the people want to see is meaningless gymnastics, I guess in 2008 I'll have to get extended cable and Tivo to truly experience the Olympic Games.

PS - Congratulations to Roman Seberle, gold-medalist in the decathlon, a.k.a. "Greatest Athlete in the World", who brought the Czech Republic its first and only gold medal. I must have missed the special interest story on him...

Hiring

The new semester is coming up and we're hiring some new employees. As the eldest trainer around, I expressed interest in helping with the process, so now the full-time guy and I are interviewing applicants. It's kind of fun being on the other end of things for a change - reading the resumes, asking ambiguous interview questions, deciding the fate of these poor souls... We've found one good applicant so far from 5 interviews, but the job(s) is(are) still officially open for another week.

Still here

I haven't posted for a while, but I'm still here. I've been pretty wrapped up in the Olympics. It's been good so far, I just wish they would give more options for viewing in prime time. NBC is very proud of the fact that they have 4 billion hours of programming every day on their various channels, but during prime time - the only time most people can watch - your only choice is NBC and they only show the "marquee" events (ie swimming, gymnastics, and track & field). Alas, the one chance for table tennis and badminton to get television coverage and no one can watch.

I went on a double date on Friday. We played frisbee golf, did the picnic thing, then watched Olympics and a movie. As for how it went, I'll continue my stance of being intentionally uninformative until something worth talking about.

On Saturday I went to a polynesian event type thing near Salt Lake (Ally knew the MC), then headed up to the airport to pick up Marisa and Adam (roommate) who flew in within 45 mins of each other. That worked out rather nicely. Marisa hung out at my place until her friends finally came to get her at 11:30 or so. It will be fun to finally have some family around here!

Fun toys for Windows

At the end of a good article about Windows XP SP2 and the new Longhorn from PC Magazine, there are some good links to make your Windows OS a little more futuristic (i.e. more like MacOS and Linux).

For one, there is a little app called Dashboard 2.0 that creates a sidebar much like what is supposed to come with the next version of Windows. You have lots of options on what to put on this sidebar, the most useful in my opinion being a clock, a news aggregator (for RSS feeds), a note board, built-in Notepad with tabs, and a weather section. It's a fun little app when you have a big enough monitor.

The other fun things are all Microsoft Power Toys that I hadn't looked at in a long time. Among the treasures here:

• Alt-Tab Replacement which changes the Alt-Tab menu to give a preview of the window instead of just an icon (similar to the Exposé feature of MacOS X).
• TweakUI is an awesome utility that lets you really customize your computer.
• Virtual Desktop Manager gives you the ability to have up to 4 simultaneous desktops (a feature that has long come with most versions of Linux). Some things to know if you try this one: It is a task bar toolbar, which means nothing will happen when you install it. Right click on the task bar, choose Toolbars, then Desktop Manager. Also, to keep your desktops from interfering with each other (by default, all programs are visible in each desktop and choosing a program brings it to the current desktop) right click on the toolbar and uncheck Shared Desktops.

GRE

I took the GRE Saturday morning. I signed up for it a long time ago and was so successful at putting it out of my mind that I forgot about it until Thursday. So I did a crash course math review on Friday night while watching the Olympic opening ceremonies, then went for it Saturday morning. I got a 620 in the Verbal section and 650 in Quantitative (both out of 800) and there is a written section that I haven't gotten a score for yet. According to a random web site I went to, I did above average (470 V, 570 Q). The verbal score seems good enough, but the math score I think is a little low for technical majors. I guess I'd better get good letters of recommendation...

Olympics

Well, paraskevidekatriaphobia or not, the Olympics are here. Apparently Athens was able to finish preparations on time and the Opening Ceremonies are tonight. I've already been watching the men's and women's soccer games which started on Wednesday on Telemundo (our US women started off well, blanking hosts Greece 3-0). I've never been a big fan of the opening ceremonies, but we're going to have a big group and watch together. I enjoy the procession of nations, but the rest seems excessively needless. And despite what some in the media have said, I think there is still a large interest in the Olympics. It may be over-hyped and over-marketed, but I think most people can see through that and enjoy the friendly competitions with a little bit of national pride. I know I'll be watching as much as I can, especially since it's been 8 years since I've seen a summer Olympics thanks to the mission. And what cooler venue can you get? I think they're running the marathon from Marathon, for goodness' sake... So enjoy the games, and go USA!

Wedding Day

No, not mine... I spent all day yesterday attending wedding events for my former roommate Richard. I went to his sealing in the morning at the Provo Temple. Afterward there was the obligatory ton of pictures. Then there was a luncheon at the Chef's Table (near the Provo/Orem border on State Street) which was excellent. I don't know about the prices, because I didn't have to pay, but the food was amazing. Later that night there was also a reception. As the groom's buddies, we also took it upon ourselves to decorate the get-away car. It actually turned out to be quite an adventure, because Richie's dad gets very uptight about his cars (the kind of guy that puts towels on the seats), so we had to find out which car he was taking, find it (it was parked in the very back of the parking lot), and decorate it and get out without his dad finding out. We came back later and watched from a strategic location as they drove off to Salt Lake. They're flying to San Diego today for their honeymoon. It's kind of sad to see him go, but he found a good wife and I think they'll be very happy.

Hail to the Redskins

The Redskins were victorious in their first preseason game last night (the "Hall of Fame Game" in Canton Ohio), defeating the Denver Broncos 20-17. I was a little disappointed in the first string players' performance and of course the unfortunate loss of Jansen for the season. On the bright side, Sean Taylor, the rookie, proved he is worthy of his 5th overall pick (and salary...) by picking off two passes - one in the end zone to prevent a score, and the other for a touchdown. And the team won for Joe Gibbs' return; a symbolic win, but a win nonetheless. One preseason game down, Super Bowl here we come!

Movie Reviews

I've seen several movies recently (thanks to the newsgroups) and I thought I would proffer my unsolicited opinions:

Napoleon Dynamite: A must see movie! This is a low-budget, essentially student film produced by BYU alums that has catapulted to national popularity after finding success at Sundance. To attempt to explain it would be nearly impossible, so I'll leave it at this. It's a movie that gets funnier every time you see it, with quotability at least as good as Dumb & Dumber and a title character that is sure to become classic impersonation material. It's a refreshing change from standard Hollywood assembly-line products and is clean enough to make BYU proud. Go support a good film.

The Manchurian Candidate: This is a remake of a communist-era film that critics decry as not living up to the first. Having not seen the original, I would recommend the film, not for the acting, but for the compelling spy/thriller/paranoia plot. I guess the movie is rated R, but perhaps my desensitization to people getting shot in the head made it seem less than that. I liked it, but let your conscience guide.

Super Size Me: This is the much talked-about documentary of the man that ate McDonald's 3 times a day for 30 days in order to find out if eating fast food could be the primary cause of obesity. It was at once informative, fascinating and disgusting and I think everyone should see it. It was interesting to see not only the effect the food had on this guy (he throws up 3 days into his diet) and his health, but also the issues of fast food and advertising and the politics of it all.

Around the World in 80 Days: This movie was quite a bit more entertaining than I thought it would be, despite its utter predictability. It was made to be slapstick and it accomplished its purpose.

Collateral: Another R-rated movie (again because of violence and language), but this time one I wasn't that excited about. Tom Cruise is a hired killer who gets Jamie Foxx, a cab driver to drive him to his victims. The plot is at times unbelievable (like how Foxx coincidentally picks up, immediately before Cruise, the last vicitim on Cruise's hit list, who also happens to be Foxx's love interest...) I would say save your money and your innocence.

Weekend (Up)Date

I didn't have any big plans for Friday night except helping a Czech friend of mine set up a Czech Church web site (www.sweb.cz/ceskaliahona/) until I got a phone call that afternoon. Lo and behold, in a boost to my self-esteem, it was a girl asking me out on a date! She's the sister of a friend of mine at work and she'd taken several classes from our department. I'd thought about asking her out, but had procrastinated because of her age (19) and our differences (me left-brained, her right-brained). But despite our differences she made a favorable impression and we might have to try the inuendo-packed (in Provo) second date. We ended up seeing Spiderman 2 after some other plans fell through.

Iraqi Police

Some interesting stuff you don't see in the mainstream media, excerpts from this article:

"Something very significant happened Wednesday in Iraq. In two separate incidents Iraq police and security forces successfully took on insurgents without the presence of coalition forces..."

"Maybe the powerful technical intelligence capability of the coalition forces was able to give the Iraqi authorities some assistance in advance of their two engagements Wednesday. However... any tips-off that led to these two operations almost certainly came to the Iraqi authorities from ordinary citizens who would have thought twice about giving the same information to anyone from the coalition."

"Now that Iraqis are in charge, there is general despair at the persistent violence. Even in Fallujah in the old Baath party heartland former supporters of Saddam Hussein are reconciling themselves to the new political reality and their loss of privilege. More importantly they are losing sympathy with the die-hards in their midst who prosecute their pointless campaign of violence."

SponsorCar presents the Sponsor 500

I don't know whether to laugh or shake my head at this one: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=sportsNews&storyID=5861050

Set your phasers to stun!

There used to be a time when Dick Tracy's two-way tv/radio wristwatch seemed preposterous, but with the way electronics have improved, I don't think anyone would be surprised if it were to come out soon. Apparently now scientists have taken a page from that paragon of futuristic technology, Star Trek, and have created what amounts to a phaser - using lasers to direct a paralyzing high-energy beam. Who knows, maybe Star Trek isn't quite as far-fetched as it used to seem. Beam me up Scotty!

Football Fever

Just one more week before preseason NFL starts! I'm just full of joy that the football season is finally starting again. I've been going crazy with baseball being the only major sport doing anything right now. And the cable company with perfect timing called to let me know that for 6 months, which happens to be how long I will live in this house, getting cable TV will actually reduce my current bill for cable internet. So now the games will come in crisp and clear.

If anyone is interested, my roommate and I are also going to do a salary-cap-based fantasy football league. If you'd like to do it too just let me know. It's absolutely free and doesn't seem to be that hard.

Rafting

Friday and Saturday I went on a little jaunt to Idaho and Wyoming to do a little white water rafting. Ally's ward sponsored the activity, so I figured a free organized trip was the best way to try some real rapids for the first time. I didn't bring my camera, seeing as how it was a water activity, but I probably should have.

We drove up on Friday night and stayed at a family's house (well backyard, actually) near Idaho Falls. One of the cars coming up got a flat tire which when ignored turned into a shredded tire which then turned into a rim with no tire. Luckily for them, they knew someone in the thriving metropolis of Malad, Idaho, who happened to know the owner of the local garage and they got the tire fixed and managed to get there the same night.

On Saturday morning we drove into Wyoming to a beautiful spot on the Snake River (which as far as I know is like everything else in Wyoming - not near anything). People seemed to know where it was, however, because the river was pretty crowded the whole time we were there.

The rafting itself was great. The run we went on is just about right, with its smooth places, some nice rapids and a couple of doozies. Our group had two rafts, and I happened to be on the raft that is probably older than I am. One rafter even complimented us on our antique raft as we were on the shore tipping out the water and pumping more air into it. We had to stop a couple times because of our holey raft and we actually walked the raft around a more dangerous area, because it was bending so much, but I still thought it was fun. I managed to stay on the entire time (all in the hips...) and it was fun to watch others get bucked off :) Going just for the scenery probably would have been worth it. The area is very picturesque, with pine covered hills looming on either side of the river. It was reminiscent of Alaska, but probably not quite as nice.

On the way back to Idaho Falls we encountered a pick-up truck laying on its side in the middle of our lane with no other vehicles involved. Even more amazing was that it appeared the front axle had completely snapped, because only one front tire was visible and it was as if it had been glued to the bottom of the truck, right in the middle of the front end. Hard to explain, but I wish I'd had my camera for that one. The guy driving seemed to be OK, fortunately, because the ambulance which we passed later wasn't going to make it to such a remote location very quickly.

We made it home without incident except for a stop at Denny's. One more funny story - on the way home from Ally's house (where I had left my car) I was play-racing Anne down University Ave. It was 2:00 AM so we had the road pretty much to ourselves. We were head-to-head coming to a red light. Both of us saw that the lights going the other direction had just turned red so we both accelerated assuming the light would turn green. Well, another reason why you never assume, the light stayed red for a green left turn arrow from the opposite direction (where nobody was) and I had to slow down pretty quickly. Anne didn't quite make it and ended up stopped in the middle of the intersection, feeling pretty stupid, then proceeded to run the red light to get out of the intersection. I thought it was pretty funny anyway. Oh, and we saw a cop not too far down the road right after that, but luckily by then we'd had enough fun and were obeying the speed limit...

Endless Love

For those of you worried about my social life, I got into my car the other day and noticed that there was a bottle of "Endless Love Body Lotion" from Victoria's Secret in the back window, which kind of took me by surprise.  But no, it wasn't left as a sign :)  It has since been returned to its natural habitat of a girl's purse.

Bourne Supremacy

Sometime over the weekend I went to see The Bourne Supremacy.  Unlike when I saw The Bourne Identity, I hadn't read the book recently, so I wasn't as disappointed in this movie.  Plus, I was already accustomed to Matt Damon as Jason Bourne (although Julia Stiles as a field agent is still stretching it too far).  The movie was at least as good as the first one and undoubtedly will be a big box office success.  For me, however, the real Bourne series will always be the books.

Stewart Falls

About the only real weekendy thing I did over my three day weekend was go to Stewart Falls.  It was a beautiful day and it's a nice easy hike.  I'd been there before, so this time I decided to go up to the other falls which are kind of off the beaten path (not pictured...) and had some fun climbing around on the rocks.  One fun thing about Utah is that there aren't any spiderwebs (I must have run into at least a thousand when I was in the woods in VA) and there aren't thorny plants to scratch up your legs.  It kind of takes the fun out of it, actually :)  Of course, I forgot to bring my camera, so the picture is provided courtesy of Google images.

The "Texan"...

I've been following Lance Armstrong lately, who is poised to win an unprecedented 6th straight Tour de France victory.  He's simply dominating this year's race and it's been a pleasure to read about, except for one thing:  Nearly every article has to make at least one reference to Armstrong as the "Texan".  If this was common practice with every state it wouldn't be so annoying, but if I was a world-famous cyclist, I doubt the articles would read, "The 24 year-old Virginian has a 4 minute lead."  If Armstrong hailed from the state just to the north, I'm sure journalists would be rushing to add in the catchy phrase, "Oklahoman" to spice up a bland cycling article.  Same goes for "Rhode-Islander", "Vermontian", "Washingtonian", "North-Carolinian", "Michiganite" and all those other states that aren't recognized as their own pseudo-country.  I suppose Texas will always hold some sort of mystical old-west allure, but please, let's not be partial.

This land is my land...

Voting time is coming up.  Check out this Flash cartoon.

Hard Drive

Storage limits on my laptop were reaching critical lows, so I continued my summer shopping spree and purchased a 200GB external (hot-swappable, USB 2.0, pre-formatted, plug-and-play, buzzword, buzzword) hard drive.  My computer only supports USB 1.0, so transfer times are not super fast, but it's fast enough to play music and movie files, which is its main function at the moment, in addition to storing back-up files.  And now if people want some of my mp3s I can just take the songs to them!  Who needs an ipod?

Plant

Over the weekend, my roommate Adam and I continued purging the house of all vestiges of former roommates.  Since I bought my little DVD player, we decided to pack up the other, big DVD player with its multiple speakers, then just kept going and removed the stereo (with broken CD player) and it's big speakers, the record player and the table that both were on, as well as all the movies that don't belong to us and the Sega Genesis and Nintendo that we don't play.
 
Anyway, after rearranging the remaining pieces and accompanying cords we had lots of extra space and so on a trip to Walmart I bought a pygmy date palm - to my knowledge, the only plant in the house.  I think it looks rather nice and it really completed the newly rearranged TV corner.

Jeopardy

I tuned in on Thursday and Friday to watch Ken Jennings, our local star, continue his seemingly unstoppable winning streak.  I thought for sure as soon as I watched him he would lose, but he not only won, but won convincingly both nights.  And even better, he's a BYU alum, returned missionary (and a software engineer) and just seems like a nice guy.  You should check it out if you haven't seen him yet.

I'm back!

I got back yesterday from the family reunion in VA. I decided since I was on vacation and most of the people that read this are my family anyway, I wouldn't worry about it during the reunion. I had a great time and I got so used to being there it felt weird to be back. (When I woke up this morning, I thought I was in my room in VA, then I realized I had to go to work...) I went to DC several times, slept in late, mingled, played Uno, played with nieces and nephews and even went on a couple of dates. I was supposed to go to work yesterday after I got in to Provo, but my ride (whom I called the night before to remind) forgot to come, so after waiting for a while I called him, then had to wait another hour while he drove up. So I didn't go to work after all. One good thing about coming back is that now that I'm used to east coast time, it's not hard at all for me to get to work early :)

Long Classes

Phew, I've finally found some time to take a break and catch up here. My boss for our latest round of classes has tried making the classes 3.5 hours long, twice a week for two weeks (instead of 2 hours, twice/week 3.5 weeks or the original 2 hours once/week 7 weeks). So besides the classes just being really really long, it also means that I'm actually in the classroom 7 hours a day Monday through Thursday, which makes it hard to sneak in little diversions like blogging.

So I'll just list off all the stuff I've been up to. Tuesday morning I registered my car at the DMV. I was supposed to have done it at the end of April, realized tbat in May and finally got around to it at the end of June. The guy gave me a funny look, but he didn't say anything.

Thursday morning I had an appointment with the orthodontist. Everything was great except that he didn't take off my braces... It looks like it's getting close to the end, though. The real bad part is that I get the wonderful opportunity of wearing "elastics" again. Something about helping my bite mesh. But apparently next appointment he's supposed to check and see if any of the brackets can be removed.

I also registered for the GRE on Thursday. I'm taking it August 14. My roommate had some GRE Prep book and I was reading through it last night. I swear, if people really can't figure out the strategies they give in there, they don't deserve to get good scores on these tests anyway! For instance, one of their main strategies is to eliminate as many wrong answers as you can before you guess. Well DUH!

Region Free

I got my DVD player yesterday that I bought off of Ebay. I'd bought a couple of DVDs from the Czech Republic, assuming that I would just watch them on my computer somehow, but after seeing some of the prices for region-free DVD players on Ebay I decided to go that route. So for $60 I got a cute little DVD player that will play DVDs from any continent, along with mp3s, jpgs, vcds, svcds, etc, etc, and it has lots of fun little features. I will definitely be buying more Czech DVDs when I go back there. Of course, I had to splurge and buy a little converter dealy (RF Converter?) to take RCA video and audio out and convert it to coaxial for the TV. We had one, but it was being held together literally by toothpicks, so I bought a nice one that switches between 4 inputs. Now, if my former roommate decides to take all his stuff back, all I would need is a TV.

Cell-phone Olympics?

Speed texting...

Manti Pageant

On Saturday I went to Manti to see the Mormon Miracle Pageant. It was the first time I had been to it and it was quite entertaining and the "stage" with the beautiful Manti Temple as the backdrop is impressive. They said they'd put in a new sound system and it worked very well. The performance is unintentionally funny at points, but touching at others and definitely worth seeing once. There was a light rain before it started, but it cleared up just in time for the performance. Perhaps the most surprising part of the whole evening was the presence of dedicated Christians who made the long trip to Manti to minister to all us lost Mormons (by shouting, of course). Seems like they would want to spend their time helping people who are not strong believers in God, but what do I know?

Reviews

I went to see The Terminal last night and I really enjoyed it. It's well-made, with likeable characters, lots of funny scenes and nothing bad in it at all. In fact, the only "bad" thing I can remember is when Tom Hanks mispronounces a certain word in a funny scene. Tom Hanks is a guy from a fictional Eastern European country that gets stuck in the airport when his country's government collapses. His accent is pretty good, but he needs to work on his Russian a little bit :)

I also read The Da Vinci Code (written by my brother Dan Brown...) over the last two days (it's a quick read!) and I thought it was very intriguing. It's meticulously researched and cleverly constructed and it makes you want to see and research all the stuff he talks about. I can see why there was some controversy over it, but it wasn't nearly what I expected. I would say it would be a good book to own, but after reading it once and having the mystery revealed I don't think a second reading could rival the first.

Mo' money!

I got some more good news today. I got two letters from BYU, one informing me that:

My fine work in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences has qualified [me] for the Dean's List for Winter Semester, 2004.

and the other informing me that:

The Scholarship Committee is pleased to offer [me] the Lewis Kingsley Scholarship in the amount of $820 [half tuition] for Fall Semester 2004 and $820 for Winter Semester 2005.

It's too bad I'm graduating in December - that's $1420 now (this plus the Pell grant) that I'm not going to be able to use... I think I'd rather graduate, though :)

Congrats Rafa!

Congratulations to BYU's Rafael Araujo, who got picked 8th by the Toronto Raptors in yesterday's NBA draft. It was fun watching him lead BYU to an undefeated home record and NCAA tourney bid last year and hopefully he'll do just as well in the NBA.

There's no place like home...

Great news! My friend's dad who owns the place where I'm living right now is going to extend my contract until December! This is good for a variety of reasons:

1. I won't have to find another place to live, since I graduate in December.
   
2. This place is insanely cheap to live in and is a nice house, with washer/dryer etc.
   
3. I will get my own room. (Because it will no longer be owner-occupied (the son won't live here), he is limited to 2 tenants.)
   
4. I won't have to move! (I hate moving - changing my mailing address everywhere, packing, etc...)
   

Euro 2004

Just in case you all didn't know, the European championship of soccer is going on right now and the Czech Republic are doing great. They are the only team to win all three of their group qualifying games to make it to the quarter-finals and have become the dark horse favorites to beat traditional powerhouses like France, England and Sweden. They already defeated Germany using 9 players from the bench. Check out all the action at www.euro2004.com or ESPN.

Break-dancing Transformers

Cool video.

Church Music Site

I read about a new church music site in the Ensign, but I didn't think much about it until I actually saw it. It really is an awesome resource for church music, including an interactive hymn player that allows you to play individual parts and transpose music, and hymns in mp3 format. Make sure you have some time before you visit the site, you'll probably be there for a while!

Free Meal

My parents stopped by on Sunday on their way back from a family reunion in southern Utah. Turns out they just wanted a free meal... and to see me of course. We went on a walk around BYU campus before they left to stay in Salt Lake.

Yesterday, I drove up to Salt Lake and they repaid the favor and took me out to IHOP where I had not one, but two breakfasts (I ate my mom's extra plate of food that came with her pancakes). It was very good :) After that we played dominoes for the rest of the night.

Phantom of the Opera

Yesterday I drove up to Salt Lake with my friend Ally to see Phantom of the Opera at the Capitol Theatre. We decided that if we were going to see it, we might as well get good tickets, so we sat about 8 rows back on the right side, floor seats. The performance was really good, although because we went to a matinee, they had some of the understudies performing. Plus, I have in my memory the performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC of what I think was the original cast, or at least the ones that made the CDs. But overall I was really pleased. The performance was entertaining, they hit all the high notes, the Phantom was really good and it was fun to see the whole story again (instead of just listening to the music).

Comics

I resurrected an old idea I had when I was working at Cable & Wireless doing ASP pages: The Comics Page. Some of the online comics (well, at least the ones at ucomics.com) have a picture file that is named based on the date. This makes it easy to use some kind of scripting language -- PHP in my new version -- to make a page that shows the daily comics.

Of course, being a programmer at heart and having PHP on the mind, I was just thinking it would be cool to make it customizable, so a user could choose the comics he/she wants to see and what order they show up in. Maybe I'll get to that someday, when I'm not doing one of the many other personal projects I have grand plans for :)

In the meantime, if you want to read some comics, you can go here.

Rodeo

Last night I went to the first day of the Strawberry Days rodeo in Pleasant Grove. When we went last year (have I lived here that long?) it rained the entire time. The weather cooperated a little more this time and it was a lot of fun. Plus, the strawberries and cream were delicious :)

Peace

The NBA has finally regained balance. Thank you Detroit Pistons for thoroughly dismantling the vaunted Lakers and leaving no option of letting David Stern's refs rig a victory for them. Now with Phil Jackson, Kobe and maybe even Shaq likely to leave the Lakers, the fog of Laker bandwagon fanaticism will fall from America's eyes, good team basketball will prevail and perhaps the NBA will be worth watching again. Yes, that would bring peace.

Prize

So it turns out we didn't get $300 for the website competition, but we did each receive a gift - this handsome leather business card case thing made by Zero Halliburton. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it, seeing as how I don't have any business cards, but it sure smells nice. Oh, and I got a certificate!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to me! Yes, yesterday was my 24th birthday. I am now an old man... I know, I can just hear the guffaws now from all you old fogeys :) No, I really don't feel that old. In fact, I don't feel much different at all! Yesterday morning I had some friends over and we made a big pancake breakfast, and that night a little get-together was organized in my honor and along with eating ice cream and cake we watched the Pistons give me a birthday present by defeating the Lakers (just one more to go!).

In other news, on Saturday I went apartment shopping. I have to find a place for my last 3 months here, since I'm getting kicked out at the end of the summer. I found one nice place, but I think it was already taken by the time I got there. I think I'm going to splurge for my last semester and get a single room in a condo or something.

Do you work with fools?

Funny website: www.iworkwithfools.com

Gmail anyone?

As a valued user of Google's Beta email service, Gmail, I was given 3 invites that I can give to other people that want gmail accounts. Since it is beta, this is the only way to get an account. Gmail has lots of cool features that make it way better than hotmail or yahoo, including 1000 MB of space, searching your emails (at google speed), and automatic address book. Eric has already made it his main account, so I assume he likes it. Let me know if you're interested. I could get some weird stuff for them, but I'd rather let people I know get them.

Too much losing...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I was pretty sad when the Pistons gave away their chance to win last night and take an impressive 2-0 lead back to Detroit. Instead it is now 1-1 and the Lakers are reobtaining their mystical powers of winning when they shouldn't...

So I come in to work today to find out that we were not even finalists in the website competition that we entered. There might be a consolation prize of $300, though, which would make it worth it. Apparently we won one of the special "Best layout..." type awards.

In contrast to all that losing, I defeated Gannon last night and saved Princess Zelda, only to find that *gasp*, a second, harder quest awaits me. Princess Zelda is not very good at avoiding capture, obviously.

Religion Test

I found an interesting religion test online. Just answer the questions and find out what religion you should be!

New Toy

Besides Harry Potter, the most exciting thing I did over the weekend was purchase a new toy - a GameBoy Advanced SP Classic (Limited Edition!). I'd been out of the loop for a looong time as far as Gameboys go, but a friend at work brought in one of these and I was jealous and in a fit of spontaneity, I bought one while at the mall to see Harry Potter. This second version of the "Advanced" version has many improvements that actually make it worth buying, like the folding design, back-lit color screen, and built-in rechargeable battery with included power/recharging cord.

The real reason I bought it though, were some more great selling points: First, the limited edition design that makes it look like the original NES system (instead of the regular solid red, blue, black, or silver), second, it is backwards compatible with previous gameboy games (of which I still have a couple), and the kicker, they have released 10 classic original NES games for it. So I bought the original Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda and I've spent unhealthy amounts of time reliving old memories while ridding Hyrule of the Evil Gannon and saving Princess Zelda. Hopefully, they'll continue the trend of rereleasing the old games, but in the meantime, I might just get something done...

Harry Potter POA

I went to see the newest Harry Potter installment on Friday night and it was excellent. The actors are a little bit older and it is reflected in their quality performance. The mood is slightly less storybook, which was a good change considering the increasing seriousness of the later books. The computer graphics are much improved and the new Dumbledore, despite not having the raspy voice and deliberate speech of the former, does a more than adequate job of replacing the old. In short, I think they've hit another home run with this one. They've continued to do justice to the books and I'll be there for the next one!

Web Site Competition

A couple of friends of mine at work had entered BYU's web site competition, but the guy they had doing the back end work decided he couldn't do it. So yesterday afternoon, the day before today's noon deadline, I was invited to join in on the fun. They already had a layout designed in Photoshop, but they hadn't sliced it or created the template in Dreamweaver. So while they did that, I did my part of creating the dynamic pages. The competition required a site that could be hosted on a Windows server, so I had to brush up on my ASP (instead of the PHP I've been using recently), but by night time I had cranked out 5 or 6 sections that interfaced beautifully with an Access database. By then the template was created, so we spent the rest of the night and into the morning filling in content, beautifying, perfecting, debugging, etc. Overall, I think the site turned out pretty nice. We'll see on Saturday whether we're one of the finalists. With a grand prize of $1500, I sure hope so. You can see the website here, but please don't mess with the dynamic data (ie don't enter your name in stuff!), since this is the site they are judging from.

I went to the orthodontist this morning and now my teeth hurt and I can't bite properly. He must be doing something wrong... No, he says it's getting closer, but if there's one thing I can tell you, it's this: Don't trust an orthodontists estimation. Three of them told me 1.5 years, including my current one, and this month we pass 2, with "just a couple more adjustments" to go.

I also did something completely out of character yesterday morning. I not only got up early, but I got up early and went running! I wake up almost every day at about 6:30 or 7:00 way before my alarm (I think it's because I leave my windows open and it gets light so early in the summer), but I usually just go back to sleep, even though sometimes I feel quite awake. So I decided the next time it happened I would just go running, since I've been feeling "blah" and out of shape lately. So I did. And it wasn't that bad. The weather was beautiful at 6:30 AM (55 degrees or so) and it did make me feel a little better. I didn't go today, one because I'm sore and two because I went to bed really late last night due to the web site competition, but I think I'll try it again as long as my delirium lasts and I keep waking up early.

This is the place

I took advantage of the holiday to go to This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake. They have a big monument there dedicated to Brigham Young and other pioneers and there is also a "village" with replica buildings and some original log cabins. They also have people who dress and act like pioneers to guide you through different buildings and areas. It's a nice little place. You can check out some pictures I took here.

On the way back we stopped at Cafe Rio, a restaurant which all females and many males in this area have an undying passion for. The line is always out the door. I think it's good, but I don't eat there once or twice a week like some people I know...

Down and Out

It's been a couple days since I've posted anything, but I have a good excuse. Thursday night I started feeling dizzy and "icky", so I decided to lay down for a while and... I didn't get up until Friday morning. I was able to go to work, albeit late, but Friday and Saturday weren't too great either. I didn't have any cold symptoms, just dizziness, headache and later, diahrrea. I'm not sure what it was, but I'm over it now, thank goodness.

I did manage to go to the nickelcade and a BYU men's soccer game over the weekend. The soccer team had been dominating on a club level for many years (since Title IX and funding don't allow them to be a NCAA team), so for more competition they joined a semi-professional league last year that allows them to retain their amateur status. They got kicked around last year and despite a mediocre start this season, they won the game I went to 6-2. Maybe I should go to more games :)

Free make-up?

If you're interested in free make-up, you might want to visit http://www.cosmeticssettlement.com and sign up. Apparently, cosmetics companies are accused of fixing prices and if this class action lawsuit goes through, anyone who has bought cosmetics recently could be reimbursed. I won't be signing up for this one, but I did sign up to receive reimbursement from the record companies for CD price fixing and I eventually got a check.

It's a quality life...

I bought tickets to Harry Potter yesterday for opening night on Friday. It's nice to have a movie I'm actually excited to see. It's sad when kids' movies are the only ones worth seeing.

Speaking of movies, I read a good article (and another) about the new movie Day After Tomorrow. Apparently, the disaster is caused by global warming and is as much a environmental/political statement as it is a movie, which is unfortunate as it just happens not to be based in fact. The article goes on to say that if the Kyoto agreement were implemented in the US, it would cost at least $150 billion and delay global warming approximately six years in the next 100 years or so. "For the cost of implementing Kyoto in just one year, we could permanently provide clean drinking water and sanitation to everyone on the planet. Yet it is unlikely that Emmerich will cast Brad Pitt creating sewerage systems in Kenya for his next glamorous movie." Hooray for Hollywood activists!

Some more stuff I stumbled across on the internet:

See the counties with the "highest quality of life." Northern VA is well represented, with Loudon County coming in at #5, Fairfax at #10, and Stafford at #20. Prince William is #52.

Also, more than you ever needed to know about Dale City and lots of other cities too.