Grades

Grades are in! I was rewarded for all my toil of last semester with an A- in both of my classes. After not paying attention in class and cramming last minute for the tests, I'd say that's pretty good. But that was with a 400 and 600 level class. We'll see if I can get away with it next semester with a 600 and 700 level class :)

Winter Wonderland

We got our first real snowstorm of the season today. It snowed all day today and we have several inches on the ground. I hope all those California drivers figure out quick how to drive in it.

To celebrate this occasion, here is a funny quotation from a daily calendar I have:

"Responding to citizens' outcries about the reckless sledding habits of Dutch-Americans in New York, the colonial legislature banned this popular recreation on December 22, 1713. The curious law proclaimed: 'Whereas ye children of ye said city do very unorderly, to ye shame and scandall of their parents, ryde down ye hills of the said city with small and great sle[d]s on the Lord's day and in the week by which many accidents may come. For preventing ye same it is hereby publish'd and declar'd yt shall be lawful for any constable in this city, or any other person or persons, to take any sle[d] from all and every such boys and girls rydeing or offering to ryde down any hill within ye said city, and breake any sle[d] in pieces.'"

"Terrible Life Choice..."

A guy in one of my classes showed this Simpsons clip before class today. It's very appropriate for this finals season...

Pep Bad Money

I cornered the pep band director yesterday (he hadn't responded to my emails) and I asked him about my predicament. As a graduate student, I have to pay for every credit, so being in the pep band, which is a class, was going to cost me $240. The pep band provides an "award" to its members to make being in the band worth the out-of-class time, but in order to get this award, I would have had to pay back probably more than half of it just to pay for the credit. I asked if it was possible for me to not officially take the class, but still receive the award to help pay for real credits. He just plugged his ears and said, "I don't know anything about it...". What a cool guy. My bank account will now be breathing a little easier come January :)

The Forgotten Carols

Last night some friends invited me to go to Michael McLean's Forgotten Carols over at UVSC. I'd heard good things about it and heard some music (Homeless) and I had nothing else to do, so I shelled out the $13. I've lived in Utah for a long time, but apparently I haven't become a Utah Mormon, because I thought it was one of the schmaltziest, hokiest performances I've ever seen. John Praetor was there plugging his new album, I mean, guest singing. Michael McLean was even more shamelessly plugging his new album (I think he said his 26th?). The story line of the play is contrived (an immortal man that spreads Christmas cheer by breaking and entering?), the music was entirely forgettable and I couldn't shake the feeling that he was intentionally trying to manipulate people emotionally for monetary gain. As icing on the cake, the last song has a rousing chorus of "Arise!" during which the audience was moved upon to stand, giving the play a standing ovation by default. I guess you'll have to ask one of the people wiping away tears for a different review, but I was ready to leave at intermission. At least it's aptly titled.

Can you hear me now?

I did it. I finally succumbed to the temptation to spend inordinate amounts of money each month for the priviledge of interrupting real conversations in order to stay connected at all times. That's right, I now own a cell phone. I joined a family plan with Dan & Hyde which brought the price down enough to be tolerable, and got the standard Verizon phone. I haven't actually used it for anything yet, since nobody knows my number, but I've had fun flipping it open and playing with the options and I'm sure the addiction will continue to grow. So if you're "In" the Verizon family, feel free to give me a call anytime (email me for the number). If you're with one of those other providers or a land line (heaven forbid) you can call me after 9 PM Mountain Time or anytime on the weekends and not eat up my minutes.

Pep Band

I auditioned for the pep band last week, something I'd been looking forward to ever since I had the fortune of just being handed a spot two years ago. Unfortunately, my audition was awful. He wanted me to play lots of improvisation and sightread one song that I didn't know the tune to (it's hard to play the bass line to something you don't know) and I didn't get to play anything I already knew, which is kind of interesting since all you do in pep band is play the same songs over and over. Anyway, I found out yesterday that I made it into the "White Band", which is the lesser pep band that plays at the women's basketball games. It's not the "Blue Band", but I'm excited to at least be playing again. And of course, the tuition benefit is a nice bonus.

Conspiracy Theories

Think these devastating hurricanes are a fluke of nature? Read some good conspiracy theories here and here.

Free Opera

For those of you interested in alternative browsing, the Opera web browser is now being offered ad free. I used to use this before Firefox and it's a pretty nice browser. It can be found at http://www.opera.com.

Drive-in

I haven't done anything much exciting recently excepting a trip to Murray with some friends on Saturday night to go to the drive-in. Apparently it's the only drive-in still in business anywhere around here. It was really fun and cheap ($6/person for a double feature), something I'll have to file away for future dates. We watched Sky High and Charlie & CF. I had already seen Charlie, but I was pleasantly surprised by Sky High. It was corny and predictable, but I'm kind of a sucker for superhero movies and rather enjoyed it.

Update

Time has once again gone faster than the speed of blogging. But I have my excuses. Procrastination, mostly.

I've been experiencing a strange sensation lately that I haven't felt for at least 4 months... cold! I think summer has officially died around these parts and it's starting to get downright chilly on occasion. It doesn't seem that long ago that I banished my jacket to the back of the closet and now it's already time to bring it back out.

And of course the cold just signifies that school is back in full swing and with it the lack of anything resembling free time. My two classes are well past the lackadaisical first week and it's time to do some real work. This has coincided well with a slight reduction in my TA work after the flurry of activity during the first week getting the classes ready.

There were a couple of "Grad School" events that I went to this past week. The CS department had a introductory meeting for all new grad students, but since I had already figured out most of what they told me, all I got was some free donuts. The university also sponsored a new-grad-student dinner on Thursday night that also had very little purpose other than to make us feel good. There's no reason to pass up a free dinner, however, and I was rewarded by winning a T-shirt in the raffle. (On the back it has a list of "You might be a grad student if...". The best one: "You find yourself explaining to kids that you're in the 20th grade.")

I've been staying really busy in my non-school, non-official-work time doing database work. My one client that does personal fitness wants me to make him another database, which I'm working on right now, and then continue to improve his other one, possibly reworking the whole thing. I'm also still visiting my materials testing company to make their database, and I have another one on the back burner.

Warren and I started a new, family blog (BrownBytes.net) that we're hoping will catch on. My reasoning was that it's easier to post a short message to the blog than compose a masterpiece of a weekly email. It's too soon to tell if it will work, but some have signed onto the idea.

Other than that, not much is new. I'm getting to know my new ward better. Better than I did last semester anyway. I'm just getting over a cold I've had for the last week. The Redskins won their first game, but I didn't get to see it. I was going to visit Dan to watch it, but the game started during church and by the time I got there it would have been nearly over.

Comic

The reason I wasn't sad to leave my last job:

Y Pictures

I posted a couple pictures I took from the "Y" on my Pictures page. It's more of a hike than you'd think, but the view is great.

School done looming, attacks

School has officially started. Again. For the millionth time. Fortunately, I'm only taking two classes, my only reprieve from insanity. They both seem like they'll be interesting. One is CS650, Computer Vision, which is basically teaching the computer to interpret images. The other is CS460, Networking, where I write client/server and peer-to-peer network apps. Fun.

I was a half hour late to that class this morning, because I decided to drive to campus. I tried this yesterday with no problem, but I think all the new people got their free parking passes, because I couldn't find a spot anywhere. So I bought the $60 bus pass and I think that will be my main method of transportation from now on. No more circling with the other vultures looking for parking spots.

Dan came over last Friday and watched the Redskins game at my place. I think I can get used to this "family being close by" thing. Surprisingly, they beat the Steelers and actually looked pretty decent at this point. Not like the Lions, who got creamed by the Rams last night on MNF. Ouch.

I finally have a ward again. Everyone has moved in and we've been having the requisite opening socials, name tags, get-to-know-yous and all that. So far it seems like a pretty good bunch. I've seen worse...

School Looms

I just realized that once again I haven't posted anything for a long while. And once again, my selective memory has left me at a loss for words to describe that long while, most likely in an attempt to save you from the boredom of such a description. In spite of this, write I must and read you just might and writing like Yoda I am.

The biggest news right now is the looming weight of school hanging over me. I've become accustomed to being without it and Monday is coming much too quickly. So instead of accept it I've deluded myself into believing I somehow won't be sitting in a classroom Monday afternoon. It's made things much more pleasant. Unfortunately, I'm too responsible to completely deny reality and I dropped $160 on my two books a couple days ago. At least my Computer Vision book is co-written by Czechs and uses Prague Castle for many of the examples.

I've also been inundated with database work lately, which has added to the stress of the new semester as I'd like to get a lot of it finished before school starts. I'm helping a company that does materials and foundation testing upgrade from an inefficient Excel system, creating a tool for a personal trainer to help his clients track of food intake, energy expenditure, etc. and all the calculations that go with, and creating data input and reports that mimic psychological tests previously done only on paper. The good news is that they give me money for it. The bad news is that I have Access oozing out of my ears.

At my real job, I've been heavily involved in redoing the curriculum for CS 100, which involves creating new labs, or rewriting the old ones, and making the necessary changes to the class website. I also updated the CS 450 website for the new semester, but luckily the class didn't change from last semester. I'm completely done with my teaching job except for officially saying good bye. I cleaned out my desk and burned all my files to a CD last week; I just need to get my plant and say adios.

On Friday and Saturday I got a fun family diversion by having Mom, Dad, Heather, Marisa, and Day & Hyde and kids in Provo. We all got together in what was the first decent family-type gathering since I've ever lived here and ate a lot and talked and played horseshoes.

Last night I introduced Marisa to some of my erudite friends. We played Nerts (Demon), during which I got beaten soundly (into 2nd place) due mainly to horrendous luck. It made the host feel good because I beat her in our previous encounter and she needed some revenge.

As for other random news, I went to the driving range, got a henna tattoo and bought a new pillow. I think that about wraps it up.

Football!

Finally, I can watch and hear about something that isn't called "baseball" and doesn't involve "steroids". I caught a preseason NFL game last night (Packers vs. Chargers) and it was a breath of fresh air. Even though the announcers practically announced their engagement to Bret Favre, it was fun to just be watching the game. Welcome to football season!

Sick computer

I was up late last night with a sick computer. In the middle of moving a file I got the blue screen of death. It wouldn't restart in normal mode and it froze trying to start up in safe mode the first time I tried. I eventually got into safe mode, but then it would't shut down. Finally, I got it to shut down normally and boot back up into regular mode. I then proceeded to back up all my files onto my external hard drive, because I think it's finally time for a reformatting. I haven't wiped this computer since I got it nearly 4 years ago and with all the installing and uninstalling of hardware and software it's not a surprise that it's starting to die. It's always annoying to reinstall everything, but I'd rather do this now than lose anything important. So if you need me, I'll be accepting license agreements.

Yellowstone pics

I've posted my pictures from Yellowstone on my web page. They can be viewed here. There are some cool panoramas and stitched shots and as always, if you want to have a high-res version of anything, let me know.

Yellowstone

A friend from the ward invited me on a roadtrip to Yellowstone, so that's where I was this weekend. Annie and Sarah, who are roommates, have a friend (and former ward member) Cathryn who is returning to her native Australia next week. She wanted to see some of the sights before going home and Sarah is also going home to Seattle, so this was a kind of a farewell tour sisterhood bonding moment.

We left Friday night and drove to Bear Lake where we camped for the night. It wasn't the most direct route to Yellowstone, but I think Cathryn wanted to see it. In any case, we were just able to squeeze into a campsite there. It was run by a funny old man who, in the dark, mistook us as "four pretty girls", which became a running joke throughout the whole trip. We offered him a cookie for his hospitality, and his diabetes-induced reply also made it into the trip repertoire: "They're cookies to you, but they're poison to me."

We didn't sleep well that night due to late arrivals at the campsite that proceeded to celebrate their successful navigation by screaming at the top of their lungs for at least 15 minutes, plus intermittent noise afterwards. Not anything worth screaming, of course, just "yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh" and "whoooooooooooooooooo" over and over. They must have been drunk to find that so amusing for so long.

We were delayed slightly in Afton, Wyoming during our drive on Saturday morning. We stopped to take a picture of the World's Largest Elkhorn Arch when a policeman pulled in right behind us. He must have been as confused as we were, because he hadn't turned on his lights and we were all popping out of the car with our cameras. Sarah (who drove the whole trip) had apparently been speeding, but managed to get away with just a warning. The warning worked, because she was paranoid the rest of the trip.

We got to Yellowstone around midday on Saturday after driving through Grand Teton National Park, and entered from the south entrance (map). The northeast area of the park (Tower Falls) was closed off for road repairs, and we didn't have time to go to the northwest area (Mammoth Springs), but we saw a lot of things considering we only had two half days. (Sarah had to be back Sunday night to finish a final paper for one of her classes.)

We started clockwise around the main loop of the park, stopping first at Old Faithful in the Upper Geyser Basin. We couldn't have had better luck; Old Faithful went off no less than 10 minutes after we walked up to it. From there we continued to Biscuit Basin, Midway Geyser Basin and Lower Geyser Basin. If you've been there then I'm sure you're aware that there are some simply incredible sites. Words can't describe the bizarrely colored (and scented) hot springs and geysers juxtaposed in otherwise beautiful forest. There are unbelievably crystal blue pools, red and orange hued rock beds stained by the mineral-rich run off and towers of steam marking the location of boiling and water and geysers.

Since we were going to leave from the west exit, we saved the north section of the main loop for the return trip and drove to Canyon village in the northeast to reserve a camp site. From there we visited the North Rim of the Grand Canyon of (the) Yellowstone. We left the car for a while and hiked along the rim to several look-out points and were rewarded with breath-taking views.

We went back to our campsite when darkness overcame us and while the girls put up the tents I got to the task for which the girls really brought me along - to make the campfire. Apparently, on a previous trip they had barely managed to keep a fire long enough to cook marshmallows and it required constant supervision to keep it going. I, however, lived up to my Eagle Scout award and built a beautiful fire that burned long and warm and we were able to make smores and roast Starbursts (a favorite of theirs).

The temperature dropped slightly during the nights, but it was perfect in my opinion. We had wonderful weather the whole trip and the blue skies with puffy white clouds made for great pictures.

We came back to the Grand Canyon early Sunday morning to finish our North Rim hike and see the South Rim and were greeted with awe-inspring views of Lower Falls lit by the morning sun. Afterwards we continued our clockwise journey towards Hayden Valley in search of buffalo. We were not disappointed. Not 10 minutes into our drive we encountered some grazing by the road and as we stopped to watch they came right across the road all around the car, grunting and snorting loudly. We continued on when we could get through and passed several other herds on our way south to the Sulphur Cauldron area. Here we encountered more strange, smelly phenomena all of which were fascinating. Also, I must mention that all these places are also very accessible; it is incredibly easy to quickly see so many things in the park.

We turned around at this point and headed back out towards the west entrance, stopping to see the Norris Geyser Basin on the way. Here we found a wide expanse of springs and geysers in an immense empty area created by the poisoning of the plant life, with vivid colors and textures. We also saw a 15 ft. spurt from the steamboat geyser, the world's tallest geyser, which can shoot as high as 300 ft.

We left around noon on Sunday and had only a highway detour caused by a brush fire and a stop at Wendy's to break the monotony of the drive home. It was nice to get home and shower and get cleaned up, but I'll definitely have to return to Yellowstone some day to finish the tour.

I have lots of cool pictures that I will be posting shortly, including some great panoramas and stitched pictures, where the viewfinder just wasn't big enough. Plus, I should be getting pictures from the girls as well, so check back in the next couple of days for those.

Low profit diet

As I was eating my high-carb breakfast this morning, I saw on the news that the Atkins corporation has filed for bankruptcy. Apparently they owe $300 million to creditors. So much for the low-carb craze, and good riddance if you ask me. It seems like with all the fad diets waxing and waning in the public eye, we'd figure out that eating less and exercising more is the only way to maintain a healthy weight. At least now maybe I won't be inundated with offers of "low-carb pasta" and other oxymoronic delectables. It's a step in the right direction - now if I could only buy non-low-fat yogurt!

New job?

As reported by the Washington Post:

Two league sources with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Arrington's new lawyer, Steve Brown, as well as officials from the NFL Players Association, including NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw, visited Redskins Park in Ashburn on Wednesday, at which time the matter was resolved.

Pioneer Trek

A little Mormon publicity in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072802097.html?sub=AR

Harry and Charlie

I finished HP&HBP yesterday. It took me a while to get to it because I wanted to reread books 4 and 5 first as a refresher before digging into the penultimate and plot-crucial HBP, and had to find available copies of all three to borrow. Overall, I thought the book was excellent in continuing the story, filling in the details and twisting the plot, but despite others' reactions I wasn't too surprised by how it turned out in the end. It does, however, leave lots of room for speculation in what will happen in the finale and the web chatter has been very interesting. For those of you interested in some Harry Potter speculation, here are some good articles I found on Mugglenet:

Fan interview with J.K. Rowling
Opinions of Snape: Good Bad

It's amazing how much discussion is out there. At least the romance got sorted out in this book, but unfortunately, we're probably looking at another 2 year wait before Book 7 and a resolution to the rest of the loose ends.

I also went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night. Knowing that it's a Tim Burton movie and just a strange story in general, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I don't think it's any better than the original movie.

Windows Vista

Microsoft announced today that it will call its newest OS Windows Vista. You can watch a small clip of the typical gaudy Microsoft announcement ceremony here. Unfortunately, we still have to wait over a year until the official release of the product, unless you feel comfortable installing a beta version, which comes out in August.

Tour Fan

I've really been enjoying the Tour de France this year. I usually have only kept track online, but with OLN showing each stage several times a day I've been able to watch most all of it as well this year. Lance Armstrong is showing no signs of weakness and is dominating again towards an unprecedented 7th (straight) victory. Ivan Basso, currently in second, has said in his interviews that he can't beat him. He's tried attacking to gain time on him and can shake everybody but Lance.

There was a little bit of justice done the other day, as well. The fans get extremely close to the riders, especially on the mountain stages when they're going slower, and are very annoying, if not touching the riders, then yelling or spitting or whatever. One fan got his due, however. As he was running alongside of the riders, as they often do, he failed to notice the cameraman's motorcycle and got run over. (I found the pictures on cyclingnews.com.)

 Somehow, I don't think anyone feels that bad for him... especially the riders.

Mr. T Motivational Videos

Go here to learn how to overcome your social obstacles while reliving the 80s, thanks to Mr. T. "Treat your mother" is an especially good one!

New Look

You astute observers may have noticed that the blog looks a little different. I've been meaning to totally redesign my website with a new look and dynamic pages and with my new-found free time I finally got around to doing it! I even figured out how to change the template of this blogger.com blog to match my design. The 'pictures' and 'photoshop' pages are generated dynamically and I made myself a nice (password protected) web interface to add/edit/delete items. I think it's cool, anyway... Let me know if something doesn't work and what you think!

Rave Review

I have officially joined the portable digital music movement. I bought an mp3 player from Walmart.com and the UPS guy delivered it yesterday. It's a 256 MB Rave MP that had all the features I was looking for: data storage, SD expansion slot, earbud headphones and armband, one AAA battery, FM radio, voice recorder... the works. I tried it out yesterday and it worked fine except that songs would appear in random order and even though the menu had an option for resuming where you left off if you turn it off, it didn't work. A short visit to their website informed me that I needed a firmware upgrade and now it's working great. I went to the library and got a book on CD (The Jungle, Upton Sinclair) to try it out and I just finished Chapter 1. Next I need to load it up with some good music and go running, the other main reason I bought it.

Power Outage

The power went out at my apartment complex last night for about 2 hours. I was working on my computer at the time, but luckily I have a laptop, so it calmly switched over to battery. All the peripherals went out, though, including the wireless router. It had just gotten dark, too, so everybody went outside and just stood around wondering what to do. There's nothing like a power outage to remind you how dependent you are on electricity. I wouldn't have minded going without the TV and computer for a while, but not having any light made it impossible to do much else other than talk or sleep. They got the power back on of course and I was able to get back on my computer and download Dreamweaver (thanks Warren!) since I can't remote connect to my work computer any more. Hurrah for electricity!

The good times are over...

In the words of Homestar Runner, the good times are over. My long blogging absence is due to the fact that last Sunday Amber told me she'd decided to go back home to California, for good. It was a long week and even if I wanted to write about what happened, it's all kind of a blur right now anyway. She came over last night to drop off the beautiful quilt that she hadn't quite finished for my birthday, and to say good-bye. It's left me with a strange mix of emptiness and closure. Losing someone close is always hard, but there is a finality to this that makes it easier to take. We've had our time together and although it hurts to realize it didn't work out, I finally got the feeling she's making the choice she wants to make. It certainly makes my decision much easier. So it's back to the drawing board for me... wish me luck.

Toilet Restaurant

You don't often find news at MSN, but they do have interesting stories. The best of the odd today: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8417691

Update

I've been a lazy blogger again, now I'll have to see if I can remember all the stuff I've done.

Last Friday I picked up Amber from the airport in the afternoon and we stayed in Salt Lake to go to a free outdoor concert right by Temple Square. It was an a capella group called Voice Male and despite the requisite punny name, they were pretty good.

On Saturday we went to Pleasant Grove for the Strawberry Days Rodeo. They have a lot of fun events in addition to the regular stuff, like mutton bustin' (kids riding sheep) and wild cow milking (teams of 3 trying to get a bottle of milk from undomesticated cows). Plus, they have cups of strawberries and cream for just a dollar. Yummy.

On Tuesday night we went to the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti. It's kind of cheesy in parts, but it's a fun production and it's free.

Amber's leaving tomorrow to go back home for her sister's wedding, so she's been working like crazy this week to get the bridesmaid dresses finished as much as possible before she goes. She didn't want to be subjected to an awful bridesmaid dress (again) so she volunteered to make them herself and she's doing an amazing job.

The Summer semester started this week, so I have a new class to TA. It's a different professor, so I've had some work to do changing this to the way he wants. Also, there's another TA this time, so I decided to reduce my TA hours so I could focus on Master's stuff. It was too easy to put off when I was working 8 hours a day. We'll see if it works or if I just end up with less money...

Cool Toy

Check out this man toy: http://www.evatech.net/RCLM2006S.html

(Thanks to Dave Barry's Blog for the link)

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me, and happy Flag Day as well! I turned 25 on Monday, which of course must be referred to as "quarter of a century", to make me feel old. These last several years have flown by, but I don't feel that old until I walk around on campus and see the children they let into college these days. I didn't do much for my birthday. I worked all day, went out to eat with my friend Ally at Cafe Rio, then went to FHE.

Amber's now in Wisconsin attending a conference with her dad, so other than our phone conversations I've had to find other stuff to do. I read Digital Fortress (by my brother Dan Brown) in a day. It's entertaining, but not as good as his others, and kind of predictable at the end. I caught the Finals game last night; it looks like the Pistons are going to make this a real series.

Work has been kind of slow because it's the end of Spring semester, so I'm not teaching any classes, and I don't really have to do anything as a TA either. But tomorrow morning I'm going to do some Access consulting work, my first real paying gig, so that ought to be fun. And pay well :)

Pictures from Arches

Pictures from my trip to Arches are now on the pictures page. There are two new albums: my pictures and Amber's pictures.

Amberless

I made an early morning trip to the airport today to drop off Amber. She's accompanying her dad on a business trip to Orlando, FL and somewhere in Wisconsin. She'll be gone for a little over a week. I don't know what I'm going to do for a week, but I'm excited for her.

When I picked her up this morning, she also unveiled my unfinished birthday present that she's been working on for several weeks now (apparently) - a beautiful quilt. It's nearly done and I'll post a picture when I get possession of it. She couldn't remember which patterns I liked from the quilt book [she got as a graduation present from my parents], so she found a nice pattern of Czech origin.

We haven't done much else worth writing about. She claimed she needed time to work on bridesmaids' dresses (which she really is making for her sister's wedding), but in truth she was secretly quilting. On Saturday, we volunteered at the MTC and acted as investigators for the missionaries learning Spanish. She did all the talking, but I had fun too because I understood probably 90% of what was going on, thanks to my semester of Spanish and general exposure to the language. I told Amber though that now that I've gone with her, she's going to have to come with me and do it in Czech. She wants to, but she wants me to teach her some basics first :)

The Pistons-Heat series was great. It ended with an immensely entertaining game 7, and the right team won :) I hope the finals are just as good!

News Update

This news update brought to you by the BYU CS department. Blogging on the job!

It's been a week already since the last time I wrote anything, but I guess a lot has happened since then. The biggest news is that as of last Thursday night, Amber and I are back together. I'm not going to expound on that in this public forum, so if you want details, you'll have to call me sometime.

Friday night we went to BYU's brand new planetarium to see a show. They were having a Star Wars night, where they compared astronomical phenomena in Star Wars to real life examples. It was a pretty fun show, but I don't think it showed off the star machine very well. We watched Empire Strikes Back that night to complete the evening.

Saturday morning we went to the Bountiful temple to see one of Amber's friends from home get sealed. It was a very nice ceremony. Afterwards we found the Great Salt Lake (it turns out you can go north or west...) and skipped rocks for a while.

On Sunday, our friend Anne invited us for a picnic dinner up Provo Canyon. She had made bread earlier, so we made sandwiches and laid out on the grass an a beautiful Sunday evening.

We took advantage of Memorial Day and drove to Arches National Park by Moab. It's one of those things I've been meaning to do forever and finally had the chance. It's an incredible place. We spent all day there and saw a lot of the park, but it would probably take 2 or 3 days to get it all in. I have a bunch of pictures that I will be posting soon. The best part was definitely the famous Delicate Arch (the one that's on my licence plate). A storm had just finished blowing through and so the wind was gusting incredibly hard there and while my skin was getting sand-blasted, it was easy to see how the arches are formed. I had to take a nice long shower to get that red sand out of my hair, but it was worth it.

I think that's about it for newsworthy events. Other than that, things have been pretty much the same. I've enjoyed having a sand volleyball court at my apartment. The NBA playoffs have been pretty good. I'm hoping the Pistons beat the Heat so they can play the Spurs in the finals.

Fun game

Here's a fun game my coworkers showed me at work called Guess the Google.

Independent Contractor

Yesterday I had my first meeting as an independent contractor. I was referred by a friend to a talent agent of sorts that arranges jobs for people with skills, like me. So now I'm helping a smaller business with their Access database. Although it won't be a lot of hours, I'll be getting about $35/hour and there is a possibility of future work after this job is finished.

Other than that, it's been pretty much the usual. There was a ward activity on Saturday where I showed off my football throwing prowess. I went and saw Star Wars III over the weekend as well. Overall I thought it was pretty good, but the dialogue was atrocious in parts and the character development left much to be desired. I downloaded the movie as well, but it didn't get any better the second time around.

On the road again

I picked up my car yesterday from the mechanic. The final verdict was that there was low pressure in the fuel line, so when they sprayed starting fluid into the engine it ran ok, but it had a hard time starting. The solution was to replace the fuel pump, which I gladly left to the experts since I think it's buried somewhere in the gas tank. Unfortunately, fuel pumps are expensive things and the bill came to $383. I'm getting $40 of that back because my insurance covers towing, but it still put a big dent in my account. But it's not like I had to buy 2 new tires, pay for inspection and registration and make a car payment in the last month... oh wait, no, I had to do that too. Hopefully it will be a good little car for a while.

Car Problems, Etc.

I haven't been in the mood to blog lately, but I'll try to catch up a little bit here:

Car Problems: Last week my car decided to stop working again. It had done this twice previously, where the engine turns over, but it won't start. Last time I had the assistance of my dad and he was able to get it started, this time I was on my own. And of course, I was in timed parking in the middle of town. And this, let me mention, was the day after I payed to have it inspected and registered. So I "flooded the engine" and lifted up the hood and jiggled wires and rocked the car back and forth and was finally able to get it started and drive it home. That night, I went to test it and it would start, but the engine wouldn't idle, it just died. The next day, it would start again. So after giving it some time to rest, I had it towed to the mechanic this morning and I'm awaiting the diagnosis. The last time I tried this, the tow itself was enough to fix the car, so I'm hoping this time it stays sick long enough for them to fix the problem.

New Apartment: I'm finally all settled in to my new place and getting into a new routine. I'm unpacked and reorganized and I know where everything is. I had to buy a bookshelf and DVD case, but thanks to Walmart that didn't put me back too much. My computer is all hooked up and I'm connected to the newsgroups again. I'm pleased with the results of the roommate draft. There are 3 other guys in the apartment. All of us are a little bit older (they must have grouped by age) and we're all laid-back, so we get along well. Unfortunately, I'm back to coin-op laundry, but I do have friends in houses that I might be paying visits to...

New Apartment Complex: Carriage Cove has some nice ameneties that I'm starting to take advantage of. The main building has a piano room that I've used several times and an exercise area that I've thought about using. I also haven't used the pool and jacuzzi yet, opting to wait for nicer weather, but I made extensive use of the sand volleyball court on Saturday. It was one of the first nice spring days we've had and I rode my bike along the swollen Provo river (biggest I've ever seen it) then got some sun on the court for several hours.

New Ward: My new ward seems good, but I think I prefer my previous bishopric. So far everyone's been very nice, but as always I feel like an old man among the immaturity that rises from groups of young people. The ward meets in the Smith Field House (indoor track) and our Sacrament Meeting is in the Cougarettes' practice room, complete with mirrors on the wall. I don't have a calling yet. I'm also starting to get to know more people and it's been nice to have the occaisional pop-in visit and socializing that close wards like this have.

Database Work: I'm working 8 hours a day, so I don't have spare time like I used to, but in it I've been doing some more database work on the side. This time it's improvements on a database I'd already created, but it came at a great time and will pay for all my car problems at least. I've done some really cool things, but it's too hard to explain the significance of it and the database is confidential anyway so you'll have to take my word for it. I also had a lead on another database job that would pay very well, but I haven't heard back from the guy.

Political Commentary

Good reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7592675/

Name Generators

Hours of fun here: http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/generators.htm

Graduation Pics

I posted some pictures from graduation weekend here. Enjoy!

Home Page Trick

I was playing around with the home page option in Internet Explorer today and found an interesting thing. If you type "about:" with a space after it the rest is displayed as HTML. I usually just have it set to come up with nothing, because I hate waiting for a home page when I wasn't going to go to that site anyway. What this means is that you can build yourself your own little HTML menu that will load instantly as your homepage and you can click on the links to go anywhere you want. So in the Home Page Address box under Internet Options, try something like:

about: <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Google</a><br><a href="http://skvely.blogspot.com/">Steven's Blog</a>

to get a homepage that looks like this:

Google
Steven's Blog

I'm not sure if it works in other browsers, but it's kind of fun for IE.

Huh?

Sometimes I wonder if commercial writers put stuff on TV just to see if anyone will notice. Today I heard the best spin I've heard in a long time: "The #1 kung fu comedy in America!" Yes America, go see this movie, because it's more popular than all the other kung fu comedies playing right now!

New place, new job

So after the excitement of graduation, it was time to get back to work, literally. On Monday morning I met with the previous CS100 TA and went over a bunch of stuff about the class and the system they use, then worked for a while getting the class updated for the new semester. Monday was also the first day of classes for my teaching job, so I went and taught a Photoshop class. I spent all of Monday night packing and packing (and watching "24"). I didn't think I had that much stuff, but I had accumulated a lot of books over the last 2 years and those filled up several boxes.

On Tuesday morning I went in early to claim my apartment. The way they do it at this new place I'm in is they have you sign up, but you don't know where you will be until move-in day. By then, they've assigned everybody to apartments, then when you check in at the main office you can choose which room you want. I got there early enough and got the room I wanted, room 4. I had brought over a carload of stuff that morning since I had to come anyway to check in, only to find that somebody else's junk was in my room! I put all my boxes in the room as well and left a note saying to check with the office for the right room, and it was all gone when I came back that night. I'm guessing it was somebody moving out, now that I've met my other roomates, because I don't think it was their stuff.

After that it was back to work(s), where I taught an Access class, then got things ready for the first day of Cs100 (Wed). I also have had a problem trying to figure out how to clock in with my separate jobs. They have time clock machines all over campus that you can use where you just swipe your ID card to clock in and out, but now I have to keep track of two different sets of hours. After chasing some people around, I finally figured out which buttons to push to set which job I'm swiping for, so now everybody's happy.

Tuesday evening was the big move. I packed and took things over to my new place most of the night. It took me 3 or 4 trips, but I didn't pack the car full. I finished packing the last things during American Idol, then when it was over, I unplugged the TV and loaded it into the car. It's a strange feeling leaving for the last time, I had that weird feeling like I was forgetting something, but I checked the house several times over and I think I got it all.

I'm still not finished unpacking what with work and social duties, but it's getting a lot closer. Part of the problem was that my room didn't have a desk (required for BYU approved housing) so I had to leave lots of things in boxes all over my room. The other problem is that I had no place to put all my books, so I went to Walmart and got a small 3-shelf bookcase for $20 that worked out beautifully. The desk came last night, so I'll hopefully be fully moved in this weekend.

I've met two of my three apartment-mates. One guy has muscular dystrophy and is in a wheelchair. He has guys that come in the morning and evening to help him do his stuff. He has been living in the apartment for a while and is friendly. The other guy just moved in as well and he seems pretty cool too. The third guy is supposed to be coming back this weekend sometime, so we'll see.

And to make the move more enjoyable, we've been having sterotypical spring weather. It's been raining nonstop, but it's that kind of rain where it'll be pouring but you still need sunglasses occaisionally because it's so bright outside. There was a silver lining, though, as I was driving east on Bulldog towards the mountains one day there was a beautiful double rainbow framing Y Mountain. It was one of those time I wished I had a camera.

So now I'm getting into the swing of my new life. I've already started passing off the first labs for CS100 (what power!), the classes I teach are in full swing, I've already hosted some friends at my new place and as soon as I get unpacked completely I'll start cleaning up the apartment. It will be nice when the hecticness (heciticity?) goes away and life gets back in a rhythm. Soon there won't be anything at all to write about again. :)

Graduation Weekend

Time has flown by since I last recorded anything and it's already past my bedtime today, so this update is going to have to come in two parts.

Thursday night was the big commencement ceremony at the Marriott Center. I lined up in the parking lot with the rest of the black-robed cult and we all marched in together. I didn't really see anybody I knew (I found some at Friday's smaller ceremony), but I made friends with a girl graduating in Chemistry who was in the same boat, so I at least had someone to make sarcastic remarks to. It was quite impressive once we got inside to see the large mass of graduates, over 6,000, I think. And to think that happens every year. Earl C. Tingey was the main speaker. I remember he gave a good talk and there were 4 things I was supposed to remember, but I'm sure I've internalized those things by now, so it's probably OK that I've already forgotten. My parents were there, of course, and we took some pictures afterwards, then went to celebrate at IHOP.

On Friday morning I attended my convocation for the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (read "College of Nerdy Subjects"). All the magna cum laudes displayed their talent either through music or the spoken word for the introductory program. Eventually, I got to walk across the stage as my name was called and receive a nice leather case for my "SAMPLE" diploma, then shake hands with the head of the Computer Science department, and Elder Richard G. Scott and a woman who I think might have been President of the Relief Society. One cool thing I remember about this meeting was a comment from Elder Scott, well tailored to the this college. Paraphrased, he said that we each have our own abilities whether great or small, but when we are righteous these abilities are "raised to the power of God" (or in technical terms, God expands our abilities exponentially...).

Marisa came to the Friday ceremony as well, and afterwards we stopped by the CS department reception, then browsed the BYU Bookstore. When it came time to leave, my car decided again that it didn't want to start. It did this once before a while back and I had to have it towed, only to have the mechanic tell me it started first try. The day had started colder then warmed up considerably, which I'm guessing caused the problem. In any case, we nearly called the tow truck, but before we needed to my brilliant father got the car started by "flooding, then unflooding" the engine and turning the key sometime during that process. It made sense to me at the time. It's started fine ever since (just like last time), but I have comfort in the fact that I might be able to get it started if it tries this on me again.

That evening, the Beyers, where my parents were staying, invited us to attend a Seder Service, or traditional Jewish Passover meal, put on by Victor Ludlow of BYU and sponsored by the Beyers' ward. It was very interesting to not only do all the traditional steps and eat the traditional food (including some very "bitter herbs"), but to also get an explanation for everything and see how it ties in to mormon doctrine. Some of the symbolism is unmistakably Christian and it helped me to make more sense of the start of the Sacrament. Plus, we got to drink loads of "fruit of the wine". We were all fershnickered by the time it was over.

Saturday morning Brother Beyer invited us to go shooting with him. I had invited Amber to come, so while the other women stayed home and sewed, the four of us went and shot Brother Beyer's wide array of pistols. I hadn't been shooting in a while and it was fun to punch some holes in those targets. Amber had never shot pistols before so it was a whole new cultural experience for her, but she handled it very well.

On Sunday I took my parents to church with me, then we drove up to Salt Lake where I dropped them off at Doug and Kay's where they needed to do some business with the cabin before they headed home. We stayed and talked for a while about Doug and Kay's recent trip to the southwest, then I headed home.

Grajeeashin

I picked up my parents yesterday from the airport in what turned out to be an expensive trip. On the highway, I encountered a minefield of large rocks in my lane through which I unsuccessfully tried to navigate. I ended up popping my right rear tire and, I later learned, fatally damaging my right front tire. I threw on the spare, picked them up, then we found a tire store and I had to buy two new tires. I was also informed that I had a nail in a third tire, but the guy felt sorry for me and I think he fixed that without even charging me.

The parents wanted to meet Amber, so we all went to Applebees for dinner and then watched the results show for American Idol. (Our least favorite, Scott, was in the bottom this time, but stayed on the show... maybe next week.)

So today's the day. I get to don the robes of academia and march about solemnly and soak in the stirring words of elocutionists. Yes, it's graduation time. It should be fun, I'll try to get some pictures for posterity's sake.

Weekend Update

I made it to graduation week. Convocation and Commencement (I don't remember which is which) are on Thursday and Friday. Everyone's invited! Now that it's finals week, not only do I have nothing to do at home, but now I have nothing to do at work, because we don't teach during finals. So I've basically been waiting around for the new semester, and stuff, to start.

In the meantime, I did do some things over the weekend. On Friday night I went with Ally to a BYU baseball game. I was a little skeptical at first when BYU jumped out to a first inning 0-4 defecit, but it turned out to be an amazing game. They are #1 in the MWC and after increasing their defecit to 6, they finally proved it by coming back in the 4th inning with a grand slam and a single to make it close. It went back and forth and it started getting cold so we left after the 7th inning and I finished the game on TV. In the 9th, BYU was down again, by 3, only to produce 4 runs in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs to win the game. Sometimes baseball can be fun. Except that the game lasted 4 hours...

Saturday I spent a lot of time working on a database for some much needed extra money.

As I was walking through the parking lot at church on Sunday, I looked down and spotted a diamond engagement ring. I figured this wasn't a good thing to leave on the ground, so I brought it in and tried to find the unlucky owner. I tried my ward and two other wards in the building with no luck, so I left it at the stake office and hopefully they'll be able to track down the owner.

Sunday night, Anne invited over a bunch of people for dinner, kind of a one-last-time dinner for people like Howard, who's leaving on Saturday.

CS Research Paper Generator

This is computer science at its best! Some guys at MIT were sick of all the lame conferences that were more interested in making money than supporting serious research, so they developed a Computer Science Paper Generator that generates papers that look solid at a glance, but when examined prove to be full of gibberish. They are hilarious to read, especially when you know what the terms mean!

They were successful in their efforts. A paper generated by their tool was accepted at a conference, but subsequently rejected when the news story came out. Read about it here.

To generate your own papers, go here.

Retain the retainers

I went to the orthodontist this morning and after looking at things and tweaking the retainers a little bit, he said "See you in 6 months." So it looks like I'll have these things at least until October. Yeah!

Old Man

Despite the fact that I've mentally ignored my increasing age, my body has not. This morning I pulled out two gray hairs and probably could have found some more if I'd looked. I guess I could be worried about this, but I choose to look on the brighter side: At least I still have some hair that can turn gray.

Book Reviews

I've had a lot of free time lately, since I've only been working part-time, so I went to the library and checked out some books last week.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: I've been meaning to read this book for years, but they're making a movie out of it soon and I didn't want to be a bandwagoner. It's quite an enjoyable book, kind of zany, but it's very thought-provoking in its own strange big picture kind of way.

The library had a display with biographies that caught my eye:

John Stossel - Give Me a Break: This book is less of a biography and more of a commentary on social and political problems and media biases. Stossel was once a consumer reporter that made some enemies when he started exposing government problems and advocating less government control. Excellent book.

Chuck Norris - Against All Odds: This is a decent read, a true autobiography about Chuck Norris' rise to success. The book's most redeeming qualities are finding out about his religious side and seeing how he mingled with other celebrities and politicians, many before they were famous.

Jay Leno - Leading With My Chin: This book is an autobiography in the form of loosely tied together anecdotes. While there are many amusing stories about Jay's rise to fame, many of them, as you might have guessed, are pretty crude and he seems almost proud of his promiscuity.

Movin' on up

I signed a contract this morning for my new apartment for the next year. The owners of the house I'm living in didn't invite us back for another season and quite frankly after two years I was about ready to leave anyway, so I found an apartment in a place called Carriage Cove. It's a large complex, each apartment has 4 individual rooms and 2 bathrooms and the rent isn't too bad with a year-round contract. It's a little bit further from campus, but there is a bus that runs every 15 minutes to BYU that stops right in front of the complex. I don't know anyone there (one of the reasons I was looking for a private room), but it will be nice to start fresh in a new place.

In other news, I watched the very Mormon movie, "Sons of Provo" last night. It's a satirical movie about a righteous boy band based in Provo. It didn't really have a plot, but it was funny in the inside-joke kind of way and better than I thought it would be.

24

I watched an episode of 24 last season, it might have been the last episode, when Jack chopped off his friend's hand to dispose of the deadly virus that was handcuffed to him, and despite the obligatory exagerrated drama, I was impressed by the show's ability to avoid the easy way out, the happy ending where all the good guys escape unharmed.

I happened to catch last night's episode and I was again impressed. Not only could the hero not talk the former military man out of (most likely) killing off the President of the United States (that was the cliffhanger), but they did something I've been waiting for a show to do for a looooong time. Jack Bauer, the hero, was searching a house with a fellow agent and an enemy posing as an FBI agent. The enemy ended up killing the fellow agent. Jack saw his dead body and with gun drawn told the killer to drop her weapon. She, of course, took a wild shot, then hid behind the wall. Jack, like anybody who's ever shot a gun would do, simply shot through the wall and took her down. I'm so sick of people hiding behind sheetwall or cardboard boxes during gun battles, and it was refreshing to see an at least slightly more realistic gun fight.

TA

I had a very productive day yesterday. I went to talk to my advisor to figure out what I should do for classes this next semester and got a good handle on that. In the course of that conversation, he asked me and I verbally committed that I will TA the CS450 class (that I took from him last year) this Fall.

I also went and talked to another professor that I had talked to before my trip, and I got hired as the CS100 TA for Spring/Summer. It's the computer class that involves multimedia and such for all majors. I'm really looking forward to it, it will be a nice change.

So that means that I will be working my current job and the TA job for Spring/Summer while taking the CS699R Master's Thesis Work class, then just the TA job in the Fall while I take some real classes.

And, I ordered my cap and gown for graduation...

Weekend Update

For those of you who got accustomed to regular updates, I'm sorry. My life isn't as interesting anymore, so the updates will probably not be as frequent, but I'll try.

Friday night I went with some friends to see Final Cut, a film presentation of student films. There was a good documentary about WWII brides, but all the other films were either unintentionally funny or just strange.

Saturday morning I took Marisa apartment shopping. She's looking to move out of DT for Fall and is realizing how many different places there are to live in Provo. That night I went to the A Capella Jam. It was a good performance, but like last time, Vocal Point blew the others away.

I didn't do anything special for Easter except enjoy a relaxing Sunday.

Czech pictures

I've posted a bunch of picturs from my trip here. Enjoy!

TV

As a graduation present, my wonderful parents agreed to fund the purchase of a new television. I went to Walmart yesterday and bought a Sanyo 27" flatscreen, with all the hookups. Since I don't have a cable connection anymore (or antenna) I tested it on some DVDs and it works great. The only bad part was getting it home. When I got it to the car, using a shopping cart, but then realized I couldn't lift it out of the cart. So I had to tip the cart over carefully to get it on the ground. Then I realized the box didn't fit in my little car. So I unpacked the whole thing, fit the TV into the back seat, folded up the box and slid that in the backseat and threw all the styrofoam in the trunk. And those things are heavier than they look, my forearms are sore.

Other than that, life has gotten back to normal. I start teaching classes again tomorrow. I've gotten everything put away and washed and organized and I've been getting back in touch with the old crowd. Sunday evening I went to a get-together sponsored by some friends in a previous ward that got married. It was fun to see some old faces again. I've been emailing Vlasta and the Donicas and they're doing ok. Vlasta misses having a roommate, but I'm sure he'll adjust. Oh, and I heard from Plzen that Brother Komanec's funeral went well and was very nice. I'm going to send off those pictures for her tomorrow.

Home Again

Well I'm back in Utah. The trip back was long but not too eventful. I did forgot to take a Dramamine during the long flight from Frankfurt and thought I was feeling good until the plane started to bounce around during descent. I got through it, but didn't feel good for a while. I had to drive the car home from the airport to make it back without throwing up.

It's a very strange feeling to be in Prague in the morning and in Dale City in the afternoon. It was good to be home, of course, but I feel like I left home, too. I wish I could be in two places at the same time. Or at least have those two places be a little bit closer. I spent the time in Virginia staying with my parents and visiting my siblings. Everybody seems to be doing well. It would be nice if Virginia was a little bit closer too.

Now it's back to the daily grind. I had a friend pick me up from the airport and we actually went to visit another friend and had dinner in Sandy before coming home. I have a big list of things I need to get done, but I should be able to get back into the swing of things in a couple days. I'm caught up on my emails, now I need to go buy some food. The cupboards and refrigerator are both bare.

14 Mar

Today was my last full day in Prague, but I didn't spend it like a tourist. Vlasta is home sick, so I stayed home all morning. He wanted me to show him a few things in Excel, so we finally got around to it today. I realized it's really hard to explain computer stuff without the vocabulary, especially when words like 'select' don't really translate. He understood well enough, though, with my vague descriptions and pointing.

I spent the afternoon at the Donica's. Eduard had to work all day, (I said goodbye to him yesterday), but Ala and Luky were there. We didn't really do anything, but I just wanted to spend some time with them. We played some games on the computer, talked, had some soup. Ala is slowly getting better but still isn't feeling good. Being sick and pregnant probably isn't a good combination. Lukrecia was her normal hyperactive self, doing her best to get on her mother's nerves. It was sad to say goodbye to them. Then, and later tonight, I realized I could live here without any problem. It really is like home here.

We had family home evening at Vlasta's tonight. I was in charge of the spiritual thought. I was kind of in a weird mood and couldn't concentrate to prepare it, I guess because it's my last day, but it went pretty well. Hopefully this reads ok, too, because I'm having a hard time not using czech words. FHE was really good. The sister missionaries came with Renata and Sarka (their investigator couldn't make it) and Vlasta invited the APs to balance it out a little. We played Phase 10 for the activity. Vlasta and I accompanied everybody to the Metro stop afterwards to say goodbye.

So now I'm laying in bed typing up the last one of these Prague blogs. My bags are packed, I'm ready to go... I don't want to leave, because I don't know when I'll be back, but at least most everybody has email so I can stay in contact.

Tak ahoj cesko. Moc se me libilo tady a bude se mi styskat. At se brzy uvidime.

13 Mar

I wanted to go to church in Plzen today, but the bus schedules didn't work out, so I ended up going to church in Prague and taking a bus to Plzen afterwards. I went to sacrament meeting and Sunday school, then went to the bus station.

I had called Sister Bubenickova this morning, and she arranged for a member (Sister Vavrova) to pick me up at the bus station. She already had two missionaries with her and we went straight to Bubenickova's. Sister Komancova was happy to see me and glad to get the pictures I had printed for her. I also delivered an audio tape that the Prague missionaries (that had served in Plzen) made for them. It was a good visit. I came to support them, but of course they ended up serving us. They fed us, then fed me again after the missionaries left. I didn't feel bad though, because that's what they love to do. I was talking to one of the missionaries on the side and we both agreed that they would have felt much worse if we had made a meal for them. They love to serve and it helped them keep their minds off Brother Komanec.

Sister Bubenickova's husband drove me to the bus station and Sister Komancova and her granddaughter saw me off. It was a weird feeling, because it was the exact same place I said goodbye to Brother Komanec. I got back home in time to catch the last bit of SuperStar. Vlasta isn't going to work tomorrow, so we stayed up late talking.

12 Mar

Libor and I met Renata at the train station in the morning.

The other girl didn't come and the missionaries and others that were iffy never showed up. so the three of us went to Karlstejn.

It's a beautiful castle, but it's funny to tour it with Czechs. They hadn't been there before, but to them it wasn't anything special. We took the tour, but it was pretty lame. The parts they showed us weren't very nicely done up, but it was cool to be in the king's bedroom and stuff. The best part of the tour was that we took it in Czech and it was 80 Kc cheaper. On the sign, the Czech section had the prices spelled out, 'stodvacet' (120), the other had the numbers, 200.

We hadn't checked the times and had to wait a little while before we got a train back to Prague. We took Libor to the bus station so he could get home, then Renata and I went to have lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

She didn't have anything to do, so after our late lunch we went to see Zizkov, a big huge statue of Jan Zizka.

While I was there, I decided I would jump up onto a small wall and see if the view was better. Unfortunately, my foot didn't quite make it all the way onto the wall and I had to catch myself with the hand holding my camera. The lens, which was extended at the time, smacked into the stone and the first section got compressed into the second so that it bent down at an angle. I thought for sure I was going to have to buy a new camera, but I pushed and played with it a little and I was able to pull out the first section with a series of loud pops until it was straight again. I turned the camera off and on again and it worked! It's a Nikon, if you're looking for a good sturdy camera...

I went back to see Vlasta in the evening. He stayed home all day with his cold, but is in a good enough mood. He won't go to church tomorrow either and is going to go to the doctor on Monday. Just being a typical Czech, I guess.

11 Mar

Today was probably the last free day I have here, so I went on one last Prague walk around town. But of course, the weather didn't cooperate much. It was overcast and cold and it snowed a little. I went by the weird melted building, and across the river to visit the American Embassy. I also picked up one last present and had lunch at Ceska Kuchyne - chicken and potatoes with tartar sauce.

I went home in the afternoon to spend some time with Vlasta. We've kind of had opposite schedules lately and we haven't had much time to hang out. And now that he's sick, it's even harder. He decided he wasn't going on the temple trip, so I packed my stuff and headed to the church building.

I got there early and helped prepare the supper. There were young people from all over the mission. I played ping-pong with some girls from Slovakia. Libor also came from Hradec Kralove, and Jana was there, a girl from Liberec that was probably 14 the last time I saw her and now she's 18 or so. Everybody gathered at the building to stay the night and then leave early tomorrow morning. They had dinner prepared and then we had a little fireside. It was going great, Renata had a piano number she's been really nervous about (and she did fine), the talk was good, and then they told us that about 5 minutes before the fireside started, they had gotten a call from the temple president asking us not to come. The snow is so bad in the mountains that the roads are impassable, one of the worst storms in recent history.

That was kind of a bummer, especially for those people that had come a long way and of course for those that were all prepared to go. I wanted to at least do something, so I found out train times to Karlstejn, a nearby castle that has some church significance (the country was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel near there). Libor, Renata, some girl from Hradec, and a few other people maybe (and I) are going to go tomorrow morning.

So I didn't stay at the building like I had planned. Libor and I went back to Vlasta's place to sleep. It kind of messed up my plans for getting to Plzen as well. I was going to ride back with Plzen members, but I'll just take a bus now, I guess. I'm sad I didn't get to go to Freiberg, but I'm more sad for the youth here. I have a temple 5 minutes away at home, they have to wait for the next Czech temple week.

10 Mar

I stopped by the missionaries' street display this morning. I didn't sing with them this time because I'm just getting over my cold and I didn't want to mess up my throat. So I wasn't there long. Instead, I went to the Museum of Communism. I found a pamphlet for it somewhere and it seemed over-eager to make fun of communism. I wasn't going to go at first, seeing as how I live in a communist museum (panelak) and know, from the people, more about what it did than any museum can teach. It lived up to the brochure and the exhibits did have a distinctly derogatory feel (as opposed to neutral) which I found ironic since that's the same propoganda strategy the communist party used against the west. The museum was limited mostly to Czechoslovak communism and it was interesting to see all the communist propaganda in Czech.

The best part was a video that showed footage of the protest on Vaclavske Namesti, the Velvet Revolution, that led to the downfall of communism here. I'd seen pictures, but never seen footage, or heard what they were chanting.

I found some of the souvenirs I was looking for on Staromestske Namesti. It also happened to be warm, relative to recent days, and clear, so I got some nice pictures.

I went to the Donikas in the afternoon. I had already eaten one lunch when I got there, but it was only one plateful of Svickova, and they insisted that I have something to eat, so I got to try some yummy Moldovan meatballs with pasta. I had two platefuls. I did some email there, then played some games with Lukrecia. It's great, I'm just her 'strejda', which is the common way of saying 'stryc', or 'uncle' in Czech, but is also used for close male family friends. So whenever I'm there, it's "Strejdo, strejdo, do you want to...?" It's one of those little things that I've appreciated while being here.

I went to institute tonight. I got there early and was able to help in a missionary discussion for a while. Vlasta was supposed to do it, but went home because he wasn't feeling too great. Brian, that other former missionary who is studying something at Charles University, was substituting for institute. The poor guy either didn't remember his Czech as well as I did, or more likely, never learned it in the first place, but he's the kind that just keeps talking anyway, so it was OK. I just made trouble with Renata the whole time. We talked for a while afterwards, too and bothered the office elders, and I rode with her until our paths split home. I feel bad that I'm leaving, because there aren't that many people for her to hang out with around here.

09 Mar

Today wasn't a very exciting day as far as blog entries go. I went into town in the morning mainly to go shopping.

I found some stuff, but the one stand I wanted to go to on Charles' Bridge wasn't there, because it was snowing, so I'll stop by again tomorrow. I also went to the mall at Andel. I thought I was done buying DVDs, but I found one I couldn't pass up - Nekonecny Pribeh (The Neverending Story).

Vlasta and I met up after work and we were going to go to a park and throw the frisbee, but it was snowing and he was tired, so we just went home instead. He's been wanting to get out and do something different for a while, but the weather hasn't been cooperating. I did get to watch some good soccer games tonight, though. Both games featured Czech strikers, Baros for Liverpool and Nedved for Juventus. And both teams won, so it was a good night.

08 Mar

I called Sister Komancova this morning. She's still pretty shaken up. She told me how it happened and how he seemed fine that morning and that it was so unexpected. The funeral is next Wednesday, but I won't be able to make it because I fly out on Tuesday. I'm going to go back to Plzen on Sunday for church, though, it's the least I can do. She also wanted the picture that I had taken, so I went to a photo place today and got that one printed and another one with me photoshopped out, so she can have one of just them.

I spent a big chunk of the day today at the Donicas. Ala got whatever is going around and couldn't talk. I think Lukrecia is sick too, but it's not enough to keep her down. They (Ala and Lukrecia) didn't go to church either, I found out today. While I was gone (in Plzen), Eduard redid the whole computer and got it working again so I was able to use the internet there. They were just sitting around being sick, so we watched Harry Potter 3 and Shrek 2 in Czech. Harry Potter was good, but I think Shrek loses a lot in translation.

I went to the church building in the evening and was finally able to do my laundry. English classes were tonight, but I ended up just talking with Renata. She's a 17 year old member from Ostrava studying in Prague. She's one of those really cool normal people that I wish could have friends her age here. She'll be at BYU in a year in a half if she has her way. She doesn't like it much here and I don't blame her. We talked and played the piano for a long time, with Vlasta coming in and out (he was helping with some appointments tonight).

She came with us to the grocery store and rode as far as she could with us before out paths split. It's sad because she doesn't really want to go home, she wants to be around good people, but her only choices are sister missionaries, old people, YSA guys that are kind of weird, etc. And she's the only member in her family, so that makes it even harder. It will be nice when the church has a larger base here to work from so people like her don't need to run off to America.

07 Mar

I'm writing this entry with a heavy heart, but I'll let the reason play out in chronological order.

Vlasta brought back some cold medicine from the mission office when he came home last night, so I took some of those and woke up feeling much better. I tried to sleep in, too and get as much rest as I could.

I went to the mission home/mission office/church building (I just realized those are separate things in some places...) today because I desperately needed to do some laundry. Vlasta doesn't have a washing machine and does his there too. Unfortunately I picked a day when the mission president's wife decided some huge batch of white shirts needed to be washed. I didn't know that at the time, so when I saw the machines being used I went to that internet place. I came back a couple of hours later and the machine was still being used, so I waited around and chatted with the office elders and played on the piano. (Side note - one of the elders heard me playing Brahms Rhapsody in G and got the music and is learning it.) So I finally figured out that I didn't have enough time to wash my clothes and left to go home.

One of the things I did while waiting, however, was introduce myself to the mission president, who was actually there. He travels constantly to the branches all over the mission. As I was talking about what I've been doing here I mentioned that I had gone to Plzen and that I'd stayed with the Komancovi and I asked if he knew them. He said he did, but that Brother Komanec had died. I thought he must be mistaken, because today is Monday and I was just there on Friday, but he said he died just yesterday, Sunday.

That put a damper on the day, of course. He was such a nice guy, always helping instead of talking (he let his wife do the talking), always thinking of others. I wanted to call, but Sister Komancova is at her daughter's place and I didn't have the number. We had a small family home evening at home with 2 elders and an investigator, we watched How Rare a Possession. When it was time for missionaries to be home, I called the Plzen elders to find out the rest of the story.

Apparently, Sunday morning he decided he didn't feel good enough to go to church, but he made sure Sister Komancova took care of some things for him (he was a counselor in the branch presidency). When she came home, she found him dead on the floor. He had been reading from the Book of Mormon, went to get something from the kitchen, and from what they can tell so far, had a heart attack on the way back. From what the missionaries told me, everyone's taking it pretty hard because it was such a shock. I'm going to try to call tomorrow morning to offer my condolences and see if I can do anything.

It's especially weird for me, because I was just staying at their place two days before that. When I first went to Plzen I was thinking about staying for church, but decided against it because I didn't want to impose on them for that long. It's a good thing I did, because that would have been a very awkward situation. In any case, it looks like I picked the right time to make my trip. It's just so strange to me that I was one of the last people to see him. I probably took the last picture of him, was the last to eat his famous ovocne knedliky.

He will be missed by many members here and former missionaries. I really feel for Sister Komancova; she will be very lonely without having him to talk to. It makes me happy, at least, to know that they are baptized and sealed in the temple and I hope that brings Sister Komancova some comfort as well.

06 Mar

Saturday

I had originally planned on going to the movies with Lida at 10, but she moved it to 12 so I went wandering again. There's some kind of inversion or something here and the air wasn't very clear.

Of course, Photoshop can take care of some of that, like this picture of some swans I found, which are pretty common around here.

At 12 I met Lida at a really nice mall right at the Flora Metro stop.

Just in the 3 years that I've been gone, it's easy to see the change and modernization of commerce around here. Hypermarkets and malls are everywhere and I've seen about 5 new KFCs in Prague (I don't know what that's all about). Anyway, we saw the Uzasnakovi (Incredibles) at this very nice theater and it was just as good in Czech.

I got some lunch afterwards and bought a little painting of Prague, then I went to the church building because Vlasta said he would probably be there. I played the piano for a while, but he never showed up (he was waiting at home). It didn't matter much anyway, because we were planning on going on a walk with someone, then going shopping, but the more I thought about it, I didn't feel very good and I just decided to go home.

Sunday

My cough turned into a full-blown cold last night. I don't know what's up with me. I blame it on the foreign germs here. And there is a flu/cold going around here right now. When I woke up this morning, it was at the lovely point where I'm coughing and sneezing (making a big mess). I don't feel really bad, but there's pressure in my head and I am at the point where I need a lot of tissues. At home I probably would have gone to church, but it's very much against the culture here to go out when you're sick, especially when it was snowing again this morning.

So Vlasta wouldn't let me go and I've been at home. I read scriptures for a while, then watched TV. There's not much to do in a one-room apartment, but it hasn't been too bad. I've watched some documentaries on Iran and animals, a movie called Meet Prince Charming that's pretty much You've Got Mail with different actors, and right now I'm watching the second part (the first was last night) of the European Indoor Track Championships in Madrid.

I don't know what I'm going to do for the rest of the night, probably not much except for SuperStar, but I'm going out tomorrow sick or not. Vlasta keeps telling me I should stay in for 2 or 3 days, but this is driving me crazy.

04 Mar

As soon as I woke up this morning I was greeted with breakfast from Sister Komancova, some hot chocolate and cake. We kind of chatted for a while, then I realized they were just going to keep talking until 1:00, when we were supposed to meet Sister Bubenickova (their daughter), so I excused myself and went into town again.

I found an internet place near the town square. It's a multiplayer gaming place, but you can also just use the internet there. It was really dark and there was nobody manning the desk so I had to search around to find somebody, but it ended up being pretty cheap.

I still had some time after that, so I went to the Brewery Museum. Plzen is famous for inventing Pilsner beer and they still make Pilsner Urquell, the original, along with lots of other beers there. I didn't pay to go into the museum part, but I did get to see the cellars and how they used to make the beer.

For lunch I went to Sister Bubenickova's restaurant and met the missionaries there. She feeds them once a week and would feed them more if they would let her. She showed me her book that all her missionaries had signed. She's really quite the member, definitely not afraid of showing off the missionaries at her restaurant. The food was good. The place is actually a jidelna, kind of cafeteria style, I guess, but it's good Czech food.

I went back to the Komancovi's and got my stuff ready and watched a little TV. Their great-grandson was over and we watched Cobra 11, a German show about two cops that defy all odds by living through each episode. Brother Komanec came with me to the bus station and I took that same bus back to Prague.

On the bus I sat right behind some American girls, but I have no idea what they were doing here. I never talked to them, because I started talking to the young guy sitting next to me. He's a Slovak who was going home for a while. He of course was interested in why I lived here and learned Czech and he had never heard of the Mormons before, but seemed interested in hearing what it was all about. Unfortunately, he lives in a part of Slovakia where there aren't (and never have been) missionaries and I didn't have any church materials on me. The best I could do was show him where the church building is in Prague (the bus drives right by it) and tell him to stop by sometime. And he's the kind of guy that I think might actually do it.

Anyway, I got back to Vlasta's safely and it feels good to be "home" again. The Komancovi are great, but I always felt like a guest there. Here I can just relax and do my own thing.