Happy Birthday Jordan!

Howdy. School starts again and everything goes to pot (my schedule at least). It’s been pretty busy since school started again. It’s turning out to be quite a semester.

Today is Jordan’s birthday. He’s still in St. Augustine Florida. Today is also his P-day so he was able to write. It sounds like he is beginning to see some great success. His letter from today is found here. Alison and I haven’t sent him anything for his birthday yet. We were planning on sending him some socks, but as was mentioned, life gets busy when school is in session.

Now onto school. For the most part things are going pretty well. I haven’t missed any homework yet or really come up against any brick walls. I’m not sure what my favorite class is yet (or what my worst class is either for that matter). I do know that the three classes that I chose to take (Micromachining, Analog IC Design, and Slavic Folklore) have been much more exciting than the two required courses (Engineering Probability and Statistics and Thermodynamics). This isn’t to say that the electives are easier, because that is definitely not true.

I have really enjoyed the Micromachining lab. We’ve only had one “real” lab so far (we had a safety session first) and it was really interesting. We were given a silicon wafer and had to measure the curvature of it with a special machine. After that we cleaned the wafer by rinsing it with methanol and another similar chemical and then rinsing it in de-ionized water and drying it in nitrogen gas. After that we soaked the wafers in a sulfuric acid/hydrogen peroxide solution and then in a hydrofluoric acid solution. After the wafers were clean and dry we put them into a furnace for 1 hour at 1000 o C. This was to grow a silicon dioxide layer. It may not sound too exciting to you, but this semester is exciting because I am finally doing things that can be applicable in real life. The first few years of EE were spent solving circuits. I still get plenty of that but we’ve branched out now.

My calling as the Elder’s Quorum President has kept me busy as well. It seems that I find out virtually daily things that I need to be doing, but haven’t been. It’s so far been a learning experience.

Alison and I got new phones a little while back. We showed them to Alison’s younger sister Abby who took the following pictures with the camera on my phone. I warned her not to take them – now they are accessible to anyone at anytime…


We are now signed up with Sprint. It’s so far been loads better than Verizon was. The biggest reason is because our phones now work in our apartment. Before, we couldn’t use our cell phones in our apartment because we couldn’t get service. The phones are really nice. They are LG pm-225. They are red, with 2 color screens and cameras. I’m excited to have a camera with me everywhere I go. I hope that I’ll be able to take a lot of interesting photos.

Well, life is good. Maybe I’ll tell you more about it sometime.

Lazy Sunday

I saw this SNL skit on the internet the other day and I just knew that I needed to share it. Here is Lazy Sunday about the Chronicles of Narnia.

School's in Session!

Let the fun begin. School started yesterday and now I’ve had a chance to go to every class. It looks like it will be a “good” semester. Not without its challenges, of course….

My weekly schedule is shown below.


My first class is ECE 3530 – Engineering Probability and Statistics. It seems like it is going to be a pretty tough class. From what I am told by those who have taken it, it turns out to be really difficult. We have a big MATLAB project that I am not looking forward to.

My next class is ME EN 2300 – Thermodynamics. This class also looks to be a pretty tough one. If it weren’t required…

I am also taking ECE 5221 – Micromachining. This class is about how tiny devices are made. It think that I am going to enjoy it.

I also have ECE 5720 – Analog Integrated Circuit Design. I think that I am going to enjoy this class. We end up designing our own chip – with the opportunity to have the chip built over the summer.

I have been purchasing my books lately. I bought some of them at the Bookstore, but if I could find them cheaper online then I did that. I think that I have all of them that I need and I ended up spending around $340. I hate having to spend so much on books, especially when one of my books was $147.50. It’s nothing special. Hardcover - yes, full color – not a chance. At least the publishers are getting rich off of students like me that have to take out loans to be able to even go to school.

Well, today was a long day and I am getting tired. Time to feed the fish!

Last Week Off

It was sure nice to have another week off of school. It was a good week too. On Sunday night, Alison and I went up to Jacob Priest’s cabin on Bear Lake. It’s just over the border on the Idaho side. It’s not really a cabin, but a home. It’s right on the lake (if the water is ever all the way up to the bank) and it has 6 rooms upstairs and a master bedroom down. There is a big family room up and down as well as a kitchen and dining area down. We were only up there for Sunday night but it was still a lot of fun.

On Sunday night we played one game of Scene It and one game of Shout About TV (Better than Scene It). After that we watched The Truman Show. That really has got to be Jim Carrey’s best “serious” film. I don’t even know if he has any others. I really like the film.



The most fun part of the whole trip was Monday morning. Sean and I (with whom we rode up) went out on the four-wheelers. We went out onto the frozen beach and were just riding around. I didn’t expect to be out for that long, but it was a ton of fun and we were out there for almost 2 hours. Poor Alison got stuck reading the whole time we were gone. We would do donuts on the ice sheets and then we had a lot of fun going up and down a frozen creek bed. Don’t worry, we had out helmets on.

After we had our fun four-wheeling we helped clean before heading home. Today (Monday) was also the day of most of the big bowl games. We missed most of them, but we were able to see a bit of the Fiesta Bowl (Ohio State beat Notre Dame) and the Sugar Bowl (West Virginia beat Georgia). The next day was the Orange Bowl (Penn State beat Florida State) and then the best game of all, the National Championship Rose Bowl. In that game undefeated Texas met undefeated (for 3 years) USC. Texas won by overcoming a 12 point deficit in the last 5 minutes. It’s too bad the BCS is such an unfair crock.

This week I went with Alysia and Dad to see what was inside Mom and Dad’s safety deposit box. There was mainly a lot of silver coins and junk silver coins. It was cool to see. Alison and I will have to get one eventually – as my coin collection continues to grow.

The rest of the week was full of work and a bit of reading. Other than that – school starts soon…

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Alison and I spent New Year’s Eve at Spencer’s house with her family. We played a few games, Alison and I tried to defend our title as Trivial Pursuit Champions. Unfortunately, we were unable to win the game. We usually do pretty well as a team, but tonite just wasn’t our night.

Before we went to Spencer and Korrin’s house, Alison and I went to the Jazz game. They played the Philadelphia 76ers. We didn’t think that the Jazz would be able to win but they were able to pull it our in the end. It was an awesome game, and we had great seats. One of the fellows that I home teach was able to get tickets from his work. He’s not really a sports fan so he offered them to us. We’re both glad that he did. J

The other big news from this week is the trip that I took with my parents to San Francisco to watch the Utes play in the Emerald Bowl. We left early Wednesday morning and made the long drive to Sacramento. When we got to Reno we had planned to take I-80 over Donner’s Summit, but after calling Scott he advised us to take highway 50 through South Lake Tahoe. It was snowing pretty hard over the top and it took us quite a while to get over the summit. When we got to the Rees’ we saw on the news that it was good that we had taken highway 50. The top story on the Sacramento news was the bad weather on I-80. A plane had crashed right off the interstate and they had mudslides all over the place and the interstate was down to 1 lane.

That night at the Rees’ we watched the movie Fantastic 4. It was ok. Pretty much like all of the rest of the comic book movies.

The next day we left for San Francisco and got there in about 2 hours. We parked the cars at the San Francisco Marriott Hotel and then just walked to the game – stopping at an Italian restaurant on the way. The game was at SBC Park – which is where the Giants normally play. The Utes were slated to play Georgia Tech (#24 in the nation). Nobody expected the Utes to do very well, and we were going to the game to have fun – definitely not expecting a win. Nonetheless, the Utes put on a show we will not soon forget. They ran all over the Yellowjackets and won 38-10. Here is a press release on the game.

Of course we were thrilled to see a great game (in our opinions). After the game, I will admit, I “stormed” the field to celebrate with the team (the real reason was to find out if the turf was “spongy” like Fenway Park… see Fever Pitch).

After the game we walked back to the hotel to celebrate by eating at a crappy Chinese restaurant. We stopped by the Cheesecake Factory to get some cheesecake for dessert. We walked through a few stores – but no major shopping for us.

The next day we spent the morning at the hotel (ate a wonderful buffet breakfast – normally $18) and then went to Pier 39 for an hour. While there I browsed a couple of stores and then watched the Sea Lions for a bit. After the adventures at Pier 39 we got on the road. We had originally planned to stay in Sacramento tonite (Friday), but the weather was stormy the whole drive and we were afraid that it would only get worse. We decided to try and go over the top on I-80 so we had to buy chains. We had heard all sorts of things about how bad it would be, but it turned out to not be that bad. It was rainy and a little snowy the whole way until we got to Reno. We decided to drive as far as we could and we made it to Elko before we felt that we should stop.

It turns out that we were very blessed to have gone over the pass on Friday, rather than waiting until Saturday. There was a 1000 foot mudslide at Truckee (near Donner pass) which shut down I-80. Added to that the interstate was underwater at Vacaville (between San Francisco and Sacramento). Northern California has had record flooding from the storms that have been coming through.

All in all it was a great trip. We didn’t expect the Utes to win but they did so that was exciting. It was a fun night with the Dickson’s to celebrate the new year. 2006 looks good. I’ll let you know!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Today was an exciting news. Lots of things to share with the family and lots of exciting things going on around here. First of all, Alison and I are having a baby. She is due on the 25th of July. She will be 10 weeks tomorrow. We are very excited. We shared the news with our families - which I will tell about later. Below are photos of an ultrasound that Alison had last week.

Ultrasound at 9 weeks and 2 days


Ultrasound at 9 weeks and 2 days (2)

What good news for Christmas right?

Our Christmas and Christmas Eve celebrations went very well. We were home most of the morning on Christmas Eve making jello and funeral potatoes that we had to take to our families houses for dinner. Before we went to our parties we went to visit Grandma Lisonbee at St. Mark's Hospital. She is having some breathing difficulties which they are possibly attributing to pneumonia. It was nice to see her, but we were sad that she will be in the hospital over Christmas.

After visiting Grandma in the hospital we went to Grandma and Grandpa Dickson's for dinner. It was fun to see family. Grandma Dickson gave us a book Granny's Silly Little Garden Songs. It is a collection of garden songs that she wrote as well as garden stories, garden drawings and a CD with grandma singing the garden songs. She put a ton of thought and work into this project. It's fun to have.

After dinner at the Dickson's we went to mom and dad's for dinner (#2). It was our traditional candlelight dinner. It was fun with all of the little girls there. After dinner we played the traditional dice game (roll 7, 11 or doubles - pick a gift). During the first round (pick a gift from the middle) Alison and I did pretty well. During the second round (steal a gift from somebody else - the important round) Alison and I didn't do quite as well. We still ended up with all sorts of good gifts. We got a $10 gift card to Restoration Harware, a small reading light, a box of chocolates, gift certificates to McDonald's, Farr's Ice Cream, Wendy's, an uncut sheet of 16 $1 bills, and some other good stuff. It was a fun game.

After the game the siblings exchanged gifts. Kevin and Alysia drew our names and they gave us an electric fondue set. We are really excited. They also gave us all sorts dips and things to dip.

I had Cheryce and was supposed to give her a gift that Mom had. Mom couldn't find it so hopefully it will turn up soon. Alison gave Rachelle an American Eagle hoodie.

Alison and I slept in Rachelle's old room. We weren't in any rush to get up early so we slept in a little bit. When we did get up we opened our presents from each other. I gave Alison some shoes and she gave me a pair of pants and some velcro shoes. Between the two of us we spent $40 (Our budget is a little tighter with the news mentioned above).

We went to Mom and Dad's sacrament meeting. They had a choir Christmas program. After church we waited until everybody was there and then we gave our gifts to mom and dad. We gave mom a small bottle of ham baby food to announce our pregnancy. Everybody was really excited and we were excited to tell everybody. It's quite a load off of our chests.

Jordan called not long after that. We had told him about Alison's pregnancy last week in an e-mail. It was good to talk to him. He seems to be doing well. Morgan was there to talk with him as well. He talked for about 40 minutes.

Alison and I left for her parents house after that. Alison was really antsy to tell everybody the news, but we had to wait for everyone to get there first. We weren't able to break it until after Christmas dinner. Once we did break the news, everybody was so excited. Her sisters all jumped up to hug her as did her mom. We are excited to be able to talk openly about this now.

Alison's parents gave us some gift cards to the Olive Garden, Applebee's and the movie theater as well as some money (very generous). Korrin had me and gave me a Utah blanket that she sewed an edge onto and a screenprinted t-shirt with The Muss and Brent Mussberger on it. It's pretty funny. Alison got a KU t-shirt from Neal as well as a gift card to Michael's for scrapbook stuff. I gave Abby Sense and Sensibility on DVD and some bath stuff, Alison gave Emily some earrings and a calendar.

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas. On the drive down to Alison's parents we read Luke 2 and about the wise men in Matthew. I actually quite enjoyed the Sunday Christmas. The last Sunday Christmas was in 1994 so its been a while. We are grateful for everyone's generosity. We can learn a little about that.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa

This editorial is one of the most famous ever written. It first appeared in The New York Sun in 1897. I thought that it was just fabulous.

IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
We take pleasure in answering at once thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor--
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
-- Virginia O'Hanlon, 115 West Ninety-fifth street.

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.

There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

3 Days Before Christmas...

It's so nice to have a few days off of school. It's nice to have some of the associated stress taken off of my back and it's been nice to just "hang out" a little bit. I've been working a little, watching some of the first bowl games and playing a little Playstation 2 (It's my neightbors).

On Tuesday I went with Mom, Kevin, Alysia and Ellie shopping at the Outlet Stores in Park City. I didn't buy anything, but I was looking for stuff to buy for just about everybody :). Tuesday night I got 1/2 of my home teaching done. I visited the Adams' with Ryan Garlick.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I had a dentist appointment. I went to get some fillings and sealants replaced. I didn't have any new cavities last time I went, but they still had to drill out my old fillings and sealants and put some new ones in. At least the new ones are "tooth" colored - whereas my old ones were silver. After that Alison and I went to Cottonwood Mall to do a little shopping. We were able to buy for Rachelle and Emily.

Today I ran errands most of the morning. Lurp (The Geo Prizm) hasn't been starting. I think that the battery is dead (i.e. unrechargeable) and so I bought a new one and put it in. I got the new battery for $40 at Wal-Mart and the similar battery was $60 at Pep Boys. I read a couple of months ago that Wal-Mart's batteries were actually rated higher than any others. It was a surprise even to the editors if I recall. Tonight, BYU played Cal in the Las Vegas Bowl. It looked many times as if BYU was going to get killed but they were able to always stick in there and they only lost by 7. I don't normally cheer for BYU but I would like to see the Mountain West win all of their bowl games. It would be nice for the conference. While the game was going on I made nutty buddies (the peanut butter, chocolate and powdered sugar coated Chex snacks) to give out to our friends and neighbors. They seemed to turn out well. We'll probably give them out tomorrow.

As far as Christmas goes, I getting closer. I still haven't made any purchases for Mom and Dad, but I think that I've got everyone else covered. Other than that, everything is going well. Looks like it's time to go feed my frog.

One week to Christmas...

So it was a pretty busy weekend.

On Saturday we were supposed to have a ward service project (provided by the Elders) but it was cancelled. I was then really looking forward to sleeping in. Alas, that wasn't to be because by 6:00 Saturday morning, I was done sleeping. I guess my body had acclimated itself to arising early because of Finals Week. At 10:00 we had the ward Christmas party at the Union building. We had the bowling alley rented out for 2 hours and had pizza. Bowling - went ok. I bowled an 85, 137 and 105. If only I were consistent.

After bowling we had a little bit of time before we went to watch the Utes play Arizona at the Huntsman Center. They pretty much got killed. The Utes are just too "soft" of a team this year. Within a year or two they will be pretty good (at least better than they are now). The AP article of the game is here.

Mom and Dad came over to our apartment afterwards to wrap some presents. They gave us a ride to Chuck-a-Rama where the Squire Christmas party was held this year. Alysia, Kevin and Ellie were there. This was the first time that we got to see them since they arrived. After dinner we sang a few Christmas songs before Alison and I had to leave to get to the U2 concert at the Delta Center.

I bought tickets to watch U2 on ebay last week with some leftover birthday money. It was an awesome concert with an amazing stage and sound. Our original tickets were "rear view" but when we got to our seats somebody was already sititng in them and they offered to trade us tickets. We traded and the new seats were loads better than our originals. There were more than 26,000 people at the concert (the D.C. seats 19,911 for Jazz games) and it sold out in under 2 hours. Well worth the money. Here is a website with lots of good photos of this tour (unfortunately no photos of Salt Lake City, but they're all the same). Here are a few photos of the show in Salt Lake by the Deseret News from the article here.

After the concert I had to write a talk for sacrament meeting. It was on Christmas and the Savior (not a tough topic). It was part of the choir program, but I was the concluding speaker and it's always hard to know how long to prepare for.

On Sunday morning at 7:30 there was a Stake General Priesthood meeting. It wasn't too bad. It was followed immediately by Ward Council and then by choir practice. The choir program in sacrament was ok. It didn't turn out quite as well as we hoped (the singing that is). My talk went well. I had to give the short version because there were only a couple of minutes left when it was my turn to speak. It was my first day conductin in Elders Quorum. I am still the executive secretary as well because a replacement hasn't been called yet. I am looking farward to when they do.

After church I had a PPI with President Hunter and the rest of my presidency. It was the first time that we have met together and it went well. We have a lot to do. Bishop Moffat also had an open house for the ward today. He invited everybody over for farewell style food. He is a great bishop and we will miss him when he is released. (He an his wife announced last week in sacrament that they have been called to serve as mission presidents).

Dinner tonite at Mom and Dads was nice. It's always fun to see the nieces. I e-mailed Jordan today for permission to post his letters to a blog and it was granted. If you are interested, visit http://eldersquire.blogspot.com.

School's Out!

Hooray! 8 semesters down and now only 3 to go! It's sure nice to have finals over with. Unfortunately, everything starts again in 3 weeks. I'm barely starting to enjoy the break by that time. Oh well....

Let's see. It was a busy couple of days and I will try to relate anything of interest that happened. On Thursday morning I had my ECE 3110 (Microelectronics) Final Exam. The test was tough but I think that I was able to get a pretty decent grade out of it. I'm avaraging a 90.5 on the tests in that class so it wasn't quite as critical that I aced the test, but I still wanted and needed to do well to get a good grade. After the test I came home and began studying for my next final. On Thursday, as well, I spent time posting Jordan's e-mails to a new weblog that I have created for him. I won't disclose the address to that blog at this time because I want to get permission from him for creating it before I really make it public. Thursday night Alison and I stopped by Wal-mart to buy children's book for a sub-for-santa that we are helping with. It's for Alison's work and we thought that we could help somehow.

Friday I had my ECE 3300 (electromagnetics and transmission lines) Final Exam. It started at 6:00 AM and went until 10:00. I used most of the time and I was only taking 2 out of 3 sections of the exam. The class is set up with 3 midterms. There is a corresponding section of each midterm on the final exam. If you do well on all three midterms then you don't have to take the final at all. If, like me, you do really well on one midterm (98) but not as well on the other midterms, then you can take the two parts of the final and skip the part that you did well on. Most (if not all) students were there because the tests have been really tough. I think that I will get a better grade on the final than I did on the midterms, but we'll have to see. Either way the best grade out of the two is taken.

After my last final I had an interview for an internship at Pacificorp. The interview went really well, the only problem for me is my lack of experience with AutoCAD and some other programs that they were looking for. There were three interviewees in the room and they all took turns asking various questions. I can't remember most of them. Some were to test my techinical knowledge, others were to see how I respond to problems and challenges. I would love to get an offer to work there, but as I mentioned, I am lacking in some of the areas of qualification.

I wasn't feeling very well today so after the interview I came home and lied down for a little while before I had to go to work. It was a good day at work though. I had 6 appointments and after about the 3rd, I was actually feeling a little bit better. I think that I've caught a sore throat that Alison had and now my allergies are kicking in as well as an achy body.

Friday night we ate at Arctic Circle and then stopped by Mcdonald's to rent Cinderella Man. It's a boxing movie with Russell Crowe. It was a really good film. It's set during the depression and the acting, filming and cinematography were done very well. Many think that Russell Crowe should be nominated for an Oscar for the film - after watching it, I would say that I agree with them.

All in all Finals week went pretty well. All of my tests except for my first one (see Mondays post) went as well as I expected. It's sure nice to have them over with, now I need to relax, do some Christmas shopping and get feeling a little better!