Caribou

So here's the happs:
Squeezed 4 finals into two days, hung out with parents and a few siblings who came to drop my brother Steffen off at the MTC, found out my grandmother, Rita Beecroft, died (only a few days after her father-in-law Carl Beecroft Sr., my great-grandfather, passed away at the age of 96) of cirrhosis of the liver. Due to threatening weather, I left with my parents Wednesday afternoon for Mesa to attend both funerals. Emily was on her way back from Philadelphia where she helped her brother get moved and settled, and would meet me in Camarillo on Sunday. The funerals were very nice. We will miss them, but they must be happy to be with their families that have already passed on before them. Both died peacefully and surrounded by loved ones. Their lives were exemplary and full of righteous living. I enjoyed learning more about both of them.

After the funeral on Saturday, we drove home and I enjoyed a couple Christmas programs at church on Sunday and reuniting with Emily and Grace at her aunt Heidi's home to enjoy Emily's family.

Christmas eve and Christmas were nice and we had a great time visiting with family and loved ones. We went to Leo Carillo State Beach in the afternoon and had fun rock hopping, beachcombing, spelunking, and rock climbing.

Now we are just taking it easy recuperating, relaxing, cleaning, and a bit of working for my dad at his store.

Head On

Just a couple of things I've been thinking about on and off for a while.

As a missionary I attended 4 funerals in my first area, and 2 more in my second. I was beginning to feel like the angel of death. In speaking with many others willing to hear about the gospel, some of them were interested in the afterlife because of their children who had died one way or another. One man was devastated by the loss of a son who died while racing his motorcycle while drunk. At the son's funeral, friends of the family tried to make the best of the situation by saying he lived life to the fullest, referring to the son's extensive partying habits and wasting much of his time in destructive pursuits.

What is a full life? Does someone really love life and love living if they participate in self-destruction or harmful pastimes, or even in ending their life prematurely? I don't think that can honestly be said. This is a bitter pill for those of us behind on earth to swallow when we see it happen to loved ones.

I had many of these thoughts after one funeral. I remember it particularly because it was a young adult who passed away. She was a wonderful girl and she is missed by her family. The man conducting the funeral service was an older gentleman who had seen much in his life. I wondered if the same things said at her funeral would be said at his someday. Did he love life and live it to the fullest? Was he not a quitter either? I guess that his life has had it's tremendous ups and downs, and perhaps he may have been a little envious of the rest from cares and sorrows she is receiving.

I wrote down many thoughts that night. I saw the paper the other day and read over it again. Not long before that, I'd been watching one of our favorite TV shows (I don't watch much TV but am arrogant enough to think that what I do watch is really high quality) about a hospital staff. A patient had been misdiagnosed with cancer and was told he was going to die. When the mistake was found, he sued the hospital for ruining his life (he'd sold all his things and was planning to live it up the last few months of his life). As two doctors loudly discussed how finding out you'll live is a bad thing, the one sensible doctor spit it out simply, "Dying is easy, living is hard!" I'm not saying dying is always a pleasant thing, but living an extra couple of decades vs. dying over the course of a few months, is not comparable. Even still, it's the being alive and fighting the illness that is the most difficult. Living is hard. It was meant to be. Those who have easy lives are just running away from the fights and trainings that would make them more godlike. Becoming god-like is difficult and costly in terms of effort.

Missions are like mini lifetimes. You start out young and stupid, become experienced, train a greenie or two, go through a mid-mission crisis, and eventually prepare yourself to come home. How you live your life/mission reflects how you go home. Not that those who are ready to go home won't miss their time on earth, but for the righteous and decent, the afterlife will be sweet and pleasant. Just have courage during the transitional phase and take it head on. Be happy for those who are ahead of us and think about how they're getting on. And miss them wonderfully.

This may seem disjointed and all over the place. Forgive me, it's late and if I wanted to put down everything in a way I would be satisfied with, I'd have written a small volume. This entry is long enough already. Maybe someday I'll write books, on death, and everyone will think I'm morbid.

Many wonderful people, who accomplished amazing amounts in short times, die young. Their stories get told across countries. This is good. But I will welcome the day when we celebrate all those who lived long, active, quiet lives, without so much recognition to keep themselves going and doing the good they did. I believe that such a day will come, because God is no respecter of persons. Hopefully many, if not all of my family and friends and loved ones will be a part of and the subjects of such a celebration.

Broken Face

I am an example of the meathead stereotype. Intermediate Weight Training kicked my butt, but I have a hard time not staring at myself in the mirror now. I wish I could keep it up. My class was twice a week from 11-12:00 in the morning. Then I had an hour break and class afterwards during which I usually went to the physics TA Lab and worked on homework. If I didn't bring my lunch with me or had a particularly hard workout, it was the hardest thing to not attack the nerds sitting across from me when they couldn't help me with the homework. "What do you mean you just did it and don't know how????!!!! Tell me the answer, GEEK!" A little nerve wracking holding back the reins so tightly. If I ate, never had trouble, and as the semester went on I didn't feel it so much, either. But near the beginning, things were pretty touchy for that hour or two till I got back to work and ate my lunch.

Also, I noticed I got really stupid during those times. I'd be staring at something and not have a clue how to solve the problem, TA comes along, points it out, and whoa, DUH! Yeah that was simple. I'm a retard. Good times.

I'll miss the class. It was so easy to get stronger having the equipment, set aside time, and a grade pushing you into it. Next semester while I'm watching Grace, I'll try to keep up with situps and pushups and things, but without the external motivation, it's harder. We'll just have to get a big mirror for our living room so I can stare at myself and how good I look. "Hey handsome."

My goal is to get really good at handstand pushups. I can do about 7 while leaning against the wall just barely. If I could get 50 of those, that'd be cool. There's also these home door gyms that'd be nice to have. Could even do these hanging situps and be all tough and strong. Grrrrrrr.

Funny: last night I did about 70 situps while wearing my jeans. That was a mistake, now I've got a rug burn scab right where the rear belt loop was.

Nimrod's Son

Awesome video. All should take notes:

Monkey Gone to Heaven

For those who haven't heard (I did call immediate family), I got into University of the Pacific!!!
Here goes a list of Pros and Cons that I can think of on the spot:
Pros:
-Nice part of San Francisco - Pacific Heights
-Family Housing is in The Presidio (military base-turned Federal National Park) just 3-4 mi from campus near Baker Beach
-Curriculum aimed at preparing for excellent practices, not JUST excellent dentists
-Curriculum aimed at making excellent dentists
-Facilities are very nice, modern, up to date
-"Humanistic" approach towards faculty and students
-3 Year program (this is a big pro)
-Higher percentage of acceptances for specialties (oral surgery perhaps??)
-Lots of windows around the building (hooray for natural light)
-Few specialist residents, means dental students handle the complicated cases rather than passing them off to residents (part of why their acceptance is higher into specialty programs)
-They claimed to recieve the highest endowment for any dental school in the US last year (means that alumni are doing well, but I can't back this statistic up for dental schools specifically)
-location

Cons:
-Cost --this is a decent con. It will be at least 50-70K more to attend UoP than it would be for us to attend Temple
-Having to get business appropriate clothes to wear everyday, no scrubs (not a big deal)
-No immediate family in the proximity

That first con is a biggie, but we would be done a year early, offsetting that amount by a decent chunk. Also, the quality of the education/cirriculum would seem to offset the rest anyways. The last one is also a biggie. Camarillo is 6 hours by car away, Emily's parents are 12 hours away. Kitye (emily's mom) says they'll pay the difference if we opt for a 3 bedroom apartment so they can live with us :-)
So, we're pretty set on UoP, but still checking everything else, just to make sure. Any ideas? I'll appreciate feedback.
If we live in the family housing, I'll just ride my bike to school. Most other dental students live across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin city where they have a low-income housing lottery that lots of students live in. The only way to justify that, though, is to get a carpool together and ride in and out with other students to split the transportation costs (toll fees, parking$$$$, gas)

We're excited!

Hey

Oh yeah, as a side note......I got an acceptance to Temple Dental School. (map)

Isn't that AWESOME!!!!! THAT MEANS I'M GOING TO DENTAL SCHOOL!!!!!!

I got put on USC's waiting list. I'm still waiting to hear back from UNLV, Loma Linda. UoP will call on Friday to let me know if I've been accepted.

I wasn't that excited when I found out, maybe because I got a little overly confident in myself, or I was feeling sick, or that I was still so excited about seeing UoP. BUT I'm GOING TO DENTAL SCHOOLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rock Music

So, I made it through the rough times. All the interviews are over for now. I might get some more invitations next semester through the spring, but we'll see.

University of the Pacific was awesome. Nice campus with lots of windows, located in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. Their married-with-kids student housing is located in the Presidio and run off of a lottery, but the couple I stayed with there, didn't know anyone who wanted to get in and didn't. The rest of the student housing is just a few blocks from campus, but no kids are allowed.


The Presidio is an old military base located at the very north end of the peninsula right up against the Golden Gate bridge. In the 80's the military left it and turned it over to the Federal Government who still manages and runs the place like some sort of rural community/national park, in it's own world a few miles from downtown San Francisco. It was nice. Rent is Crazy! For the student housing, it is $2000/mo (utilities included) which is CHEAP for San Francisco!!!!! Most 2 bedroom apartments near the school are $2400-2900/mo. Yizikes.

I loved the way UoP treated their students. One of the previous deans of the school developed the "Humanistic" approach and they run their school according to his philosophies. I found it very curious that the principles of the humanistic approach are very close to the principles of love, and charity.

The school is up to date with modern technologies and equipment. The school, although not heavy into research, developed Invisalign. They are very into keeping up to date (One class is Dentistry and Technology) and teaching their students how to be good dentists AND run successful practices (a couple practice management courses taught by the PRIDE dental practice consulting firm during the 3rd year). The students get to start using dental handpieces the 1st day (on plastic teeth, but hey, the hand skills get started).

Out of the 59 students who applied for specialty programs last year, 54 got into the program of their choice (Oral Surgery for me???). In looking for a place to stay while there, I got a short list of names of students from our prehealth office of UoP students willing to house interviewees (they call it the "Mormon Mafia" list). One of them had just graduated and was living across the bay doing an oral surgery residency through UoP. He also is Marwood Stout's nephew.

It's been extremely amazing seeing and receiving the kindness from students at the dental schools I've visited, from giving me rides, to letting me spend the night, to feeding me breakfasts or dinners and staying up late giving advice and tidbits about their schools and programs. Awesome.

Plus, San Francisco is just a cool cool place. Or, the area around the dental school is cool.

Now, I just have to get through the next two weeks of last assignments, quizzes, and finals. I've noticed that I'm no longer grinding and clenching my teeth like I was last month.

Debaser

Tryptophan: Succulent Sleep inducer, or Innocent Amino Acid??

In the spirit of Thanksgiving and the discussion of tryptophan that I've overheard recently I did some reading to give me enough of a picture of the situation that I feel the need to enlighten my family and kin, and any meandering soul who stops in from the big city of the internet.

Tryptophan (also known as Trp, or W as in Elmer Fudd's "twyptofan") is an amino acid. There are about 20 amino acids that make up the vast bulk of all the protein in your body. Proteins do everything from carry oxygen in your blood (hemoglobin), break down food (enzymes), signal various systems (hormones), and move yourself around town (muscle). Protein is the major machinery of all living systems and makes up nearly all of the work and structure of living things. Tryptophan is a small part of protein and is freed when you digest protein in your stomach down to it's amino acids.

Tryptophan is found in higher amounts in turkey (0.24% by weight), but about the same amounts as beef (0.23%), chicken (0.24%) and pork (0.25%). Cheese has higher amounts of tryptophan than all these (0.32%). It's also found in reasonable amounts in a lot of plants (especially those with higher amounts of protein, makes sense).

Tryptophan can be converted to seratonin which regulates sleep, anger, and lots of other stuff (seratonin is even a component of some natural venoms and poisons, go figure). Any drowsiness associated with tryptophan is due to the increase of seratonin in the brain. This is most effective when taken on an empty stomach. Tryptophan can also be converted into Niacin which is converted into the stuff that allows metabolism.

So, is the after-dinner nap a turkey-induced nap? Some say no, and for good reason. The large amounts of carbohydrates and sugars eaten (stuffing, bread, pie, etc) during the feast are more likely to be the direct cause. It's most likely the blood sugar crash after eating such a sugar-rich meal. Indirectly tied to tryptophan/seratonin: eating lots of carbohydrates triggers insulin, which triggers the muscles to take in other amino acids and increase the concentration of tryptophan (if 1 in 20 people at a party are named Steve and then all Johns, Scotts, and Ryans are pulled away, now it's 1 in 10 people named Steve). In my opinion, this would be a very minor contribution to the Turkey-Day napping, since most of it is still bound up in food in your belly (sugars and carbohydrates dissolve and are absorbed easily; proteins-not as much)

So, turkey is not a sleeping drug (at least, not a very good one). But lots of carbs with some meat helping out should do the trick. Next year, make it a roast beef Thanksgiving and give it a shot. Or chicken wings. mmmmm, thanksgiving chicken winnnngggsmmmmm.

Sources: Science classes and textbooks, Wikipedia (when entries are heavily cited), howstuffworks.com, Medline Plus (online medical encyclopedia)

Here Comes Your Man

Let me esplain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up:

All done for now. The rough two weeks are over. I've got one more interview at U of Pacific on the 29th, next Wednesday. Loma Linda went well. I drove down, got a tour (the student giving the tour went to BYU as an undergrad, man LDS dental students are EVERYWHERE, I met like 20 of them at USC) and then spent an hour one-on-one with a woman in the admissions office. She wanted a mini life's story and just asked questions about me as a person. I feel like it went well. I hope I made a good impression. It was nice to be able to give credit to Heavenly Father for his help so openly to someone about this whole process and how much he has helped me. Loma Linda is a Seventh Day Adventist school, and they have similar standards of conduct to BYU. It was a nice campus, the dental school had nice facilities and equipment (all digital x-rays and records software, VERY nice). The student giving the tour said his big complaint as a student is that you don't get as much experience doing the specialty stuff as he'd like, since the clinic has its own specialty residents who do most of the cool stuff.

I wouldn't mind going to Loma Linda at all, I'd probably enjoy it.

USC was nice, but I still have mixed feelings about it. Their curriculum is a Problem Based Learning curriculum. The sciences are all taught through case or problem solving and personal research. Students are in groups of eight with a faculty advisor for each group. A problem is presented, all facts are stated. All possible solutions are thought of, and then research is done by the students to solve the problem. The goal is to get the students to be more resourceful, scientific, and to internalize the information more thoroughly than if they were taught it in a lecture. According to the student who let me stay at his place, the tests and midterm exams are full of practice Board Test questions, so you get them right as you can and the averages are usually around 40% (and curved, of course), and when you take the first part of the boards, you've seen all of the material before.

USC has a nice dental school, it's in LA, lots of LDS students, a strong clinical experience, and large class sizes. Not sure I like the large class size or the PBL curriculum. I'm sure it'd be fine, just different.

In Philadelphia, the guy who picked me up made the comment that he felt like he was called by the Lord to be a dental student in Philadelphia. Their ward had 175 baptisms last year, and with all the new members, if it hadn't been for so many dental students in the ward, things would be even more rough on the leaders and members there. I felt a little bit like a missionary while I was at Loma Linda yesterday. I'm sure that people in all professions and lifestyles feel that way as well, when sent to new areas and wards. This will probably happen more often as I get out and about, wherever I go.

As for now, I'm living the California Dream for the next few days: Driving a bright red classic mustang with a surfboard on top, going to the beach with my beach bunnies, eating In-N-Out, and loving the foggy mornings we've been getting. It's awesome. Today I tried surfing blind. Almost blind. I don't have any contacts anymore so while in the water without glasses I just have to do the best I can. It's not hard to see the waves and didn't feel hampered by that at all, but I got to talking to this guy from Kentucky stationed at Port Hueneme who's learning to surf on his own. We spent 20 minutes together in the water and I have no idea what he looks like because I was never close enough to see his face or distinguish his features.

Brick Is Red

Travelogue 11-12-2007

Yesterday, went to Philly 1st ward, brought back memories of Vancouver 1st ward. Seth and Leslie had something planned in Baltimore so they left after Sacrament meeting. I got to meet several dental students, and ate dinner with a couple of them. Then I just hung out at Seth and Leslie's place, studying the transit system and stuff.

Today, slept in till 9:30. Got up and after eating breakfast, worked on the USC packet I'm supposed to bring to the interview. It took a while.
Played Guitar Hero: Rock the 80's with Seth and Leslie and Ezra. Fun times. At lunch, played a little more Guitar Hero.
Got dropped off by Seth and Leslie at the 69th St station, bought a day pass, and hopped on the Market St. Subway/El-train. Rode it downtown, switch to the Broad St. Line (awesome stuff :-P the subway station smelled like pee and I was the only white guy most of the time, I tried to not stand out so much. The subway stations aren't like the ones you see in movies of New York, they're small, and narrow, and dimly lit, with long corridors. Way old too) Rode that up to the dental school. Not a bad neighborhood. Maybe it was the time of day, but not as bad as everyone made it out to be. Not Beverly Hills by a long shot, but not scary either. Picked up a copy of the packet they sent me in the mail that I was supposed to have with me tomorrow, looked around for a minute, and took off. I'd been pretty nervous trekking out on my own in a very strange city on a very unfamiliar transit system with nasty subway stations. After I left the dental school, I no longer cared. It took about the whole 40 minute trip to get used to it and the people, and everything. I was feeling pretty raw and out there when I first started ("What did I get myself into?")
Switched back to the Market St line and rode it out to almost the end of the line. The neighborhood there was pretty cool. Lots of shady stores and businesses, lots of garbage everywhere, lots of shady people milling about on street corners and in front of shady businesses. I dropped a letter off in the mail slot of a good friend and left. That would be a crazy area for a suburban-raised white guy to start his mission in. Nothing would phase you after that place. That'd be a cool area. Not a fun home, but a cool mission area :-)
Stopped to see the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the Revolutionary War. I feel grateful tonight.
Walked about a mile down Market St in downtown Philadelphia, past a nice shopping area and to the City Hall: One of the coolest buildings I've seen in person. Big ol' statues and stone decorations. You walk through it into a courtyard and it's like this huge castle. Big gothic style clock tower. Huge.
Then I rode home. Trickiest part was knowing where the Drexel Manor stop was so I could pull the string to tell the trolley driver to stop. I shouldn't have worried. Three other people got off there too. A fun day. I've had a great time with Seth and Leslie.
Tomorrow I dress in my suit, with my backpack and garment bag and ride the train back out to the school for the interview. One of the dental students in the ward said he'd try to meet me at the trolley stop so we could ride together. From the interview I'm going strait to the airport via subway and train so's I can make my flight to LAX.

Cactus

This guy I work with, Christian Wiggo Axelgard (Its "Viggo") burned me an mp3 cd of some of his stuff to listen to in the car. This one is cool. So is "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots". Fun stuff. There's another one called "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" also by LCD Soundsystem. Way fun. Brings back memories.....

Speaking of music, I wondered if anyone picked up my challenge regarding the blog titles. If not, that's cool, just means I'm SNEAKY.

I had a really nice stay with some relatives in Vegas. They were extremely generous and hospitable. One of them has quite the personality and is rough around the edges, but a great big teddy bear. Very outspoken, it makes me laugh, I love it.

I was impressed with the school. They get their students started in the clinic working on patients near the end of the first year (doing injections and assisting). That's quick. The students there love the early exposure. Most schools don't start clinical stuff until the 3rd year. Some, the 2nd. Its a very new school, opened 2002, and they're still very flexible with working out any kinks or issues with the students. They love the dean and she regularly meets with each class and has open discussions about the program. The biggest criticism any of the students had was that all the classes are in the same lecture room while the professors come to them to teach, so they spend ALL DAY in the same room.

It's still a bit of a long shot. They invited 250-ish out-of-state people for interviews to fill 30-ish out-of-state spots. Surprisingly, no one complained about the weather despite being from Minnesota, Florida, Washington, or elsewhere. They admit that its pretty hot for 2-3 months, but you're inside all the time anyways.

The first interview with a faculty could've gone a little better. She kinda grilled me about some poor grades on my record and she wasn't terribly cordial either. Very straight-up. Only real question she asked me was "How do you see yourself fitting in at UNLV?"
-"You mean with the students?"
She raised her eyebrows and looked at me to answer the question. I answered as best as I could on the spot. Weird question. The 2nd interview was with a student who had also eaten lunch with us and given us a tour so I'd already been talking to him for an hour. We just sat on a bench outside and talked for another 20 minutes. He only had access to my personal statement and we talked about it for a few minutes. Good guy, I think that part went well, at least. I don't know about the first one. If they accept me, I don't think I'd mind going there, I'd probably enjoy it.

Tomorrow it's off to Philly.

Ed is Dead

Got pretty nostalgic about BYU last night. All alone, I came to my office on campus after the Robbins left and used the internet (since we don't have any at home yet). Then I walked around campus for a while. A couple was taking engagement pictures at the waterfall near the belltower, and a small family taking family pictures. Deseret Towers (freshman dorms) are all fenced off and empty. The Morris Center is empty and dark. Two of the towers are already gone, and it looks like the rest will go soon. Helaman Halls is all renovated and new, and they're building a new center right next to the Cannon Center. I wandered around, and wondered if people still do Tunnel Singing near the Marriott Center. Found out that there was a CES Fireside with Elder Oaks, so I sat alone in the Marriott center for 20 minutes until it started. Came back to work to check a few more things online and headed home.

It was kind of a strange feeling. Like I'm already saying goodbye to BYU because I'll most likely be leaving this year. I am made to stop and wonder how my life would be different because I had the opportunity/blessing to come here and have the motivation to come and work hard to be here. I know the Lord has amplified my efforts into not just temporal education and growth but a strong character and spiritual education and growth. My time here is irreplaceable. I am different for being here and will always be different for coming here.

This is just a public thanks to God for such a great school.

Tony's Theme

I'm going to be a lone man in the garden of eden, I mean a lone man in the new apartment for a few days. Emily has taken off with her parents for California. They'll be staying in Camarillo until later this week when Emily and her parents will fly to Pheonix for the scholarship dinner to be honored by Anasazi. Then they'll fly back and hang out in CA for a little longer.
Me, I'm driving to Vegas Wednesday night, interview at UNLV Thursday and drive back Thursday night. Saturday I leave for Philadelphia, interview at Temple on Tuesday and fly to LAX Tuesday night. Interview at USC Wednesday morning and then meet up with Emily, Grace, and the Robbins, when Em, G, and I will fly back to Salt Lake together Wednesday night (I probably won't make it up to Camarillo for that trip, I'll probably find a BYU student at USC to stay with). Then the Saturday after that I'll fly to LAX again, stay in Camarillo on Sunday, take the train and bus over to Loma Linda on Monday morning and interview there that afternoon and fly home from the Ontario airport. After that, got a week and a half to play catch-up at home and school, then fly to San Francisco for an interview at University of the Pacific. WOOF.

Pray for me and our family these next couple weeks. We'll need help getting through it, or, I'll need help getting through it. This is the rush because dental schools can send out acceptances as early as December 1st, so they go through a round of interviews to send out as many as they can by that date. I've worked hard in my organic chemistry lab to get ahead and am doing just fine in there, I'll have plenty of time on planes and stuff to finish all the write-ups. Physics is going to be rough making up homework without the TA lab around, but hopefully I'll be alright. Psychology is ok. Biochemistry will take some reading to keep up with, and for weight training I'll just have to do situps and pushups while I'm gone (I need to work on those anyways for the grade, 65 situps, 60 pushups, non stop by the end of the semester).

I will miss singing to Grace while she's gone. Emily and I take turns putting her to bed, and we usually sing a couple songs when we put her down. Usually they're primary songs and nursery songs. I enjoy the singing and Grace really likes it too. If you see my family this week, give them loves for me.

Motorway to Roswell

If this says anything about BYU (besides some of it just being a little funny) I think it's pretty good. BYU has its own police force, independent of Provo's Police. Each week, in the paper, they have the Police Beat. Here's last week's as posted on BYU's Newsnet website. I doubt it's every call the police get, but some of the notable calls. Sometimes, the calls are just funny. Hopefully the BYU police aren't too busy with craziness.

Tip of the week: If you observe something suspicious, report it. Don't talk yourself out of it or think someone else will report it. Although most suspicious reports turn out to be nothing, sometimes it is one report that is the pivotal point in being able to identify a criminal. Also, many times several reports combined will give the necessary information. Force yourself to take note of suspicious happenings. The more information you can give the police, the easier it will be for them to solve the crime.

Communications

Oct. 17: A female student living in Wyview Park received a phone call from a suspicious man. The suspect claimed to be a psychology student conducting a project, and attempted to put her in a hypnotic trance. She gave him a false name when he asked for her name. When she finally told him she had had enough, he immediately hung up.

Criminal mischief

Oct. 19: A BYU employee reported that someone had slashed his tire in a parking lot near the Fletcher Building. He was parked in a handicapped stall and had a handicapped placard in his window. The tire was damaged to the point that it cannot be fixed. There are no suspects at this time.

Oct. 22: A trail of drizzled paint was reported near Tingey Hall in Heritage, drizzled over a distance of approximately 100 yards through the parking lot and on the sidewalk.

Harassment

Oct. 18: A female employee in the Wilkinson Center post office reported a suspicious male coming into the post office quite frequently. He engages her in conversation for long periods of time and disrupts her work, even though she tries to avoid him. She described him as 5'11", 250 pounds, with long hair and a full beard.

Information report

Oct 17: A 21-year-old male student was arrested from his off-campus apartment. He was booked on charges of enticing a minor and dealing harmful material to a minor. He was also served a letter banning him from campus. He is now a former student.

Public peace

Oct. 17: The police got a call reporting that protesters in the JFSB Quad were hanging posters on the walls. This is against policy, so the police spoke to the individuals. They complied and took the posters down. This issue was then handed over to the dean of student life.

Stalking

Oct. 16: A 32-year-old male was accused of stalking individuals on campus. This individual has issued several verbal threats against a BYU employee. He has been on campus since he was banned from campus for his activities. As a result, he was arrested. In addition, he had other charges filed on him by the Orem Police Department. He was served a permanent ban letter from BYU campus. This is an ongoing investigation.

Suspicious circumstances

Oct. 16: A suspicious bag was reported at an elevator in the JFSB. It was gone when the officer arrived.

Oct. 18: A suspicious man was reported meandering through Wyview Park. When police arrived, they discovered he was a resident. The 18-year-old student was having a hard time sleeping so he went outside to meditate. The officer talked to him and referred him to the counseling center.

Oct. 18: Three individuals were reported wearing black hoods and scaring females near Chipman Hall in Helaman Halls. They were gone when officers arrived.

Theft

Oct. 9-10: A digital camera was reported stolen from the room of a female student living in Wymount Terrace. The victim claimed that her doors were locked. The Olympus camera is valued at $250.

Oct. 15-16: An unlocked bicycle was taken from a bike rack near Gates Hall in Heritage Halls. The green and silver Next Avalon is valued at $70.

Oct. 19: A projector was taken from room 133 of the TMCB. It is valued at $1200. There are no suspects.

Hang Wire

Just a poem for your pleasure:

Yellow Jet Fighters

Aerodynamic,
swept-wing design,
slice through the
lower atmosphere
with swooshing speed

Signaled by the equinox
they start their mass-
-fleet mobilizing

Immediate alarms
sounded by wind
scramble ever more squadrons
until the tree is bare

--C. Lassen 10/26/07 on the way to biochemistry class

Levitate Me

Right now we're waiting in our apartment to be interviewed. Emily was so nervous just waiting, she had to go deliver her flyers for her Layers Party she's throwing next week.

A few months ago, we got a notice about a scholarship that the Anasazi foundation was giving out to persons who've "Walked Forward" since participating in their program. So we talked it over, I wrote up a nomination, and we sent it in. Two weeks ago we found out that Emily was going to be awarded one of the four $1000 scholarships (which will gladly go towards her nursing program). She will be honored at a large fancy banquet dinner in Phoenix early next month and one of the 5 nominated persons will win a $2000 scholarship and the other 4 will receive their $1000 scholarships. They are taping interviews with each nominee and the video will be shown at the dinner. Some representatives from Anasazi are on their way over to tape us right now.

I wish I could make it to the dinner. I will be in Las Vegas the day before for a Dental School interview, and leaving for Philadelphia the day after the dinner. We can't figure out how to justify missing even more school and the money to drive and fly even more. Emily will be flying down for the dinner where her parents will meet her, and then drive to California with them while I'm in Philadelphia. I'm so torn that I can't go.

Emily is even getting to spend a day out on the trail on Wednesday. She asked if she could go back out just for a day, and Anasazi said that'd be no problem. Hopefully, someone will be able to watch Grace that day, and during the dinner. We're going to call some family members in the area and try to arrange this.

I'm so excited for Emily. She deserves this.

(We're just nervous about what to say in front of the camera :-)

Isla De Encanta

It's been over a week since I wrote on this. Hope people are still checking it out. This one is just a bunch of tidbits floating through my mind.

Some goings on: Extra homework assignments, midterms, and stuff going on. I got another interview invitation at University of the Pacific. Way COOL. That's 4 interviews in November. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep up with missing so much school. Still 8 more schools to hear back from. But 5 interviews out of 9 so far is pretty good.

We went paddleboarding the other day. We tried a different spot. We drove out on the service road that circles the Provo Airport till we found a spot where there wasn't any plants and could just throw the board right in the water. Perfectly calm day. Absolutely beautiful. The clouds were boiling on their undersides, the smoke from a nearby fire was staying 20 feet from the ground, and the forecast was for rain the next day, but I went paddleboarding in the calm cloudy evening. The sun breaking through on the far side of the lake over those mountains to the southwest. Some birds out on the lake calling, ducks splashing around in the plants. Just great. The only downside was the CRAZY amounts of mosquitoes right near the shore. Emily and Grace got stormed and chased back into the car. I was racing to get more than 50 feet from shore, while reaching down once in a while to wave away the buffet line hanging around my legs. Yesterday I counted 21 bites on one calf, and another 25 on the other. Good fun. Emily asked if it was worth it. Oh yeah. Totally. I just paddled straight out into the lake about a mile, twice. Sat on the board way out there. Very nice, but still not comparable to the celestial room of any temple. But VERY nice anyways.

The other night we watched Drumline on TV. I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised. One of the driving themes of the movie is the debate of technique vs. style. Or crowd-pleasing versus "good". Same theme as Strictly Ballroom. As we watched the movie I thought of about 5-6 other examples of the same debate. In Gladiator (not worth watching) there's a small challenge for the main character, killing quickly vs. killing entertainingly (great, huh? thbthbthb). Emily and I went to a lot of the gymnastic meets this past year and noticed some gymnasts were very entertaining but not very good, while others were very good, but not entertaining.

It's so strange to think of the differences between men and women. Not the physically apparent ones, but the psychological ones. We were watching a TV show with another couple the other night and one character confesses to his wife that he was unfaithful. Our friend, she says what I was thinking, "That would crush me." What struck me as odd is that it would crush her for a very different reason than it would crush me, although both would be founded on the same thing. She is very pregnant right now, and I've gathered at least enough to understand that her husband is a bit frustrated with the lack of affection right now. Me, I would be crushed if my spouse (whose affections I work so hard for) just gave out her intimacy to some schmoe. Either way it would be a breach of covenants and promises and that's what would hurt the most, but just a funny show of the differences between men and women. The other night I told Emily she was looking extremely nice. She responds, "Is that all?" I now what she wanted, she was fishing for more compliments :-D, but I also tried to defend it saying, "That's a lot! I wouldn't tell you you were pretty if you weren't otherwise great." If she were mean, lazy, or otherwise unpleasant and our relationship were in a similar condition, I wouldn't be in the mood to say anything nice about her.
Also funny since Emily, like most women, works SO hard to be pretty. Just don't compliment on it without having some other good cards up your sleeve too. Fling out those cards at just the right moment, "You're so great with Grace." "You keep the house so nice" "Dinner was absolutely delicious." Fwing fwing fwing. She won't know what hit her. Cards and compliments flying everywhere. 52-card pickup for FHE tonight.

If you want GOOD TV, I'd like to make some recommendations: Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon, and Man vs. Wild on Discovery Channel.

Avatar is a great show, a cartoon, with an incredible amount of thought gone into it. Highly entertaining, but imaginative and creative enough to make you think. A great deal of eastern philosophy, religion, martial arts and discipline play a huge role in the show. It's now on it's third and probably final season (It was only meant to cover three different "Books" or seasons). It's lighthearted and funny while being very introspective and mature. You can find the episodes around the internet to watch, but just recently it's been a little more difficult because of some cracking down. You should be able to find all the episodes on Nick.com, but they're all out of order and their system of organization is really strange.

Man vs. Wild is a show with this amazing guy, Bear Grylls, being placed in wilderness situations followed by a camera crew as he shows the audience how to survive in all sorts of environments, drawing on knowledge of native cultures, wilderness experts, and local peoples and rangers. He keeps it interesting and exciting as well as good natured and informative. Bear Grylls is a great role model and an amazing person, both for the things he's done as well as the life he lives. There's been a bit of controversy over the show and how "real" it is. I think a lot of it is from people who pulled the wool over their own eyes to think he'd really be putting himself in danger for a TV show. He only said he did what he was shown to be doing (which, most of it, is quite impressive anyways). The techniques are all viable for the situations. I'm sure the editors and producers at Discovery tried to make it a little more exciting by keeping back some details, but they're out now, and they've reedited most of the previous episodes to better express the nature of the events. The whole show was meant to be informative more than anything, but it seems a lot of people watched it, waiting for the guy to kill himself (which is a large reason stunt shows and extreme sports are fun to watch, there's always the "what if something happens" that makes it exciting). Then, when viewers find out that he's not as seriously in danger as they led themselves to believe, they feel betrayed.
It is a great show and a lot of fun to see the survival techniques and locations as well as gain a knowledge about plants and animals.

I'm Amazed

The internet can get people to do some wonderfully unselfish things.

Most people are familiar with Windows and Mac OS. These are operating systems that let you use your computer. Inside your computer boxes, you've got this fancy hunk of metal and plastic and silicon, but there would be no way to practically use it or get it to do anything without some method of interacting with it. Windows and Mac OS are programs written to your hard drive that relay instructions between the person and the lifeless computer.

There are many other operating systems out there doing all sorts of things. UNIX is one of the oldest, but not user friendly and not owned by any one company, it's free. It's so not-user-friendly, that you'd need advanced degrees or some serious programming skills to do anything with it. There's no pictures, no point-click. Text based, and not even intuitively text-based. (MS-Dos is the text-based backbone to Windows, and was so popular and easy to use, it did really really well, hence the start of Microsoft). UNIX has stuck around because for those who can get it to work, it works very well and can do just about anything, and never crashes or messes up.

Since no one owns it, no one wants to invest tons of money to develop and advance UNIX, since they wouldn't be able to have exclusive rights to it, they'd have to share it. Thus UNIX is at the mercy of whomever wants to tinker with it. Enter: Linus Torvalds, a Finnish college student. He created a tweaked version of unix and called it Linux, and kept it free to be used under the general use agreement. Linux has become popular among programmers and computer super-users, because of it's power, stability, free use, and better usability.

A few companies developed nice "front-ends" or usable interfaces which they sold, like Red Hat Linux, or Novell's Suse Linux. As linux spread, anybody and everybody that knows what they're doing has tweaked or changed, or added something. A few graphical interfaces (point and click with pictures and images) were created (Gnome and KDE). There are more different versions and "builds" of linux than anyone knows right now. The two most active areas are very very small builds that can run decently fast from a CD or disk (without the need for a hard drive or storage) and large personal computer versions with all sorts of open-source, free software included. One of the larger versions that's gaining a lot of popularity is Ubuntu. It was started and is sponsored by a South African philanthropist aimed at having an affordable (free) operating system available to anyone. This idea is big for developing countries where money is short and computers are old or not as powerful. (There's even a big mess of tweaked versions of Ubuntu, for various situations)

The collection of software available is extensive and still growing, but since most of it is created by hobbyists, they're not perfect or complete, and any bugs or problems only get fixed as the need or interest arises. GIMP is a popular photo/image editing program that's getting to be on par with Photoshop. OpenOffice is a full office suite. We use it here at home on a Windows machine. It's only okay, but it does everything we need it to do, and its FREE.

I've used just a few different linux "distributions" (distros for short) and I enjoy using it. But my frustration is the same reason it is still held back from becoming the universal system for computers. The driver support is minimal. Drivers are computer files that give the specifics for all the little pieces of your computer to the operating system. Your CD-Drive, wireless card, mouse, keyboard, etc all have a driver built into the operating system. Each manufacturer has their own, almost every different model of equipment has it's own. And since no one is getting paid to create drivers for Linux, almost no one does. (If you're good enough to get your custom Linux machine able to print or go wireless, you're onto something most are missing)

So Linux has limped at quite a decent pace for the past several years. Not too long ago, Dell even started selling computers with Ubuntu pre-installed on them. It's an amazing thing that is has progressed so well being done mostly off of the work of hobbyists and geeks with free-time, with a good deal of help from larger companies and non-profit groups.

So here's an amazing thing: this guy Greg Kroah-Hartman, decides to extend an offer to any company to develop drivers for FREE. He's received such an overwhelming response that the project has breathed a life of its own. Countless offers from individuals and groups willing to help, and countless offers from manufacturers and companies to take him up on it. Even his employer, Novell, is encouraging he spend full-time on this. I'm sure some people have a financial interest in it, but for the most part, it's just to make things better for everyone.

Blown Away

Here's a cool bit of science and stuff:
There's these little guys known as Pistol Shrimp. They live at the bottom of the ocean and have giant forearm and little claw (not like Fiddler Crabs with big forearm and BIG claw). If you have a minute, check out this video here. The cool part is the other shrimp that gets launched away by the snap of the Pistol Shrimp.

In case you can't see the video, the pistol shrimp cocks his pincher open, waits, then SNAPS it shut so fast and so loud it BANGS and sends a shockwave that stuns or can even kill small fish and other shrimp (which then become food for the Pistol Shrimp). In slow motion and with special cameras you can see a bubble form, collapse, and even light up for just a bit. This is called a cavitation bubble. The claw moves so frikkin' fast that as the water clings to the backside of the claw, the water literally tears apart, creating a tiny vacuum void in the water. Water vaporizes at low pressures (like how water boils at lower temperatures at higher altitudes, there's less air pushing on the surface of the water) so a bit of water vapor fills the void/bubble. BUT, as the pressure around the water collapses the bubble again, the water vapor has to be forced back into liquid. This creates the crazy amount of energy given off as sound, light, and heat (around the temperature of the surface of the sun!!!) The light given off known as sonoluminescence and can be induced with ultrasonic sound waves as well.

These cavitation bubbles are not uncommon, but Pistol Shrimp are the first organisms discovered who use them. Cavitation can blow holes into boat propellors and pumps. Ultra-sonic baths work on the same principle to clean instruments and jewelry (the ultra-sonic scalers in some dental offices are often called cavitrons).

I Bleed

This picture will actually make sense (hopefully), by the time you get to the end, you might even be able to spot some deep specifics down in this mess. Watch it move here

So, since I'm learning some amazingly cool things in some of my classes, I just gotta share them with you. But we'll need some background and defs:
Amino Acid: Basically you got a Nitrogen (N) and he likes extra loose Hyrdrogen ions (H+), then attach a Carbon (C), and another Carbon with two Oxygens (O) attached to it. One Oxygen has an H, but he no likey hang onto it, so the Nitrogen snags it (at the pH within your body). So N has a + charge, and O has a - charge. Then you link these amino acids from end to end (the Nitrogen replaces one of the O's which leaves with a few H's and you got water coming off, H2o). On the middle Carbon is one H and a thingy called an R-Group, and these are of all different varieties, some are + charged, some - charged, some neutral (they hate being around charges of any kind) and a few in between. (the N groups are called aminos, and the C with two O's group is an acid --since it drops the H+ off pretty readily, Oxygens like to be negative, and Hydrogens are generally happy, or positive--thus you call them "amino acids".
Protein:Put a bunch of Amino Acids together end-to-end and you got a Protein. Depending on the R-groups and the order of AA's. The proteins take on different shapes. The blobular proteins have various pockets and spots on them that do things, like stick to other proteins or expand and contract depending on pH (which is how many extra H+'s you got floating around). This shape shifting and sticking is how enzymes work and most of what your body is doing.
Hemoglobin Molecule: A blob of 4 globular proteins stuck together, two identical alpha hemoglobins and two identical beta hemoglobins. Each has a spot where a funky porphyrin ring sits. This ring is usually flat and has a single atom of charged iron floating in the middle. The iron is missing two of its electrons so it has a +2 charge, and it shares electrons with the N's on the ring. So it's pinned on four sides by the N's in the ring. Nearby underneath it, is a Histidine Amino Acid (similar to Histamine), with a couple N's on it's pentagon-style R-group, so it can hold the iron in place from one side. On the remaining open side is where a molecule of oxygen (two O's stuck together) sits.
Ions: Ions are atoms that either have extra or missing electrons floating around their outsides. So they take on charges. Chlorine absolutely LOVES having extras, its greedy like that. That's why neutral chlorine gas is so dangerous. 2 Chlorines stuck together having to share their electrons with each other. FORGET THAT!! They'll rob them from anywhere to take on an extra and get a negative charge and say splitsville to the other chlorine. Sodium metal is EXPLOSIVE in water, because it HATES having a neutral charge too. It wants to ditch one somehow. Sodium is more than happy to give one up to chlorine, and chlorine is happy to take it. Thus they are both happy and still stick around each other for good company totally inert to doing anything else (this is table salt). Similarly, iodine and fluorine are dangerous, but iodide (-1) (like in disinfectants) and flouride (-1) like in toothpastes are not so bad. Even calcium metal, like sodium, is pretty terrible, but the calcium ion that makes your teeth and bones, is very good. (Fluoride and calcium combine into tiny crystals that are much more resilient to acid and bacteria to protect your enamel, just don't go swallowing tons of fluoridated toothpaste) Lots of these things dissolve in water because the oxygen carries most of the negative charge, and the H's, most of the positive charge, thus they pull apart ionic molecules, sharing the charges all around (Drinks for Everybody!) in a big crowded party.
Osmosis and Diffusion: They are different, but similar principles. Basically, where there's not a lot of something, more will flow into it. Where there's no air, air goes. Where there's lots of Oxygen and little Carbon dioxide, oxygen leaves and carbon dioxide comes, until there's equal amounts of everything everywhere.

If you've made it this far, congratulations are in order for everyone: to the reader for staying attentive, and me, for writing so that other people can understand.

Back to Hemoglobin and Blood. So you have a red blood cell that looks like a flattened basketball and it's been stripped of normal cell things and is mostly just a sack full of hemoglobin blobs-- more blobs than you could count in each cell. There's some flex in the the whole 4-part blob. It's not steel or anything, it can jiggle depending on the conditions surrounding it. The presence of Oxygen on the ring site changes the shape a bit. When there's no oxygen, it's called the Tense or T-State, because that porphyrin ring is tweaked-bent a bit and it doesn't like that. But there's some help holding such a shape from other amino acids in the blob that all of a sudden are close enough to like each other a bit more and hook-up. The tense state actually doesn't like to hold oxygen as well and if it's full of oxygen (all four rings in the blob), it will dump them off. If it's semi-full it will take more or less depending on how much oxygen is in the vicinity. When partly full of oxygen and no reason to be tense, it will take all it can get. What makes hemoglobin tense? Acid. Extra H+'s. Where does this come from? The mixture of CO2 and H20 (carbon dioxide and water). When CO2, which is being cranked out by working cells (especially muscle cells), it dissolves in water: it grabs the O in water and reforms itself (sometimes with help from enzymes and other things) to make Carbonic Acid or H2CO3. It doesn't like the extra tag-along H+, so it drops it like a rock. There you have a negatively charged bicarbonate HCO3- (sodium Na+ with bicarbonate HCO3- is sodium bicarbonate, Baking Soda) and some of it decides to leave the blood cell. Well, blood cells on the whole don't like to have charge (except nerve cells) so a chloride ion comes into the party from outside the cell (there's tons of it in your blood, fluids, and everywhere). The chloride attaches to the hemoglobin at a specific spot, FURTHER stabilizing the tense state.

Lets put the whole thing together and watch a blood cell flow through your veins. Start off with it full of Oxygen. Prepped up and ready to go. It leaves your lungs (where there's lots of oxygen) and goes through your arteries, and down to your tissues, like muscle tissue. It gets there and "WHOA, what's all this carbonic acid doing here, oh no, the H+'s and Chloride Cl-'s are making me change shape and dump out all my Oxygens!! Oh man! Now I'm stuck in this lame party carrying all this dead weight extra HCO3-, H+, and Cl-, and all I wanted was my good friend Oxygen." A short while later, it gets back to your lungs, and "Hey, lots of Oxygen, and not a lot of Carbon Dioxide! Look! The HCO3- and H+'s pop back into water and carbon dioxide so that new carbon dioxide molecules can go populate the atmosphere!!" And with them gone, the oxygen flows in smoothly.

Thus, in this manner, blood drops off oxygen where it's most needed and not where it's not needed. Way cool, isn't it?!?!? What's DOUBLY SUPER amazing is that somewhere in your tons of DNA is a specific set of nucleotides arranged in the right order, to make a "code", so that when amino acids match up with the code, it spells out the right order of amino acids that they clump up into a blob the way they like and act just like hemoglobin! Why, it would be hemoglobin! How'd the code get formed?? That's a long story and took 4 billion years or so. Or at least 7 creative periods or days, whichever you prefer.

Oh My Golly (Part I)

There are so many nifty little gadgets on the internet, I'ma just going to share a few of them from time to time.

Google Docs
This one I don't think is so useful for large companies or "official" type stuff. It might be made great, but so many features are not there, limited, or incompatible with MS Office or other office suites.

It is awesome for personal use. For example, to keep track of my dental school applications, I made this nifty little spreadsheet. Here's just a piece of it.

Yes, I've been invited to interviews at 4 schools so far. I'm still very anxious to hear from the rest. I'm excited, but with each one, we stress about how we're going to pay for it. It's a good thing we also worked out a budget on another spreadsheet that we both can access from anywhere.

It's nice for having access to something from anywhere and share it with whomever you wish. Multiple people can be using the document at the same time and collaborate together on a project.

I've used this for a team report for an English class and it worked well for swapping ideas, brainstorming, putting things together, but our final report was all done and finished within MS Word.

I also use it to jot down ideas for blog entries or keep track of the pattern of my post titles. If you can figure it out, I'll do my best to get you a prize. The more people that figure it out, the more deflated I'll be regarding my esoterics, and the prize(s) will have to be small, like a virtual high-five or smack on the butt.

Another nice thing, is that since it's not stored on any one computer or hard drive, the data is fairly secure. Extremely low chance of losing files and documents created and saved on Google's servers.

I give GoogleDocs two virtual thumbs-up.

Holiday Song

This is just a vent for being overwhelmed with the peculiarity and awesomeness of BYU.

This was homecoming week (an early one). Every week, BYU has some a devotional/forum in the Marriot Center (basketball stadium) where distinguished people speak: some from the church or school, many from other schools or corporations/businesses. Often within the first month of each semester, an apostle will speak, and the center fills up. I found out last Tuesday morning that President Hinckley was speaking. So I went against my habit of just listening from work or watching on the TV in the Wilkinson center, and actually rode my bike over to join the massive crowd meeting in the Marriott Center to hear the prophet speak to BYU. It was packed full on all sides. I squeezed into a spot on the back side and near the portals. I was overwhelmed at the reverence that some 22,000 people (nearly all students and faculty) showed to that man. I wondered how many other speakers in the world could draw such a reverent, peaceful, amazingly respectful crowd on a weekday morning. I'm sure there's a good few in the whole world. The talk was amazing. The article doesn't do much justice.

Then, the next afternoon, for the first time since I've been at BYU, I was able to play in the blue foam for the annual True Blue Football games they put on every year during the week of homecoming. I took Grace. We didn't play in the flag football games, but we watched all the students playing in the massive puddles of thick blue suds near the hilly side of Helaman Field. They put a couple of the foam hoses at the top of the hill and everyone was sliding down into the large piles of students and soap at the bottom. Grace hated the foam, but she got lots of attention from students oohing and ahhing at how cute she was with her blue legs and hands. Our toes are still tinged blue several days later. I wondered how many other schools could attract a few thousand students that were neither drunk or high to have so much child-like, wholesome fun. There was so much laughter and enjoyment, it was amazing that all were absolutely sober. I'm sure there's other events like this at other schools of similar caliber, but I feel fortunate to attend one of them.

It was fun seeing the glowing "Y" on the side of the mountain at night. It looks like it's just floating in space.

Then there was the Homecoming Spectacular with the BYU Ballroom Dancers (who've won the national ballroom dance competition for 24 consecutive years), the BYU Living Legends, the BYU Young Ambassadors, the Orchestra at Temple Square, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performing several of their awesome numbers. Several of the numbers were Mack Wilberg arrangements. Incredible. Emily and I went with her parents and a very good friend of theirs who was visiting for the week. My boss at work is in the choir (and does most of the male solos for it) with his wife, and I was bragging about him a lot. Lloyd Newell was the MC for the evening and was very entertaining as well. If anyone has any question what I'd like for Christmas, I wouldn't mind any of the new choir CD's from their label (the albums with the bar on the left side, starting with Consider the Lilies).

It was a memorable week, that will last a long time. Not only were the school sponsored events great, but I also paddled another 4.5 miles, went to a toddler gymnastics free-time with Grace and Emily, and spent some great time with friends and family including a couple from Denmark that my dad taught as a missionary about 35 years ago.

Oh yeah, there was a football game too. BYU won 31-6 in the rain. Go Cougs!

Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons

Over the past few years, an old sport has been going through a revival. Ancient Hawaiians used to stand up on their boards and use a long paddle to travel from one place to another, sometimes from island to island. As a sport, this faded out some time ago, but in the past few years it has come back and gaining a following (Some people attribute it to the sightings of Laird Hamilton trying it out). It's done as a variation of surfing and as a long distance paddling category for competitions such as the Molokai Crossing and the Catalina Classic (both ~30 mi).

I've been following it for the past year and trying to figure out a way I can get in on this action while up here in Utah for school. I've tried starting a club. I tried (meekly) getting some companies to donate a few to the school. Several weeks ago there was an Outdoor Retailers Convention up in Salt Lake for outdoors equipment retailers (closed to the public). A few companies that made standup paddleboards were there promoting the sport, doing demos, etc. I called up a few sports stores in the area to ask if they were going or had any extra tickets or passes. No luck. I emailed several manufacturers of the boards and paddles to let them know I was interested, but needed help. C4 Waterman is the only company that responded, asking for a business plan for the club. I responded by retelling them there wasn't a club yet, we didn't have any equipment, and that I'd need help writing a business plan, but would be glad to do so. No response. I don't blame them.

So, I'd given up. Any used boards I could find on the internet were several hundred dollars and weren't any closer than California. I thought of building one, but that would still cost a chunk, and I don't have the tools or time to experiment now. I couldn't put that much strain on our family budget or time together.

Then, out of the blue, I looked up paddleboards and windsurfers on Craigslist.com for Utah. One guy was selling one of the demo boards from the show and wanting $1800 for it, 2100 for a package with some other stuff. Chyeah right. But another guy was selling a paddle and an older 12' windsurfer for much less. Woah! Emailed the seller, discussed and discussed it with my wife, asked the guy a bunch of questions, went and looked at it, and worked out some ways to pay it off. We went and picked it up on Tuesday. Here's a picture of it.

Thursday, we tried it out. I had Emily drop me off just outside the Utah Lake State Park, where I hopped in the river and tested it for a minute. After we agreed to meet back in an hour, I took off. Click on the picture for a closer look of my route.

I figured I'd only done a mile, mile and a half. I was surprised. The picture on Google earth is old, there's no breakwater shown, and the water level is actually several feet higher right now.

I stayed close to the marina trying to meet up with the Civil Engineering opening social to count an activity point for the seminar class, but no sign of them. I found them at the BYU property on my way back up the river. They'd just launched their concrete canoe into the water as I went by and I got about 25 open-mouthed stares. A good friend and I exchanged greetings, Cameron Stewart from Oxnard. From what I could find on the internet, there's only been a small handful of people in this state, who've tried it in this state. As a hopeful claim to fame, I may very well be the first person to try this on Utah Lake. If I'm totally wrong in this, let me know. What I'd really like to do is cross the lake and back (12 mi) before winter, and maybe next summer try crossing the lake the long ways (25-30 mi).

No. 13 Baby

Seeing as how I've changed and fixed so many bicycle flat tires since May, I'm going to give my pointers and techniques a shot at being written down to gain worldwide attention (which they'll have to share with everyone else's tire-fixing techniques, which are all about the same).

There is NO need to ever pay someone else to change or fix your bicycle's flat tire. It takes 15 minutes with practice and with the right stuff.

Here's the list of equipment needed:
-Tire levers (little plastic guys, cost a buck each)
-Bicycle pump (If you use compressed air, you're just taking your chances)

If it's a minor puncture, it's worth repairing. You'll need:
-Patch kit (couple bucks for several patches and a file or sandpaper)
-Bucket or sink of water (not necessary, but very helpful)

If the puncture is pretty severe, just buy a new tube, they cost 3-5 bucks for generic tubes. The size of the tube is printed onto the sidewall of the tire, often in inches (ex. 26x2.15 or 20x1.75). Tubes are sold to fit a range, like 26x1.95-2.25. If you have any questions, just ask the guy at your favorite bike store, ours is Mad Dog Cycles in Provo and Orem (which is where some of these pictures came from). They're awesome. Tubes are sold with various features as well, such as puncture resistance. Go for it if you don't mind the extra weight (most people don't mind), they're worth the extra few dollars. (I've used tire liners and they seem to work pretty good)

There's 3 parts to a wheel: The wheel itself (this is the metal part with the spokes, rims, etc), the tire (the tough rubber part with all the tread), and the tube (the soft rubber part inbetween the wheel and tire that goes flat).

Most bikes have quick release levers on the wheels, this means, flip the lever and your wheel loosens from the fork. Unscrew it a little further if you need to. Also, release the brakes if you need to, just to make getting the tire out from in between the pads easier (with pull brakes you squeeze the break pads closer together, then you can pop the cable out of the metal brace that keeps the brakes together). Once the wheel is off, take off the valve cap and let most of the air out of the tube (if there's any left). Using a tire lever, stick the edge in between the rim's wall and the tire's "bead" (the stiff inner edge of the tire). Lever it up and over the wall of the rim. Then slide the lever sideways along the rim wall, pushing the bead up and over the wheel, all the way around. This takes practice and if the tire is especially tight, you might need two levers and lot of strength to get this done. If you watch the guys in the bike shop, they're fast. Slip, pull, whirl, and pop, it's ready.

Once one bead is completely out, it shouldn't be much trouble to get the entire tire off now, just be careful with the valve and push it through the hole in the wheel.

Pull out the inner tube, check the tire for thorns (check the inside by feeling with your fingers) or other objects that will puncture the new tube. If you're going to repair the old tube, find the hole (if there's several, just get a new tube, it'll be worth it). A trick to this is to fill it with air and dunk the tube into water. Look for bubbles and carefully note or mark the spot where the hole is. Dry it off. Use the roughener (often sandpaper or a metal disc with a scratchy side) from the patch kit. Scratch up the area just immediately around the hole. Let the air out of the tube, and place a patch directly over the hole and press firmly for a few seconds. Glueless patches are easy to use and I think they work great.

Put some air back in the tube, just enough to give it some shape, and place it back into the tire. Then slip one bead of the tire into the rim. Line up the valve with its hole and place it through. Push one section of the second bead onto the tire and using your hand/fingers or a lever, push/slide the rest of the bead back into the rim. Work and squeeze the tire all the way around the rim, making sure the tube isn't pinched against the wheel and tire bead anywhere.

That's about it. Inflate the tube as specified, and put the wheel back onto the bike making sure it is really secure on the fork. Don't forget to reattach your brakes!

Happy Riding

Silver

In the case that some of you haven't heard, here's some EXCITING NEWS!!! The Delorean DMC-12 is going to be sold once again. After the Delorean Motor Company went out of business in 1983 or so, some parts and stuff hung around awhile and have been used by the 3 DMC-12 mechanics in the US to keep the existing Deloreans running (there's about 6,500 still around). Eventually, all remaining rights and parts and stock was bought up by the Delorean Motor Company of Texas. They have announced that they are building and will sell new DMC-12's. They haven't changed anything, but you can request certain upgrades and enhancements (while they may have looked cool, the engines were never anything to brag about, but there's an upgrade for those now!). They'll make about 2 a month, or about 20 per year and they start at $57,500, about the equivalent that they cost in 1982.

I wonder why they waited so long to do something like this? Maybe Doc Brown really DID invent a time machine, and when he got here to 2007, he was like, "What!?! They discontinued the DMC-12 after only 18 months of production?!?!? Jumpin Gigawatts! Well, Marty, we'll have to risk tearing the fabric of the space-time continuum and save humanity from itself! We'll promote them here in the future, so that your children will have something to look forward to!"

I doubt anyone has tweaked the article awry for the Deloreans (not that it matters much anyways), so here's the link to the Wikipedia entry on the car. I know it's shocking to the eyes, but here's a picture of one of 3 gold plated DMC-12's made. I think it looks pretty sweet. EXTREMELY retro with the gold on black, but cool in that regard (the lighting isn't very good in the picture).

An interesting fact about the car, while the gull-wing doors may appear to need extra clearance to open, the reverse is true. It is said they only need 11 inches of clearance on the side of the car, which is much less than what most cars typically need. Here's the report on ABC news.

Now someone just needs to manufacture and sell parts like Mr. Fusion and Flux Capacitors so that anyone can turn their DMC-12 into a time machine.

Space (I Believe In)

There's an interesting phenomenon to the internet. There's a great degree of mob mentality due to the rapidity of transmission of info. However, due to the type of people that frequent the internet, there tends to be a much larger proportion of "fringe" thinkers and ideas. Since so many people are trying to be on the fringe, they'll end up on the fringes of the fringes, often back towards the bulk of society. Sometimes people just want to sound smart so they'll go against the majority to distinguish themselves. Radicals. There is benefit to this habit, but it has it's limits. Fortunately, it also acts as a check and balance against the wild ramblings of what could become an unstoppably dangerous force.

An example of the disparity between the internet sub-culture and the general population is this article discussing the disconnect between internet and live polls of the upcoming presidential election. To sum up, according to the internet (and the article), it's going to come down to Ron Paul vs. Barack Obama, whereas in nearly all other polls conducted across the country, Ron Paul barely registers and Obama is almost always behind Clinton.

In the same way are all the rotten, foul, parts of humanity able to get together and convince themselves that their numbers and proportions are greater than really exists. Using skewed numbers and biased surveys (taken from the internet) they, like a black hole or whirlpool, suck up others loitering in the vicinity and actually increase their ranks based on a false peer pressure. The shadow grows and begins to infiltrate, convincing itself that it is everything, not able to comprehend that things are different in the light or that there are powers out there that could squish them without thinking.

That being said, there are a great many advantages to the internet. If anyone would like to contribute to family history but don't know how to do it, may I recommend the LDS church's new extraction program as described in the July "Ensign". Easy as cake, no pressure, just doing good. What it is, is a program you download and start up. You create an account and when you start up the program, it loads your profile. It shows the statistics of your ward, yourself, your stake. You start a batch of names and the program downloads a set of images taken from microfilms in the church's vaults. You fill in the requested pertinent information in the fields below the image, and when you're done with the set, the newly digitalized info gets submitted to the church's database and others can look it up on the family history websites. In this way, everyone can do each other's family history work, while contributing to the mass of knowledge that is out there. It takes about 30-60 minutes to do one batch, and it can be saved and resumed at any time. Read the tutorials on their website about filling in the info, very helpful.

Sociologically, the ability for each person to contribute what they know into a vast and free pool of information for all others to benefit from is an amazing miracle. If you want to know about the war of 1812, just look it up. If you would like learn how to paint with watercolors, check it out. Curious about the history of Iran and it's leaders? I was fascinated by the article written about Iran's current president who is receiving so much media attention. Naturally, with all secondhand information, take it with a grain of salt. History is only as good as the recorder and many people are out there to twist and distort the facts to their liking. But for the most part, sites like Wikipedia are a general base of information. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica isn't always right. But, again with the checks and balances, since much of the internet information is free to all, anyone can post faults and misinformation equally. Fortunately, there's guys like Virgil Griffith who create software that can be used to pin anonymous postings on the authors (like when the Exxon Valdez story gets changed by someone at Exxon Mobile). Read more here.

If the internet were a giant ocean, free to all, there would be storms, hurricanes, doldrums, and tradewinds. The high spots would eventually level out, and the low spots would be emphasized eventually. It's a living, changing thing. Very dangerous to the unwary and unprepared, but also a beautiful place worth using and beneficial to all. If you want something, you can find it and if you look for it, you will find it. But only when everyone is equally involved in the internet will it truly reflect humanity properly. (This, by the way, is also the great flaw in all forms of media: TV, movies, music, etc. they are biased towards a subset of the entire population because an even smaller subset within that one, is the group making most of it)

the above picture comes from this website http://theband.hiof.no/albums/crossing_the_great_divide.html

River Euphrates

Last night we took an excursion out onto Utah Lake. In case you didn't know there was a Utah Lake, there is, it's about an hour's drive south of the Great Salt Lake, it's freshwater, covers 96,500 acres, about 6 miles wide (east-west) and 30 miles long (north-south). The average depth is between 10-14 feet. It is the WORLD'S LARGEST PUDDLE. It has one outlet at the north, several marinas, a few hot springs, and a bunch of rivers and creeks that flow into it like the Provo River, Hobble Creek, American Fork River, and Spanish Fork River being the larger ones.

The water was a nice temperature but the color was a brownish green (probably from sediment stirred up by the winds and storm the night before). It was fun to swim in anyways, even Grace took a stint in it with me, Emily, and Grandpa or "Papa." Where we stopped out in the middle of the lake was beautiful, quiet, and amazingly peaceful. There weren't even any of the lake flies that were all over in June (they look like ginormous mosquitoes but didn't do anything except hang out). I dove down and in 10-12 feet could grab handfuls of the clay-like mud from the bottom. Emily put some on her face until she noticed the smell (I couldn't smell anything different from the water).

Easily one of the greatest things about this valley and the region is this underused and misunderstood lake. While Jordanelle Resoivoir up the canyon is overcrowded, Utah Lake is so large and sparsely used, it's not hard to get a chunk of lake to yourself (just drive out a couple miles). What I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish I had is a standup paddleboard. I emailed several companies and a few stores about supplying at least one to the school to start a club here on campus. No dice. I got one nibble, but they didn't seem to want to help out much. Bummer. The woman in charge of BYU's property at the lake was encouraging but she can't do much either. The one club on campus who would help out the most won't respond to my emails. The only way to get a cheap paddleboard or two are to buy old windsurfers and used ones, both are in SHORT SHORT SHORT supply around here (nonexistant, really). I even put a great deal of thought into building one, but don't have the cash, tools, or storage/shop to do so. I'm stuck. If anyone had any ideas, I'd be glad to listen.

My goal is to get a paddleboard and paddle across the lake and back. If I had the time and practice, I'd even try to paddle longways across the lake. That'd be sweet. We could have races with canoes and kayaks in the mix as well. There's this guy in Saratoga Springs who ran across the lake while it was frozen during January 2007. Read over his website, he's got some great pictures and good stories about his runs across the lake.

There is a coalition where representatives from each community in the county get together and discuss the lake and what needs to be done to make it nicer. They're trying to promote the healthy use of the lake and make people more aware of it. This is my two bits to add to their efforts. Mike and Kitye's friend is the rep from Woodland Hills and he and I talked a great deal about the lake.

I've got several pictures of the lake in the winter, but I'm at work and they're at home. Here's an awesome web cam of utah lake that you can control and everything, way nice.