And Another...

This week's been pretty laid back. On Monday we had FHE at Dan's and Ryan's and Trevor's. They're moving really soon, so we thought we'd have one more party there. We ended up eating burgers, playing Trivial Pursuit (which Sharolyn and I lost because everybody else kept cheating) and watching "Holes" at the same time. Holes was pretty good actually. I thought it would be lame and kind of cheesy, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Tuesday was pretty typical. Wednesday, just after I mailed my deposit check to Georgetown, I got a call from Dean Hernandez at BYU, wondering if I'd made up my mind yet. I told him I was pretty much resolved on Georgetown, and he said a few things to try to change my mind. Like he upped my scholarship offer to ½ tuition. And he pointed out that when I get done with BYU I will have the freedom to practice any type of law I want, whereas after Georgetown I'll probably be way in debt. I thanked him for his time, still pretty sure I'd go to Georgetown, but then I started to think about it. By Friday I decided that maybe BYU wouldn't be so bad after all—and besides it would be pretty easy to transfer after the first year if I decided I needed to (apparently the first year of law school is pretty transferable anywhere, as long as you're in the top 10% of your class). Hey, you could even look at it as I'm going to Georgetown, but doing my first year with BYU to save $30K in tuition. Plus it'd be nice to have some flexibility. So I emailed Dean Hernandez and asked if it would be alright for me to submit deposits to both BYU and Georgetown and then decide later. I figure I can decide as late as August for BYU, and Georgetown I have until June before I have to submit additional deposits. So I'm out $250 for the luxury of having more flexibility for a month or two. I think it's worth it.

Also, on Wednesday my laptop screen started wigging out. Well, actually it had started a little earlier, but by Thursday it became obvious that it was more than just a simple glitch that could work itself out. It seems like one of the wires is loose, so unless you position the screen just right, it turns all white. I tried to fix it myself, but I couldn't figure out how to get the screen apart without making it obvious that I had tried to get the screen apart and thus voiding my warranty. That's when I called Dell tech support. First of all, I tried to upgrade my warranty to on-site, but they wouldn't let me because I accidentally told them I had a problem before I tried to upgrade the warranty. They said I could upgrade after they fixed the problem, but for now I'd have to work under my return-to-depot warranty. Which sounds just stupid to me, because right now I'm willing to pay a premium to not have to send my computer to Dell, but after they fix the problem there really is no reason to worry about it. Anyway, after a little while of talking to them, I found a guy who I could convince I was smart enough to be able to replace the LCD assembly myself, so he overnighted the assembly. Thursday, I traded out the assembly, only it wouldn't work at all—the BIOS wouldn't even detected it. It seems to be the same part number, but it just isn't being recognized. After spending another few hours talking with Dell (I finally got to talk with a pretty reasonable guy—he was from Texas and gave me his direct phone extension so I wouldn't have to work the system anymore), they agreed to send another assembly. Friday, I got the second assembly (isn't it great that Dell overnight's things?) and it still wouldn't work. So I called up the guy from yesterday, left a message on my machine, and an hour later he called me back—not instantaneous, but better than waiting on hold and transferring forever. He had me take apart the assemblies and try interchanging pieces to see if between the 3 parts I could get one working one. I thought that was pretty cool—that's the kind of support I like. But alas, I stripped a screw and couldn't get my old assembly open. Sigh. So now I have to mail my whole laptop to Dell. He said I'll probably be without it for a week at most. So they'll send the mailer to me and it'll be here by Monday. So the lesson of this story? On-site support is probably worth it when it comes to laptops. I really didn't use it with my Inspiron 8000, except for in the end when I bled my warranty dry for new parts so the system would seem all shiny and new for Becky. But even then, Return-to-depot would have been fine. But for my current system, it really would have come in handy. I think the odds are against it coming in handy again, though.

Today a bunch of people in the ward were going over to Sharolyn's to use power tools to dig up the concrete in her backyard. Apparently, there used to be a parking lot back there, but whoever bought the house ten years ago or so just dumped six inches of dirt on it and tried to grow grass over it. Sharolyn discovered this as she tried to put in a sprinkler system a few weeks ago—they were hoping a sprinkler system would help them grow something besides weeds. But it looks like they now have a clearer picture of why nothing would grow back there. Sharolyn was pretty ticked off and wondering if she could sue someone for not telling her. Anyway, she rented a lot of heavy equipment and of course all the guys in the ward wanted to come over and help her use the equipment, but sadly I couldn't go. I had to play ultimate—I know, it's sad :). Actually, had it been anything other than a tournament, I wouldn't have gone, but today was the Daweena tournament, up ways of Ogden. We left around 9 or so (had a first round bye), and I met Neal and Kenny at the fields, but no one else met us for the carpool. After a bunch of calling, we finally got Vance to come—he'd had a late night and was sure everyone else had left already. We had both guys and girls teams going. Our team wasn't all that good; we're already missing a few people for the summer (Zach) and we couldn't get any of the non-BYU guys to go like Brady or Clint. But there were a lot of people that met us up there, and I still thought we had a decent team. Apparently, nobody at the tournament thought we had a decent team, though. We were seeded last in our pool. Our first game started out pretty well (I had a beautiful half-field inside-out to Neal that he dropped in the endzone for the first play of the game). Then we lost it. It wasn't a blow-out, but it wasn't really close either. We should have won, though. We just had a bad streak where they scored a lot in a row, and after that we kept with them. The second game was a little better—we were kind of ugly, but we pulled out a decent win. They were the fourth seed, so that wasn't too surprising. The next game was horrible. We played against Johnny Bravo, who apparently consistently place high in the nation. We actually scored the first point, and I remember thinking "that was too easy." Well, it was. They only had a couple of subs, but they barely broke a sweat, cremating us in the long run. I think our biggest problem was just a ton of drops and bad passes. It could have been a lot tighter had we not kept dropping the disc all over the place. I think everyone just freaked out. I was having a pretty decent game myself, and I wanted to scream to everyone to just give me the disc, but oh well. The team we played next was actually watching us this game and consequently thought we were a pretty bad team. So when our last game came up, they were quite shocked to watch us jump out to a pretty secure lead. They were cussing all over the place and accusing us of sandbagging (well, we're not the ones who assigned ourselves the seed). Anyways, I think we sort of lightened up and it was close in the long run. But we won. It was a pretty fun game. I thought I did pretty well throughout the day, though my defense sucked and I wasn't getting the disc as much as I would have liked. On the other hand, this was the first tournament in a long time that I participated fully in where I didn't collapse at the end due to charley horses or some sort of injury. The girls meanwhile lost every game, which is disappointing, but they say they still had fun. Afterwards, a bunch of the girls and Vance and Kenny and I (Neal went back with Don because he needed to get on the road to Philmont for the summer immediately—he had just arrived in Provo last night and had his backpack with everything he was going to live with for the summer in my trunk) went to go get Pizza at the Pie in Ogden (I've been to the one in Salt lake, but I had no idea they had franchises elsewhere). That was some good pizza. We got two large ones for about 11 people, and we still had plenty to spare. Man that felt good in my stomach after such a long day on the Frisbee field. After that I came home, showered, and just sort of collapsed for the rest of the night.

Posted 11:33 PM | Comments (1)

Daweena

BYU Occlusion Team Picture

Here's a team picture and video from our Daweena tournament today. We went 2-2.

• Pictures
• Video (38:47)

Posted 11:42 PM | Comments (1)

And Yet Another...

It's been a slow week. I really miss my laptop. Tuesday I played Frisbee and volleyball. Wednesday I went over to Lori's for a pot-luck dinner (she wants to do them every Wednesday). We also had another intramural game, which we won handily. Thursday I had my first city-league ultimate game of the season (I didn't even find out what team I was on until last night—I'm with the Reeves team. We've got some good athleticism, but we could use more experience). Friday I had lunch with Sharolyn at the Pizza Factory.

Last night I had a pretty fun date. I went out with Melanie (from Frisbee). We found a Vietnamese place near the Hale Centre Theatre up in Salt Lake, and so we ate there. It was great—much better than Saigon Café. I had com thit nuoung. I haven't had it that good since the last time I ate Vietnamese down in Austin. Then we went and watched "The Diary of Anne Frank." They did an excellent job. Very profound. I almost cried in one spot. Then we came back to Provo and played a game of pool, the winner of which had to buy the other a cup of hot chocolate at Village Inn. Somehow I lost. Oh well. The topic of travel came up, and I mentioned how I love to drive places, and that I wanted to drive to Alaska for the midnight sun and also just to say that I'd done it. She thought it was a great idea, and that we should get a group together.

Then today we had church and after it we went up to see Aunt Sharla. She's getting so much better.

Posted 11:54 PM | Comments (1)

My laptop works again

It's been a pretty busy week. Not so much with work (although the last two days of the week saw a busyness factor not seen since the 24 hour days of February), but with church, Frisbee, and social occasions.

Monday morning I found my laptop waiting for me at work. That was faster than I expected Dell to return it. Sure felt good to have it back. They returned it with the same assembly, which means they probably just replaced the main connector cable. After work, we had an FHE down at Brother Nielson's house in Payson. He has a nice backyard, which would have been really fun if not for the 70 mph winds. Seriously, it was crazy. So we all stayed inside and ate burgers and played games and talked. I lost to Andy in Ping Pong. It was so close. But anyway, I came back and exercised for two hours—over an hour on the bike. I just got distracted by the movie Geoff and his friends were watching—school of rock. Then I went to bed.

Tuesday I went in to work early so I could leave early and meet with Dean Hernandez at BYU at 4:30. We just talked about school prospects, and I guess I still am no closer to decision. Well, maybe. I'm feeling a little more comfortable with BYU now. I'm thinking I could always transfer after my first year, anyway. Then I went to play ultimate until sunset (2 ½ hours). Then we had an intramural game at 9, and we won handily, of course, practicing the H Stack all the way. The H Stack looked horrible by the way. I don't think everyone's getting it. Finally, I went and played volleyball at the church from about 9:30-11. So it was a very long night for sports. Lots of fun, but my arm ended up hurting so bad afterwards. I think the moving up a level in my lifting, plus the disc golf, plus all the playing just overextended it.

My PocketPC was waiting for me when I got into work on Wednesday morning. Apparently a cleaning lady saw my reward sign on the bathroom doors and finally figured out she needed to make an effort to return it. She had had it since last Tuesday and made no effort to find its owners. The power completely died, so I lost everything on it, but overall I'm just relieved to have it back. I was so sore Wednesday afternoon that I didn't exercise at all. Well, and there was a temple trip at 6:30. We ate pecan pie afterwards at Darcy's house. And then I came home and loaded everything back on my PocketPC (the latest backup I had was from February, so you can imagine there was a lot of work to do). Oh, and my laptop's secondary hard drive is dead. Again. That's no fun. I'm not sure if it's just another faulty hard drive, or if Dell's secondary hard drive module is to blame.

Thursday after work we had our second Orem city league game. I sprained my left ankle on the first point. I had just caught the disc while running, and then rolled the ankle as I came to a stop. It was a lame way to get injured. It's the first time I've hurt my ankle since high school, even though I've injured just about every other part of my body numerous times. Anyway, I sat out for a few points, and Jamie was kind enough to fetch me some ice. Then I couldn't take it any longer and played. My running (especially cutting) skills were somewhat diminished, but I still managed to do some damage. Not as much as newcomer to our team, Jeremy, did though. I had no idea he was on our team, but I've suddenly raised my expectations for this season. We won the game 15-11. It wasn't pretty, but it was fun. After the game I caught the last bit of Enrichment (to which the guys had been invited this month) at Jerry's house. It was an Emergency Preparedness course. I didn't pay too much attention though, because I was too busy icing my ankle. Icing my ankle did get me sympathy points from all of the girls there, though. Oh yeah, of coure there was food there, so that was good. I got way stuffed. And we watched the last few minutes of Game 5 of Lakers vs. Spurs. I can't believe Derek Fisher hit that shot. In 0.4 seconds. Seriously, there's no way you can catch the ball and get off as fundamentally sound a shot as he took in 0.4 seconds. No way. Well, enough of my whining. I have to admit it was an amazing game. That shot that Duncan hit on the botched play to Ginobli—that was as clutch as Duncan's ever been. In fact, I used that argument in my bravado when Chris called a minute later to bug me. I told him nothing's gonna stop Duncan after being that clutch. Never mind that Saturday proved me wrong. I hate the Lakers. They better win the title.

Friday was a pretty fun day. Sharolyn and I had a little picnic for lunch up in some park in Pleasant Grove. Then I had to go back to work and work frantically on documentation. We're doing a freeware version of Corda Builder next week, and that also means an update release to the core product, which means a new documentation build, which means a lot of people came up to me today saying, "oh, I added this new feature about a month ago, and maybe we should document it." Sigh. It really wasn't that much work, I guess. I got it all done by 7:30 (having started at 9, with the hour and half lunch). It was just busier than normal. This made me a little late for my date with Angela. We had a pretty fun time. We ate at Los Hermanos (we shared the fajitas, and were stuffed silly afterwards. Oh, and I had this awesome tomato based tortilla soup with shrimp and chicken and avocado. I've got to have it again sometime). Then we went to see Hidalgo, which was a pretty fun film, less so for plot than for it transporting me to a historical time and place and environment that I know little about.

Saturday morning I played Ultimate as well as I could with my ankle (I bought a brace and some wrap on the way to the game). First we had an intramural game, which we won 10-0, of course, and for which we really didn't need me. Then we played at Kiwanis, which went well except for the time someone tackled my ankle. I spent most of the afternoon cleaning house, then Mark and Krista and I dropped by Candace's reception. The only people I knew there were Candace and Kristen. Mark and Krista dragged me to another reception for a couple I didn't know in the Provo courthouse afterwards. I ate food while they talked to the couple. Which brings me to a great Saturday night activity idea for Provo—reception hopping. Then I wasted the rest of the night playing computer games and watching TV.

Today we had tons of meetings, a priesthood fireside, and ward prayer. Nothing out of the ordinary there. So that sums things up.

Posted 11:06 PM | Comments (1)

Teaching People to Throw Frisbees

I came home tonight and didn't do anything besides play games and research computer things—until Angela and Tina and Heather came by, that is. There was no FHE tonight. Patrick (Thomas) came by and hung out for a while. Then around 9, Angela and Tina and Heather came by because they wanted to play with Frisbees. So Dan and Patrick and I went with them over to the softball parks next to the pond just west of us. There was enough lighting to throw around for a bit. I taught Tina to throw a forehand. I was impressed. Then we got some ice cream from Maceys (Arctic Circle, which we tried first, was closed), and just hung out at my place until pretty late. I kind of felt guilty for keeping Angela up so long past her bedtime. It was a fun night, though.

Posted 11:23 PM | Comments (1)

Whatever you do, don't collide with Junior

Earlier today I picked up Becky and Wayne from the airport—this was after their flight had been delayed for a few hours, but they were kind enough to call and warn me. I got back from that just in time to play ultimate for a while (the ankle still doesn't feel right, but it feels better), and then to play volleyball at the church (the ankle really doesn't feel fun to jump on). Ironically, Andy sprained his ankle really bad tonight, in a collision with Junior. The wrap I had bought Saturday came in handy for that. That thing swelled up faster than anything I've seen in my entire life. Guess I should feel fortunate that my sprain isn't so bad.

Posted 11:25 PM | Comments (1)

Inaugural 2004 Sports Night

Tonight we had our ward inaugural sports night for 2004. We just played volleyball and basketball over at Luc and Ashley's house. It was some pretty good volleyball—I love playing on the sand. I think I played better volleyball than I have in years, even with my left ankle still hurting whenever I jumped off it. I also tossed around a Frisbee with Angela for a while. Then I went with Earl, Junior, Jake, and Joe to go help Kira move out of the ward. Then I stopped by Walmart and bought a lot of groceries for the first time in forever—partly so I could have stuff for all the barbeques and activities this weekend, and partly because I've been eating at home a lot more often lately. I guess I'm trying to ease myself back into the student frame of mind. Anyway, that consumed the whole night.

Posted 11:27 PM | Comments (1)

Should I get a modded Xbox?

It was a long day at work—I finished up some reviews of our comptetition. Then I went to our Orem City League game, which started at 6:45. I showed up pretty early to stretch the ankle (Rachel had given me some tips last night). We only had 4 guys and 4 girls show up. So we played 4 guys, 3 girls the entire game, with one girl rotating in. Neither Scott or Jeremy showed up, and we were playing Mike and Jon's team with tons of subs, so I thought we were goners (especially with my ankle). And it certainly looked that way with them going up 2-0 really quickly. That's when Rob suggested we throw a zone (the wind was really bad, just like it always is in Spring), which I hadn't suggested at first because I knew that most of our team had never played it before. But it actually worked. I played down in the cup most of the time, and it wasn't the best cup in the world (we always seemed to rotate a girl middle-defender into the cup as it swung), but they couldn't handle it. Plus all of our guys, especially Rob, played stellar defense. We went up 6-2. It was just really fun. We took the half 7-5 before we got tired and lost 10-8. It was kind of frustrating, because our team seemed to be dropping everything on the last few points, even my wide-open, pin-point accurate long throws to receivers who weren't being covered because of the other team's zone. But I can't complain too much, because even being down a guy (they insisted on playing 5 guys and 2 girls), it still was a very close game, and I played all out and had a lot of fun. I did turn my ankle again right before the half, which really hurt, but I was able to walk it off. And then two throws later I got tackled by Tori (accidentally of course, so that didn't help much).

Anyway, it was loads of fun, and then I came home and played around with my computer. I'm trying to fix some glitches I've been hearing on the optical out, as well as some problems with the cable and the home automation software. But so far, it hasn't been working too well. I'm thinking maybe I should just get a new one, but I don't know, it works decently and maybe I should just wait until I move out and can better evaluate my needs. Or maybe I should just get an Xbox. I've been talking to Ammon at work, who modded his, and it sounds like a pretty sweet setup. He's got tons of games for all the old emulators, including a very smoothly running Super Mario Kart 64. The only thing that his Xbox doesn't have that I want is a TV Tuner. And a modded Xbox plus hard drive only runs $200 or so, so it's cheaper than a new computer. So I've been thinking maybe I'll do that instead. Meanwhile, I've been looking at Home Theater PC software online—basically programs that run on top of your operating system, that give the system a more streamlined interface that can be navigated by remote control and viewed from far away on a TV. I think that's where I want to go with my PC, whether or not I get a new one (there's ports of this software for the Xbox as well). Actually, it kind of looks like Windows Media Center XP, except it runs on top of regular Windows XP instead of running as a separate operating system. The two that I really like are Media Portal and myHTPC. I think I like myHTPC better, just because it's more refined and has tons of plugins for TV tuners and remote controls and home automation stuff. But I like the fact that Media Portal is open source, so when it gets beyond Alpha quality I might switch to that. Except right now they require a TV tuner card with hardware MPEG2 support, which I don't have. Maybe I should just get one, because it'll be better quality anyway (since it doesn't increase the CPU load at all for time-shifting) but the cheapest version is $130, so I don't know. Especially if I get a new computer. We'll see. But I really should be responsible and save up money for school instead of spending it all before I start school.

Posted 08:30 PM | Comments (1)

Steaks taste good

I went to two BBQs today. I marinated about 9 small steaks this morning in an A1-Worcestor sauce mix. And then for lunch I ate two of them at the monthly Corda BBQ at Lindon park. Then I had a few more at Don's b-day party in the evening. They were much better in the evening, because the marinade had time to set in. I gave the rest away to party-goers. Before the evening BBQ, I should mention that we played our last regular season game against Hartman's ward. They actually scored the first point, and even went up 2-1 on us before we shut them down, 10-2. So they scored as many points as all the rest of the teams we played, combined. I played a little on my ankle, especially after they scored the second point, but not too much. I think the reason we went down had to do with some lazy D on our part (not gonna mention any names, Johnnie. Whoops.), which of course we quickly fixed. Oh, and Bryan kept throwing hammers over our cup that our middle-defenders (I'm implicating myself here) weren't stopping. Anyway, our ranking for the season was 4.75 out of 5, which earns us a "nigh undefeatable" rating (the best any other team had in any sport was 4.25), and means we'll probably be the number one seed with a first round bye. Oddly enough, I wish we weren't number one. It seems like number one seeds always get upset in tournaments. Anyway, there were probably about 15 or so people at Don's house after the game (my only complaint was there was a noticeable lack of eligible females there, Amy excepted). His house, by the way, is pretty cool. They've got a hand-built Sauna in a very old but remodeled barn in their backyard, plus a very big garden and pumpkin patch. After the BBQ we roasted marshmallows and stuff until about 10, when I left to go watch Spiderman at Sharolyn's. I had never seen it, and have to admit was pretty cool.

Posted 11:33 PM | Comments (1)

Nothing like Dutch Oven Food

I'm going to start with my chief complaint about today—I rolled my ankle again. This time, it's pretty bad. It's very swollen right now and it hurts to walk or stand on it. Yes, I know it's my fault and I should really be taking athletics a lot more slowly for a while, but that would require common sense and I have none. But I digress, there was much that happened today that didn't revolve around the ankle, including pick-up Ultimate this morning, which went pretty well once we found an open field at DT. I guess we got to Kiwanis too late or something. Anyways, it was great weather—lost of cloud cover and intermittent sprinkles, but not too cold. Maybe a little windy, but not enough to keep things from being fun. This weather lasted into the afternoon, when we had the ward BBQ at South Fork. Actually, there it was a little more extreme. It would rain pretty hard for 5 minutes, clear up for half an hour, then rain pretty hard again. But it was a rather successful BBQ. We had over 50 people there. The Bishop and his brother made some great dutch oven veggies and chicken. Not to mention my spinach salad (okay, there were other good salads there too). And then we played volleyball (with my volleyball set) and horseshoes and frisbee. Actually, I just threw around a Frisbee with Angela, Tina, and Elena. This was my mistake, because if I had been playing volleyball, I probably never would have gotten sucked into an Ultimate Frisbee challenge against another ward. The other ward had one fairly skilled player, and a lot of athleticism, whereas we didn't have as much (at least not playing Frisbee), so I felt obliged to play all out. Which would have worked had I not rolled my ankle while chasing down the disc as it rebounded off my block of a very deep pass. Oh well, at least I rolled it doing something cool this time. But for ward ultimate? I was so mad at myself. I had thought "well, this should be light and carefree" and then I go and roll my ankle. Well, I tried to keep playing for the pride of the ward, but it all went downhill. All I could do was walk. Although I did throw some pretty nice hammers to Angela, who they kept leaving wide open in the endzone. Anyway, I wasn't the only injured one on the field. Both Elena and Jared went down with ankle injuries, so if you count Andy, we were one really crippled ward at the end of the day. Afterwards, a big group of us (15 people or so) went to go see Shrek 2. Everyone says it was funnier than the first, but I think they're about even. There were some funny things, but there weren't any really pro-longed gags that had me busting my gut. Then after that we went over to Sharolyn's and sang Karaoke into the wee hours of the morning.

Posted 11:37 PM | Comments (1)

Anyone know how to motivate people to Home Teach?

It was an incredibly long day for meetings. I got up early (8:45) this morning so I could drop off some stuff for Mark at the church so he could do the lesson (all of the regular teachers are out of town). Then I stayed there and sorted out some things in my binder until our 9:45 interview with the Bishop. That ran pretty long (we got "chewed out" about Home Teaching) and then we headed up to Institute building where we had presidency meeting and then interviews with the President Walker (again, with a lot of focus on Home Teaching). Then we rushed back down for PEC, finishing with just enough time for Jake and I to grab tuna fish sandwiches at my house and eat them in less than 10 minutes before rushing back to church for Sacrament meeting. Then I had a few PPIs to do after church, after which I ran over to Angela's, who had made roast beef and potatoes, which was really good, but we had less than 20 minutes to eat them before rushing up to Stake Leadership meeting. That lasted until 7:15, and of course consisted of a number of motivational talks about Home Teaching. I dropped Angela off at her home, and then raced back home and grabbed Dan to go Home Teaching with me. We visited Erin and tried to visit Big Jake, but he was gone. This gave me thirty minutes to unwind before ward prayer. And after ward prayer we went over to Sharolyn's and watched "Ever After." Apparently this is a very big chick flick, because the girls knew all the lines, but I hadn't seen it in 5 years or more. It's a pretty good film, though. Angela stayed for the whole thing, even though it ended after midnight.

Posted 11:39 PM | Comments (1)

Maybe I'll get a new computer instead

Hmm, it's been a pretty geeky day. Other than Angela and Heather coming over for a while this evening to ask Dan and I to attend their "How to Host a Murder" party on Friday, everything I did revolved around computers. First off, in between product design meetings at work, I debated long and hard about the Xbox thing. Ammon was modding Mardell's today, so we got to see just what a modded Xbox can do. This prompted Gary to go buy one for $130 from a store just down the street, and we started modding this as well. Kyle and I both debated long and hard about joining the crowd, but in the long run I decided the interface wasn't as slick as I would like it, and the Mario Kart 64 game didn't run as smoothly as I needed it to run. Plus, it didn't have optical out and only had S-Video out, so I'd have to watch it on my projector all the time, or get a new TV. Basically, I decided it'd be fun, but that the $200 would be better spent going towards a new and quiet, mini HTPC. So I did a lot of research on that this evening. I've decided upon a Shuttle ST61G4, with a P4 processor (I feel like I've just sold out or something for not getting an Athlon). It was rated at 47dB, which was quieter than all but the Shuttle Zen. But the Shuttle Zen didn't have an AGP slot, and I was a little concerned that the onboard graphics wouldn't be good enough. Meanwhile, I'm going to hold off on memory. I'll see if my single 512MB DDR333 DIMM is good enough for now, and if not, I guess I'll spend another $200 on matching DDR400 512MB DIMMs. But if I can save $200, and then upgrade later, I think that's what I'd rather do. The barebone system plus processor will run me about $450, and then I think I'll add a 40GB hard drive so I can put together an 80GB Raid0+1 array on my current system, and use that as a server / backup storage machine. And I think I'll do it now, because I know myself and I'll keep looking at it and eventually give in anyways, so why waste the time. Besides, if I don't do it now, there's no way I'll have the money to do it in law school :). Now, I'm just wondering how much I can sell my current projector for, and if it's enough to justify getting a very silent and much brighter Dell projector. It'd be really nice to have a DLP projector to handle darker movies better.

Posted 11:42 PM | Comments (1)

Grandpa Rees died

Grandpa Rees died today. It wasn't much of a shock, because we had been expecting it of course. Mom called in the middle of the afternoon and left a message (we've been in a perpetual design meeting the last two days for our new product), and I called her back around 4 or so and she gave me the news. I guess I'm not too affected by it, since we've been expecting it for over a year it seems. Obviously dad and the aunts and uncles were pretty affected by it, though. I think the closest I came to tears was talking to dad on the phone, as he was talking about giving Grandpa a blessing on Sunday, and trying to figure out what the Lord wanted him to say. (He had come to Odessa over the weekend because of Grandpa's condition, and ended up staying). It made me think, some day I'll have this same conversation with my children, and what will I say. Or some day I'll be doing the same thing for my father. It was a touching moment, something I'll have to write a poem about.

So I think I'll be going to the funeral. They're thinking it'll be next Tuesday (so that Joel can come from Japan, and so that it's not on Sunday or Memorial Day), and dad wants Sharla to come, but she probably can't handle the drive, and isn't very comfortable with planes, so I kind of volunteered to go on the plane with her. We're just waiting for an official word on the date so we can buy tickets (which are going to be pretty expensive of course—in the neighborhood of $500, even with bereavement). If they could have done it Monday (Memorial Day), I could have gotten tickets to Dallas for only $200.

Anyway, in spite of that it was a pretty normal day. Except I've decided not to play anything for a while because of my ankle. The ankle is really frustrating, by the way. I haven't been able to work out for over a week, and I'm worried that I'll lose all my conditioning and all the weight I had worked off will come back (I'm hovering around 193 now, thanks to tri-weekly workouts at night while I'm watching TV, as well as a little self-control when it comes to lunch and dinner). I guess I could still lift weights, but I have a hard time motivating myself to do that when I can't do the rest of the training.

I went fellowshipping and we visited a lot of our ward in the Boulder's apartment area (actually, we just found out that a number of them have moved). Then I did miscellanous paperwork type stuff while watching everyone else enjoy volleyball at the church until 9:30 or so, when I took Heidi home and then went home myself. Then I made a number of phone calls (church business, talking to Aunt Sharla, etc) before calling it a night (I need to get up early tomorrow to run a training class at our office).

Oh yeah, I bought the parts for the new computer (shortly before I found out about Grandpa). So I probably won't see them until after I get back from the funeral, but I'm kind of hoping they'll arrive Friday so I can play around with them a little bit.

Posted 11:45 PM | Comments (1)

Making plans to go to the funeral

I taught a training class at work today. It was actually nowhere near as stressful as I was anticipating. I did some of the slides, but for the most part it was a pretty impromptu thing. It flowed very well and quickly, mostly because the two guys in the class were pretty smart. Anyway, after that I went to ward sports night for a little while, but I didn't play, of course. It was so tempting. The sand volleyball looked nice and refreshing. Then I went over to Becky's and Wayne's new place in Springville. The outside of the building looked a little old, but the inside of their apartment was nice and spacious. And they have a nice balcony, with a big park-like area behind the house. Hobble Creek even runs through it. Camille was there, and we ate pizza and salad. Then we played a rather rousing card game called Twitch. I didn't think I'd like it at first, because it's all about being able to think quickly and I don't really like those kind of card games. But it proved to be quite the hilariously confusing game. I ended up winning a good plurality of the games. We finished around 10 or so, and I gave Camille a ride back to Provo. Then I spent the remainder of the night trying to figure out what to do about Grandpa's funeral. I think we aren't going to fly after all. Aunt Sharla has friends who are going down there with a station wagon, so she'll just lie in the back of that while they drive. Then Becky and Wayne and I will caravan with them down to Odessa on Sunday, then hurry back after the funeral on Tuesday. Hopefully, we'll be back around 8 or so Wednesday morning. It's not the way I like to travel, doing the trip so fast like that, but it means that Becky and Wayne will be able to come. Most of the extended family will be there, actually. Of us siblings, I expect only Chris and Katie will be absent (because of final exams). All the Aunt's and Uncles will be there—except maybe Ginette. And then I'm hoping most of the cousins will be there as well. It'll be one big family reunion. I wish it were a happier occasion.

Posted 08:47 PM | Comments (1)

Vance plays killer D

Not much to report on today. I was supposed to teach part 2 of the training class at work today, but the guy I was supposed to train had a family emergency, so I just did miscellaneous things at work all day. Our city league game tonight was pretty fun. I put on the brace, took a lot of ibuprofen, did a lot of running/stretching before the game, and decided to play. Thankfully, I didn't roll my ankle. I was nowhere near 100%, partly because of the ankle, and partly because I haven't exercised in a week (also on account of the ankle). But we did pretty well. We had 2 guy subs for the first half (but only one for the second). And we had plenty of girls. We were playing Sam's and Vance's team, which has a lot of guys from the Kiwanis scene, but all and all I think we were pretty evenly matched (a little more athleticism and height, whereas they had the experience). After getting behind early, we took the half 8-7. Then we started to show wear and tear and lost 15-12. There were two frustrating things about the game. First of all, Vance took me on defense most of the time, which made it harder for my teammates to get me the disc. Secondly, my teammates misread 5 or 6 of my deep throws that would have been easy scores for more experienced receivers. I need to play more with them so they can get a better idea of where the disc will go, especially on an outside-in curve. And I should also probably figure out my receivers a little better so I know when to resist a throw. But one positive was our deep game. I hate to say this, but I think our deep game is going to be key to winning. We have a lot of hops and height, and not so much a short game. Anyway, it was fun. And then I came home and did chores and stuff all night.

Posted 11:50 PM | Comments (1)

Angela was the murderer

Tonight was Angela's "How to Host a Murder" dinner party. It was lots of fun. We all dressed up and met at Angela's around 7:00. It was Angela, Tina, Heather, Elena, Jake A., Jared C., Dan, and I. The girls were decked out in formal attire and looked great (I assume the guys looked great as well, but who am I to notice). The lasagna, sparkling cider, and cheesecake were all yummy. Highlights of the evening included me turning out to be Angela's daughter and Tina's half-sister, Dan and Jake going at it about Jake's competence to run a company, Jake and Heather having a secret affair, Jared and Tina plotting to bomb the apartment, me calling Heather a slut, and all of us at some point in time plotting to murder our host (Angela was the one who succeeded). We all really got into our roles. Tons of fun. And then Dan and I stayed over at Angela's and watched "Whale Rider." It was a pretty good flick, although I had such high expectations of it that I was little let down. I'm not sure why, as it was definitely one of the better movies I've seen lately. That ended around 1:00, and then I came home.

Posted 11:52 PM | Comments (1)

Building a new PC

I really didn't get much accomplished today. Didn't even pack for tomorrow. The most I can say in that regard is that I did my laundry. We did help Cheryl move back into the ward this morning at 8:30. Bill, Dan, Wyatt, Shane, Lori, Jake, Joe, and Lindsay all showed up and we finished in about 2½ hours. There wasn't a lot to move, but some people showed up late and/or left early, plus we only had one truck for the first hour. After that I went to play Frisbee at Kiwanis. There were a lot of newer people there today, which meant it was a pretty sloppy affair. Add my ankle to the equation, and I hardly broke a sweat. The game ended by 12:30, and I came back home where I lifted weights and stuff (nothing aerobic though). It's been a while since I lifted. I did various chores (like rearranging downstairs, now that Mark's band is gone). Then I drove up to get a haircut from Heather. She was full on appointments until 4:15, so I had a tuna sandwich at Sensuous Sandwiches next door (sadly, Julene wasn't working today), and then I decided to go up to the FedEx depot in Orem and see if they had my packages. The internet indicated that one package was in Orem, and one had been loaded on a truck in SLC last night, so I thought it'd be worth a shot. I don't know if they were bored or just really kind, but the people there were kind enough to look for my packages. One turned out to still be on a truck in SLC, but I did get the package with the Shuttle barebone system in it. I also learned a lot about how FedEx works. Anyways, I then went to a local computer store and borrowed a cheap processor (well, more like I bought it and will be returning it for a refund when I get the Pentium 4 processor on Wednesday). Then I came home and spent the rest of the evening testing out the new system. After a bios update and a strategic relocation of masking tape inside the case where a screw was touching and inconvenient part of the case, the system works great. It's very quiet. In fact, the fan for my Radeon 8500 video card is the noisiest component. I was hoping the onboard graphics would be good enough for me, but the Radeon 8500 fares 3 times better so I think I'll go with that instead. So I'll have to figure out how to quiet the 8500. Oh, and the front USB panel's not working. I'll have to take it apart and see if it's something simple like a disconnected cable. Other than that, everything works fine. I'll wait till I get the processor next week before I do a final installation and post some benchmarks.

Posted 11:10 PM | Comments (1)

The Road to Odessa

Well, we're on the long road Texas. But not before a ton of meetings this morning. I got up at 9:00 and started getting ready, and then had a home teaching appointment with Scott at 10:00. Then I had half an hour to make breakfast (I had bacon and eggs and toast—certainly the biggest breakfast I've cooked in a while, but I had bacon I wanted to get rid of). Then I went to presidency meeting at 11:00, followed by a somewhat impromptu PEC with Lori and Dave (our new ward mission leader). We basically went through our rolls trying to figure out who's gone and who we need to try to find. I excused myself from that at 12:30, and came home to pack and clean out my car. I finished all that just in time for church at 1:30, and I left church right after the sacrament to pick up Becky and Wayne at their house. Then we waited for Sharla (who's riding with old family friends—the Abrams) at a gas station off I-15 in Springville. They were a little late, and we didn't get started until about 3:00. We caravanned with them until 9:00, when we reached Farmington. They decided to stay there for the night, while we decided we were night people and wouldn't be very good for driving early tomorrow morning (plus, we wanted a little more time to spend with the family since we're leaving right after the funeral on Tuesday). So we kept on going, stopping for some dinner at Sonic. We've got Oliver Twist on CD to keep us awake, so I think we'll do just fine. I like driving in New Mexico at night. It's so quiet and there's a full moon and no one's on the road at all.

Posted 09:15 PM | Comments (1)

A Happy Family Reunion

The drive into Odessa was mostly uneventful—except for when we were in Roswell in the middle of the night and we were stopped looking at a map amd the cops came by and asked if they could helps us. We asked if they knew where they was a restroom, and then they let us use the restroom in the police station. That was kind of fun. I've said this before, but I really like driving. Especially in the west. Something about the open road and the landscape. It's just amazing to think how long the landscape has been there, and how many people and animals, even in this desert, have stood in the same spot where we now stand. And then you start to think even more about the eons it took for that landscape to form—how a long time ago it was probably under water. And then you start to think about how your parents and grandparents once encountered this place. And then you start to think about how things will be for your children—how they might travel this road and it might be ever so slightly different, but at the same time, it will be much the same experience repeated all over again. And then you start to think about how the landscape will be eons from now. It really starts to put the temporality of human life in its place. We think we're really important in the grand scheme of things, but in reality we're much less important than we think. It's the human race that has everlasting relation with the land, each new generation repeating and perpetuating the experience. It seemed, for an instant, that I could sense grandpa's presence out there, as if he were part of that landscape, hiding somehow in the history of it. He was looking at me, partly in awe of how his seed multiplied and kept going in me and my siblings, partly in anxiety, wondering how long it would go on after me. I don't know how to describe what I'm saying. It just made me long to have my own children, to be a part of the process. It was quite an interesting sensation.

Anyway, we got into Odessa early (around 8 or 9), chatted briefly with dad and Grandma and Joel and Laurie, and then slept for about 4 hours. Then Raelyn and her kids arrived, and then mom and Bryan came over from their hotel, and Amy and Susie arrived, and before you knew it, it was a big happy reunion. It's been a long time since we had so much family in the same spot. And just seeing all that family together, knowing how Grandpa's influence goes on and how he was smiling down on his family even at that moment turned what could have been a very sad occasion into a happy one. We had pizza for dinner, and then went to Grandpa's viewing (where we also ran into Grandma and Grandpa Nissen). I didn't look in the coffin the whole evening. For some reason I'm just not comfortable with that. It was amazing how many people came to say goodbye. Students of his from a long time ago saw the obituary and came to pay their respects. After the viewing, we went back to the house briefly, and then most of our family (except for dad) went to the hotel, where we chatted and I even worked out with Bryan a bit before calling it a night.

Posted 11:19 PM | Comments (1)

Grandma and Grandpa Rees' House

Grandma and Grandpa Rees' House

I just thought it'd be a good idea to take some photographs and video of Grandma and Grandpa Rees' house in Odessa. I have such fond memories of it as a kid. This will help me remember it more.

• Pictures
• Video (3:16)

Posted 11:50 PM | Comments (1)