Temple

So today I went to the temple before work.  I caught the 5:30 session.  It was nice.  The only bad part was the round trip drive of about 40 minutes. 

The nice part is that going to the temple to start the day is pretty invigorating and I feel like I can accomplish about anything currently.  I have a lot of work to do in the next while, so I am pretty happy I feel good. 

It was interesting that this morning there were about 15 men and 4 women at the temple.  When my wife goes usually she tells me it is the opposite of that.  Interesting how that works!

Frustration at Work

Well I am getting frustrated.  Today just with trying to do some statistical analysis.  The problem may be that I just can actually do it at all.  I may not have the number of samples that I need to run the stats. 

The frustration is starting on something that I can't figure out just before I go home.  When this happens I basically think about it and get bothered by it until I can figure it out.  My mind just can't let some things go.  This frequently drives me bonkers. 

Today I am going to solve this problem by going home and playing with cars and trucks with my kids.  That should help me get the frustration out...

Friday and Hotwings

Wow!  Friday at last.  I am glad it is here.  I have been sweating my brain out all day on my thesis and trying to figure out my data.  Argh!  It isn't do bad, but wow it is hard to figure out what the dirt is telling me.  I generally get the message that dirt is bad for me...

I am really excited that it is friday and the end of the day because my wife and I are going for a night on the town.  We are going to a wing place to watch the Olympics and eat some of our favorite critters (hot wings of course!).  We even got a sitter so it is us and the kids will be at home!  Anyway, things are looking good for tonight.  Our baby sitter may be good enough to even have the kids in bed when we get home.  That would be really awesome!

Today on the way to work I rode my bike to a park to try and photograph some birds.  I didn't have a specific target, but hope for some birds in general to be available for shooting.  I got a Black and White Warbler and not much else.  Good times none the less.  Going that route makes the ride to work 9 miles instead of 2.6.  That felt good.  I do kind of wish I had a road bike instead of the mountain bike.  This bike is so heavy sometimes.  I guess that is life...

Maybe I should eat fewer hotwings... I might start that next week!

Saturdays

I love Saturdays.  Today we went to the park on bikes.  We chose the park 5 miles away.  It was a good ride pulling the kids.  Alison rode it like a pro, I think I went to slow for her liking.

Then we had lunch, and haircuts.  I needed it pretty bad.  Zach kind of needed one so we did it.  It was is best ever as far as being patient and relaxing for the entire process. 

Later Alison went to the temple and I did some house work, school work and played with the kids.  It was good overall.  Now we are just lounging around with the kids in bed and not knowing what to do with ourselves and yes, tired!

Almost done...

So I am getting closer.  I have about accomplished my Laboratory work for my project.  I have about finished my statistical analysis.  I have done a fair bit of writing.  Wow, I think this means that I am basically almost all done.  I am starting to get chills up my spine!  The hair is sticking up on the back of my neck!  This is awesome!

Last night we went to dinner and got ice cream.  It was pretty funny.  We went and got Chinese and all the people that worked there were Spanish.  We walked in and got the "ola!"  I had to laugh.  My kids had fun.  Eat what they want and throw the rest on the floor.  Andrea was eating about everything we offered.  She had decided that for lunch she wasn't really interested in any tuna fish sandwich.  Well she is one. 

When we got ice cream she was so excited that she would scream and put her hand on her mouth and basically tell us to put the ice cream in there, and soon please!  It was quite the scene.  I enjoyed that. 

Then we went to our friends the Beamers from our old ward and some of their kids had left a lot of stuff when they moved and gave it to us or DI.  There were kids toys that went beyond what I would ever buy.  The best part was that they came in boy and girl versions.  Chairs, little carts, lots of fun things.

Zach had so much fun that he could go to sleep because he was playing constantly with new thing after new thing.  He would get up to get a drink or for the bathroom and be like "oh, what a nice little toy you look like..." and be off again.  Wow I am amazed he went to sleep at all!

Anniversary

Yesterday and my wife celebrated 4 years of marriage!  Wow it was awesome. I mean the last 4 year have been awesome.  Things are really good.  I am glad that I have Alison.  It is even more surprising to think I have actually been married for four years, have 2 children and a ton of other things have come about in my life.  I am a lucky person.  It is true that most of the good things that have come into my life have been because of her!

SEM

Today for my thesis I went and worked on my samples and looked at them with a scanning electron microscope.  It is a fun tool to use.  I magnifies things up to 300,000 times.  WOW!  Anyway, it is pretty awesome.  Also after you look at a bunch of dirt samples, you basically have seen the interesting things and are having to do the same thing to all the samples. 

One cool thing about this process is that you coat the sample with gold.  Don't worry, it is about 2 atoms thick.  So not much there, and almost invisible.  It is fun to learn how to use all these different machines.  I have used some machines that cost more than an average house, most of the time the price tag on the instrument is enough to compare to a new Mercedes (around 50K or so i guess).  And they let me use these things.  Fun times!

Testing...

I have been having troubles with this blog, and am seeing if I have it fixed.  Maybe this does it.

Microscope Work

Today for my thesis I went and worked on my samples and looked at them with a scanning electron microscope.  It is a fun tool to use.  I magnifies things up to 300,000 times.  WOW!  Anyway, it is pretty awesome.  Also after you look at a bunch of dirt samples, you basically have seen the interesting things and are having to do the same thing to all the samples. 

One cool thing about this process is that you coat the sample with gold.  Don't worry, it is about 2 atoms thick.  So not much there, and almost invisible.  It is fun to learn how to use all these different machines.  I have used some machines that cost more than an average house, most of the time the price tag on the instrument is enough to compare to a new Mercedes (around 50K or so i guess).  And they let me use these things.  Fun times!

4 years...

Yesterday and my wife celebrated 4 years of marriage!  Wow it was awesome. I mean the last 4 year have been awesome.  Things are really good.  I am glad that I have Alison.  It is even more surprising to think I have actually been married for four years, have 2 children and a ton of other things have come about in my life.  I am a lucky person.  It is true that most of the good things that have come into my life have been because of her!

Best Day Yet...

So today, 4 years ago I was getting ready to get married.  Wow. 

Today I spent all day with my family.  I really love Saturdays.  Life is so good.  I played with my kids all day.  I read books, colored, ate junk food, and went swimming.  What an amazing day. 

Alison feels bad for me that I didn't get to do anything that I wanted to do.  Well I actually got to do what I wanted.  It was so nice!  Today it finally seemed like my family was home from vacation.  The first part of this week, I just worked a lot and the kids usually go to be about 2 hours after I get home.  Which is really good and bad.  I see them very little, but they actually get the rest that they need and want (though often they may not know it).

So Saturday was amazing today.

We also went to an adult meeting with Elder Hales.  He is one of the apostles.  We had to take the kids, but the meeting was amazing.  At least what we were able to hear.  The kids were pretty good, just at the end they got really restless.  But they were quite.  So the people around us weren't bothered, but we could pay attention much because they were "quietly" wiggling.  I guess Zach as well said that unless Alison kept drawing trains with all his favorite people in them he would not be quite.  Poor Alison.

It was a really good day.  Except now at 10 pm, I am really hungry.  Argh...

Productive!

So I started keeping track of what I do each 15 minutes of the day to help increase productivity.  It has opened my eyes to where my time slips by.  Wow.  I am really amazed.  Yesterday I let an hour waste away, today I am probably going to only waste 10 minutes. 

A problem with this is that there is so dawdling!  The day at times takes forever to go buy and other times it seems to fly.  I guess this is the world of productivity.  I am experiencing what happens when you step up to the plate with the big boys!

What I'm Moving?

So at work we are moving offices and packing up equipment.  I have talked and complained about this before.  Well today there are a few people that are really being stupid about this whole situation.  There is a separate branch that shares our building with us and they are trying to get us to do all their work of moving things.  It is kind of pathetic.  Oh well.  Today I figured out how to build a box to cover one of their machines so that it will be protected while they are out of the building because they don't want to move it.  Tomorrow I am going to actually build it.  They wanted it today, but my branch manager said I shouldn't build it at all.  Well I figured I could at least do that...plus I get to use power tools.  I guess that is the real reason I am doing it.  I get the pseudo manly feelings of using power tools (you don't really use muscles besides fingers really) for a day.  It will be great!

I am also getting closer to getting my samples finished.  I am so happy.  Maybe next week I will be able to finish everything.  I will try, but not hold my breath...I have learned that setbacks and problems are a constant in life!

Mission Anniversary...

I just realized that I have been home from my mission for 6 years now.  That is a while.  I thought at times the mission would never be over.  I would never get married.  I guess I will someday start to think that the kids will never leave the house or something like that!

Moving...

So I moved house with Alison back in April.  It was a huge pain.  In the end it was worth it.  At the same time I started a new job with the EPA that will last for two years.  Again quite interesting but the problem is I started with them right when it was time to move office because the building needed some main air system maintenance. It will take 7 months and they all have to move everything out of the building.  Offices, storage, and lab equipment.  Anything they want access to.  So for the last few months I have spent a good portion of my time trying to get things moved rather than doing much science.  This is quite annoying.  Argh.

Today is one of the last days that we are in the new building and we are facing the problem that there are a few people that are basically refusing to move a few things and letting the moving coordinator try and deal with all the problems.  So because of my position as a student help/intern whatever, I get to help with, guess what? Whatever.  So I am getting to deal with trying to moving small miscellaneous things and cleaning up these peoples labs that just didn't do anything tell now.  What a pain in the areas where pains go frequently. 

With all this going on I am lucky that I am now working on a new process that will help me finish my samples and also gives me the excuse of "no sorry, I have some things I am working on.  I can't Bail you out!"  It is nice, and luckily not to mean...

Anyway, back to work...

ICP-MS

So this week I am trying to learn how to use a new scientific testing machine.  Thing.  It is called an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer.  What does this thing do?  Well it turn a noble gas into a flow of liquid plasma that heats at above 10,000 Fahrenheit and tells you what elements are in your sample down to 1 part per trillion.  This is very finite. 

This would mean that if you had a million ton sample of dirt it could tell you accurately how many grams of arsenic, or selenium, or whatever elements you would like to see are in it.  This does of course assume that you have a homogeneous sample.  Needless to say it is a complicated process that is interesting and confusing.

This other thing that I dealt with today is that when you do this process, you have to was everything quite extensively.  So that you don't have a fingerprint of some teeny tiny bit of something mess up your results.  So I was washing and rewashing things today for several hours.  Now they are soaking in acid to get anything that might have tried to stay on the jars and bottles. 

The process is interesting and I am excited about it and best of all it will help me get done very soon! I hope.  I guess we will see what happens!  I think it should work out, in the proper time frame is the question...

Back Again...

I am back in Vegas again with my wife and kids this time.  After our trip coming home without the children and wife was really surreal.  It was so quite that I got very lonely.  I tried not to look in the kids room because I really missed them when I saw their cute little empty beds. 

Now I have them back.  On the way home Zach was pretty funny.  He kept saying he wanted to go to Grandma's house.  I feel for him.  I wanted to go back and hang out with them as well.  I was feeling that so bad that I really wanted to go back to Provo and go house shopping!

I have to give myself some credit, there is a really cool house just around the corner from Alison's parents house that seems about what we want.  Close to grand parents, by the river trail, but not in either of our parents wards (this helps us be our own persons).  The other enticing thing is that the house has been on the market for a while now and been sold several times in the last few years.  So if there is nothing wrong with the house then we would be the greatest people to get it settled down.  It was also built in the last 15 years, so it isn't so old.  The other part that gets me excited is that it is already basically landscaped how I would prefer it to be.  There would be like no work! Holy amazing opportunity! 

Okay enough with that...

The problem with that is that I would be needing a job to be able to actually buy the house.  So that is the next step, a job in Provo or surrounding area somewhere.  I am thinking though that is where I want to be with my family so I will move there in April next year or the year after and just work on finding a job to make things happen how we want them to.  The other issue is that I would like to spend a year in Ruby Valley.  I guess that is something I will have to think about...

Alone...

Well I am home alone lately.  Alison after being in Yosemite with me and her parents went home with her parents to hang out with them for a few weeks.  She is having a good time and I am missing her.  She misses me as well but gets to hang out with family and have a great time.  I am having a pretty productive week hanging out and working.  At first I was really having a great time with quite and being able to work on stuff.  Then after 5 minutes I was basically ready to have them back.  Oh well.

I am really proud of my wife though.  Usually in Vegas we have about 12 weeks of weather that is just really hot.  And about 6 weeks of that is really really hot!  That is days are usually 110 or hotter.  Nights get down to the 90's and if your lucky the 80's.  She is a smooth planner and is getting to spend about 4 weeks of those 6 hot week out of town in places far more bearable...Good Job!

Anyway, I am going to get me wife and kids this weekend and drag them back to the hum drum of Vegas.  Sorry!

Bowling

So last night I went Bowling for a birthday party of a friends child.  It was fun and brought back old memories.  My buddy Carl and I seemed to do a bit of bowling, and I took a bowling class with him as well. 

I also had a stark rememberence that bowling definitely will hurt my wrist.  I am pretty sure I am prone to carpal tunnel problems and bowling is no help. 

The funny thing about the whole night was that I bowled a 114 and had a strike and 2 spares.  The funny part is that I missed 7 spares (I only had 2 or 1 pins to hit 7 times), but one of the 2 I picked up was an 8 10 split (I think that is what it is called).  So not the 7-10 split, but almost as bad.  I hit it like a pro.  I got cocky and then missed the next 7 frames for spares.  To redeem myself I hit one in the 10th.  Oh well.  It was fun.

This party also reminded me that Junk food is terrible because you eat it and you want to just eat more and more.  It is almost as bad as popcorn.  Pizza, especially junky pizza is just hard to not eat continually.  Oh well...

Worlds Best Photographer?

So I went down town yesterday and photographed some of the Vegas strip.  There is some cool architecture and things that can make a nice picture if you can wade through the junk.  One of the pictures I took can be seen here... http://hiddenlightphotography.com/dailypicture/?p=13

Anyway, the point of this post is that when I was down town I found a photography gallery that hadn't quite noticed before.  I won't mention names because I think it wasn't too impressive and here is why...

I heard and saw on signs many times "he is the best photographer on the planet"...  It seemed to be the catch phrase of all the reps.  That was really annoying.  I mean if you have to say it is it true?

The other thing he did was with his pictures he went way overboard on the pictures post production.  They say it is all natural in every way.  Sadly I have used the camera, film and tripod (I am thinking even the tripod which is funny) he uses and I have never gotten results like that without heavy filtration and Photoshop work.   I have as well visited locations many times to get the best photo possible so that really isn't an option to say I haven't done.  So really that was disappointing.

What really was going on was way heavy marketing and sales.  The sales staff were such vultures that they say me and already had several big spenders in their midst and so I nefver even got a welcome to the gallery.

The other thing that bothered my was that it looked like he was trying to copy the crocodile hunter image...argh...

Anyway, some images were good, but most were falsely dramatic because of the panoramic format he favors.  It is a great format, but most people don't regularly see it so it is quite impressive when you do have it presented to you...

That is my thoughts on that...In the end though I guess I would maybe try and do the same thing as far as running the gallery.  Sales need to be made...

Computer Woes

Well I guess my time is about due.  I think that I have finally earned what is coming.  For my last 6 years of active computing I have never gotten a virus, or had a computer problem.  This is a big reason that I don't see what the big deal is with people being excited about apple computers.  They supposedly do so much better at managing data and blah blah, but I have never really had problems.  Oh well.

I guess my biggest problem currently is that I bought a new hard drive to back up what I currently had for a 13 day trip of photography.  Well things went fine one the trip but now that I am coming home and trying to get the data off onto my back up drives things aren't so peachy.  I can read the files and manipulate them, but I can't copy things on or off of it.  Why?  I am totally confused as to why.  Argh!  I just succeeded is getting all of my Yosemite pictures (except for about 25 of 7000) off the drive and so I can rest well in that category.  But now I wonder can I do anything for the drive?  Is it doomed forever?  I am not understanding why some files became corrupt and others are fine.  I am very frustrated.

Anyway, this issue with computers only adds to my frustration because I also am having trouble with itunes (a big reason I am not so excited about apple).  For some reason it won't recognize the folder where the songs are supposed to be.  Why?  Who knows.  Argh again.  Above all this I am trying to do the statistical analysis on my thesis data and I don't understand a thing.  About the statistics.  I have some good people that can help me tomarrow, but that was a frustrating day trying to figure out what I am supposed to do with the data.  I think that the program I have that does the data stuff is poor setup.  Optimally will drive you crazy if you know what I mean!

Anyway, that is the story for now.  I will see what happens tomorrow.  I am headed home to go downtown and see what photographic things I may be able to find.  Maybe there is something for me here in Vegas...probably not.