My Thoughts, Ideas, Experiences and Whatever Else...

New year...

2011-01-11T23:08:00.001-08:00

Wow I don't write for a while and so much changes.

I bought a house in Las Vegas, Had a 4th baby, and barely traveled in 2010. Probably a few small factors related to why I didn't write much!

So I have been working on some small sites lately on the internet that are all focused on a single product and term. It is interesting to see what is out there! I have been struggling for a while to get traffic to these little sites and tonight I realized that a big part of my research has been focused on things that will mean my conclusions are all off based. Wow. There is a few months wasted. Dang. It is late at night and I am wondering what is the freaking point? Success feels like it is going to be further away than ever before. I am just not sure what to do. Well the truth is that I want to keep trucking and make things work. I just don't want to try and think about that tonight!

I have to remind myself in light of big disappointments that long term success is riddled with disappointments. I just need to keep moving forward towards the overall goal that will lead me to the success that I desire! I just need to remember that making decisions with disapointment as my outlook is going to be a big mistake! Have a clear and composed head and things will begin to make sense and the right decisions can be made.

Dang man, months wasted! Well I guess I know what I what, just not exactly how to get there just yet. Things are still looking up and up, I know what I want and I have the opportunity to work towards it. I am also learning and becoming a much better person along the way. That is a blessing that I can't forget about!

Teton Pictures

2009-10-14T05:56:00.001-07:00

Well I am sadly just now starting to really work on the pictures I took in the Grand Tetons. It does get a bit hectic when you are sick, have three kids, a beautiful wife (she actually makes everything better so she isn't actually a part of the hectic list...I just want to spend all my time with here!), and a job that pays well but does require a bit more effort because it is a little bit better!

Anyway, I am just now going to pic out the select pics and start editing. The frustrating thing is that I will have a bit more editing because of dust spots. Oh well! Anyway, things are good, and my little 44 days project I am excited about. For the next 44 days I am going to focus all my extra time and effort on building my business, improving my health (I am actually quite healthy according to lab tests, feeling strong and powerful is the goal), and improving my writing. I am writing down my goals elsewhere but this is day one and things are looking good so far!

Sick again...

2009-10-13T22:23:00.001-07:00

Well it seems that everytime the weather changes I get sick. I don't honestly understand why or how this happens. I was feeling healthy and then bam! I am getting sick with a sore throat and cold. Perhaps part of it is that I had to ride the bike about 16 miles this morning in suddenly cold weather. Argh. The ride was nice but the weather wasn't. I guess I have got to deal with these things however they come. I think having three kids really adds to the effect. At least they aren't sick. They all basically had what we do, and gave it to Alison and then me. I guess that is just part of being a parent...you get all the little presents your kids can come up with for you. Even the ones that they make themselves!

On our way...

2009-09-23T14:32:00.001-07:00

My family and I are on the way towards another adventure! I am pretty excited as usual. We are headed up to provo and then the tetons, and back to provo then back to vegas. This is going to be pretty nice. I have found several places to shoot that I haven't before and a few that I have. I am excited.

We are also canning some food and That gets the chills going up the spine as well! PEaches, Soup Mix, Beans and some other tomato products hopefully.

Anyway, work is almost done for the day and month! I have just a few more things to mix, cool and let sit for a few weeks!

Okay that is all for now, but I will be on in provo!

Chris

Fwd: Bike and Sore Knees

2009-09-21T15:07:00.001-07:00

I have discovered that I have really sore knees lately! I am pretty sure it is from riding a bike that just doesn't fit me. It is so aggravating. Mentally and now physically. My wife tells me to just go and get a new one. I don't want to spend the money. Well I guess if buying a bike keeps me from buying a new car it is really worth it to buy a nice bike to commute on.

I still haven't talked myself into it. I think it is mostly that I don't want to spend my money on something like that just yet. Funny that I will drop cash in a flash on some things like camera gear or almost anything my wife will let me buy her. I am glad that I have restraint in some places at least. That is nice. Now I just need to not focus on the places that I have no restraint, ignore them and only think about the places I don't want to spend money. Then I will keep money in my account for a while longer at least!

Okay, I am heading home. Tonight I am going to the temple with my wife. I am pretty excited about this. I love going with her. Lately we have had a plethora of people tending for us and it has been nice to be able to get out with my wife and do stuff with just her. The kids are great but they have us all the time!

Anyway, I am out. Hopefully the knees will make it a while longer...

More Work!

2009-09-21T15:06:00.003-07:00

Today I found out about the new job posting that my boss created for me. I hope that it works out well. I mean I hope that I get it, and can support my family. That is the plan, but I guess we will see if things go according to my plan and that of my boss's. It would sure be nice, and make things really convienent in supporting my family. That is my main goal. I can't imagine my family not having what they need. Well I honestly can, and don't really want to do that.

The job is basically the same position I have currently, and would be a raise of 8 dollars an hour. That will be really nice. That will make paying off debt especially easier. That is a big thing my wife and I are trying to do currently. We will see if we can meet our goal of being out of debt by December of 2011. That is a while away, but we have a pretty be pile.

Now I am headed off to try and fix a machine for my old professor at the DRI. That seems to be going okay at the time being, but you never know what trials you will face when your dealing with the unknown.

Valley of Fire

2009-09-21T15:06:00.001-07:00

Tonight I am going out for some night photography at the Valley of Fire State park near Vegas. I have wanted to head out for some time, so I am going tonight. My wife is pretty loving. Really romantic of me on a friday night. Sorry honey, but this can at best happen once or twice a month...

Anyway, I have quite a few shots I am hoping to get. We will see how things work out.

I made a little story board so that I can have an easy visual reminder of what I would like to shoot. We will see how the vegas lights affect things!

Websites...

2009-09-21T15:05:00.001-07:00

So I think I am a website-aholic. Perhaps even more descriptive would be the fact that I am a project-aholic. This may be worse. I think of a decent idea and then think how awesome it could be, glossing over any serious work that would be involved and then jump in. Sadly I usually jump out before the real work hits.

Well I have been thinking that I pretty regularly spout off about information I have built into my little brain and I rarely actually am doing some of this stuff my self.

Case in point. I was giving advice to my brother on how he could perhaps get his little business started. He is very good at ceramics works. Well I was spouting off and thinking to myself this is really a good set of ideas to be busting out. To bad I don't really do the same type of things he does because I could make myself rich! or a little better off! Well anyway, after I hung up the phone with him I kind of kicked myself and said hey loser, that actually would fit beautifully with your work.

So I decided to go out a do it myself. So in the next few days I am going to follow my own advice and out the process I was preaching. We will see how well it works out. I am actually getting chills thinking about how neat it could really be!

Well I am off to start it happening. I will let you know what I find out from actually doing the work at hand...

Chris

Work...

2009-08-27T16:54:00.001-07:00

Well I have succeeded recently in fixing a machine and breaking one at work. Okay well I didn't really fix the one it actually finally got set up. Well that took 2 months and definitely wasn't an easy to do project. After a while it felt like I was basically fixing it. Well it is working now. The next step is to figure out how to make it actually work! Okay so in figuring out how to make it work I may discover that it actually doesn't work, but that I just couldn't see it now. That is another adventure in waiting. I will tell you what though that machine definitely isn't a damsel in distress!

Okay so I also didn't break the other machine. I believe a fellow co-worker broke it and didn't realize it. So I have been spending several days now getting it back in shape. I have done several needed maintenance tasks and I thought that would fix it up nice. Well that didn't do it. We did find a part we needed and maybe that is the cause of the issues. We will have to see, the part is currently in the mail.

The kids are also getting over their colds yesterday and today. I hope they are feeling better. We didn't help them much yesterday when our neighbor cleaned their carpets and offered to let us use the cleaner as well before they took it back and we took them up on that. The kids were up till past 9 pm. I think it was actually closure to 10. They don't usually sleep in much either so it has been hard today to tell if they are feeling better through the crankiness of not much sleep. I am headed home to play with and wrangle them and to hopefully keep them out of Alison's hair so she can write her talk for Sunday. I am looking forward to hearing her talk. That doesn't mean I will actually hear it while keeping the kids in some state of reverence, usually they go to pieces when one of us leaves during church. We will see how that goes.

What a week!

2009-08-06T18:09:00.001-07:00

Okay so it has been a while. There were some issues that I was dealing with over time on getting a journal written. Basically I dealt with a new computer at work and then a but of temporary security restrictions because somebody got a bad virus in their email. Then at home our computer died. It is definitely interesting to have a time in life where there is no computer. Wow. I kind of like it. I also don't really know what to do with myself because lots of what I like to do revolves around that. Oh well.

So this week I have had an interesting and hard few days of work. Basically I had a co-worker get let go or fired. She was on a trial period of work and she managed to not do well enough for them to want to keep her around. Sadly they were really looking for enough of a reason to not have to let her go. She just didn't get enough done, and could focus on hardly any one thing at any time. Overall she wasn't productive in any area and actually never accoumplished completion of any major project on her own. This is a place where you have to be productive on your own. The hard part about the situation is that she focused some frustration during her interview on me being the cause of her downfall, claiming they wanted me instead of her and that they trained me instead of her. From her perspective I can see it. Overall though she did receive at least 5 times the training that I did and still managed to do nothing. She had lots of time where she was reading the news and surfing the internet.

That all actually happened last week, and this week my boss who had to fire her spoke with me and said that he really wanted to hire me. I would have to compete for the job and all that but he laid out a step by step plan of what I would need to do to best present myself and get past the filters to the people doing the hiring, mainly him. So I am optimistic about that potentially opening up. I am not sure if I really want to be "chilling" in Vegas for a long time but perhaps it will do for a bit.

I also thought I was bout done with some samples, and found ten more I needed to do. Then being unfocused, tired and careless I broke a bottle holding another. That means about 8 days work to prep it all over again. Argh. Oh well, at least there are 10 others that need it as well.

So I have decided that I really need to not get less than 7 hours of sleep a night, or I become a zombie and am miserable, and totally unproductive...oh well.

That is all...dinner is waiting.

Bills...

2009-07-23T22:26:00.001-07:00

Why does paying bills have to be painful? Well I guess because you see all your work going out the door so quickly and you don't think about all the benefit you have received all month long. For me that is definitely the case. Anyway, things are getting better each month we pay towards our debt. We are actually doing really well at lowering our debt each month. For the last 3 years we have overall lowered our debt each month on average, if you don't count the addition of the new van we bought last halloween. That isn't really to bad actually, we may be able to pay it off soon as well. I hope that does get done soon. That thing is a beast I really hate paying for.

Anyway, things are good. This month we have some extra money and we are going to pay off 4 credit cards so that we will only have 4 credit cards with any balances and those with amazing interest rates. Then we will be saving up all our extra money for a rainy day. We are going to ideally use it to pay off the van but we are going to save up all our pennies and dimes so that we can pay it off all in one go when we are pretty sure our Job situation is secure for the next little while. When that is good then we will pay off the van and start saving all over again! Great times...Then the goal will be a house I believe. That is when we can decide where the heck we even want to live!

Okay that is all for tonight, it is definitely my bedtime!

Corinthians 13

2009-07-16T08:22:00.001-07:00

It is me again...

Okay but really, I was reading Corinthians 13 today and it is really interesting! Consider all the gifts of the spirit. Alma talks about them and Paul talks about them. But when Christ comes Paul basically says that all of those will be done away because we will no longer be separate from him.

So what will be left? Only a few things will last forever. Even in the presence of Christ. Of the greatest of those is Charity. That will always be present.

Take home message? Well it seems that seeking to develop the attribute of charity is much more important than seeking spiritual gifts.

Wow.

Enjoy!

Growing Fast

2009-07-14T23:10:00.001-07:00

Well Joshua went to the doctor today and definitely out shined what we thought he would actually do in the growing category.

He is now 14 pounds and 6 ounces. I believe that puts him as our heaviest kid at this point. He is also at about 26 inches. I believe he has grown 6 pounds 6 ounces and 4 inches since birth. He is a beautiful solid kid.

Sadly he is the heaviest kid we have at this age so far and he is only the 30 percentile for weight. Oh well. We will see if he outshines Andrea later. She definitely has hit some major growth spurts that have put her at the top of her class. Sadly she makes cousins of similar ages look like midgets sometimes. Oh well...

So the kids are healthy an strong. Interesting note, Andrea and Zach when they got shots really didn't scream a lot. They would cry a bit and mope all day long. Josh on the other hand I am told screamed to a level we hadn't yet heard, but the rest of the day the kid is pretty happy with life. No grudges over the shots. Funny how each kid is so different!

Hey They Are Fragile...

2009-07-13T22:03:00.001-07:00

So last night I believe that Alison and I may have dealt with the closest near death experience that any of our kids have ever had. Sure we have had Andy and Zach choking on something and we fished it out. In those situations though we were really worried just pragmatically took care of the issue.

Well last night I had a serious scare. I was woke up by my wife just before 2 am and I could clearly understand what she was saying, but I have been married to her long enough to hear some very serious worry in her voice. So I sat up and listened again to what she said. She was holding Josh and saying he wasn't responding to anything. I first noticed a really limp baby. He is usually very active and wiggly. He was limp and I started to get worried. Alison told me that he wasn't responding to anything. He was burning up, and soaked in sweat.

Alison woke up and had a major prompting to check on Josh. She was wondering why he hadn't woke up yet to eat. He usually is only going 6 or 7 hours at night and it had been almost 8. So she went in there and found his face completely covered by his warm heavy blanket. She uncovered him and found a kid that seemed almost dead. His eyes were open but not focused on anything. It was totally freaky. This is a person that we are taking care of and he was near death.

So we prayed for help to understand what he needed at that moment. I gave him a blessing and knew that he would be okay very soon if we did what was needed right now. If that then he would be okay for a while if at all.

After the blessing we stripped him and took his temp which came in at 101. Wow. So we stripped him and wiped it entire body down with a way cold rag. Before this at some point we had changed a huge poopy diaper. When we were washing him down he was starting to finally wake up a bit more. He was actually trying to look around at us. Not grabbing our hands or anything but trying a bit more. So then Alison fed him. After that he was doing a bit more and acting closer to normal.

A few minutes later after a bit more freezing the pore kid with the wet washcloth we gave him some water in a medicine dropper. The kid sucked that up like he was dry as the desert. 1/4 of a cup later he slowed way down. So we let him be and tried playing with him to keep him awake. Honestly though he was basically trying to tell us "its okay now I am fine, just need a bit of shut eye." Well I was thinking he couldn't go to sleep because he might just die on us, so we kept him awake longer.

A hard part of this situation is that we had just moved him out of our room and his crying voice is actually kind of timid. So when he cries we barely hear him. So imagine the doors are only cracked open and the fan is on in the hall. Then the kid gets his face covered by the blanket. So he is screaming for help and can't get any response. He probably just screamed himself senseless and then gave up. That is when is mom came and rescued him. She feels like she has totally failed him forever. I feel bad to because I probably would have slept the entire night through and not noticed a thing.

Overall I am just so happy he is doing great. This entire day he has acted just fine, with perhaps just a bit of fatigue around the edges. That is it. Wow. They are fragile, but heak they can be resilient as well thank goodness.

Einstein

2009-07-09T13:56:00.001-07:00

So lately I have been reading a book about Albert Einstein. It is actually his biography that has been written by Isaacson. It is well written. I guess I am a bit disappointed because I wanted more about his life and less science but reading his biography it isn't quite possible to get that. His entire life was about theoretical physics and everything else came second. Oh well it is really interesting. I am even beginning to understand why is theories are so important.

One of my favorite quotes is "A blind respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." He definitely lived by this phrase he coined the first half of his life but the second he went away from it and actually hurt his career and where it could have gone. Very ironic.

On the kid side of things it is so funny the things that kids can say and do. For example my daughter is now 23 months old is such a COPIER! she copies Alison, Zach, Josh and Myself. She is also very hard headed. Overall though she is amazingly adorable! If you read this years later Andrea, you are an amazing child. Even if at times amazingly hardheaded for good and bad. We often want to discipline you and your skin is to thick! Or you think it is just a game. Other times your brother beats you so hard that it is hard to believe it doesn't hurt you little head but you bounce right back up and look at us and ask with an adorable look "what is the bid deal?" You have definitely sustained some seriously significant blows to your head buy accident and brother and hardly flinched. The worst that comes to mind is one time Zach was rocking the chair back and forth very roughly and you walked behind it and got hit with a horribly perfect blow that knocked you flat on the ground. It looked like a cartoon segment (one you hope will never actually really happen, but it is okay in cartoons because it is pretend) that is unreal. Alison and I watched is pure horror as we both had thoughts you may just be dead (I was seriously concerned as I rarely am). You popped up and didn't even think twice about it. Wow.

The start of that previous thought was a funny thing my kids do lately. If they see us eating anything they say "I want some! What are you eating?" Which I think is absolutely hilarious. Most of the time however we are eating something yummy and they know it. Their instincts on these subjects are really good. I tend to think that my kids and perhaps many other peoples kids often are more precocious in thought and action than we think.

Last night Josh went the entire night without eating. We had to help him back to sleep a few times, but we are on our way to him sleeping all night long. For my wife this is a wonderful thing. She will be able to sleep through the night when he does. This is mainly because of breast feeding. I just don't seem able to do it! Josh is becoming quite an amazing little boy. He is so interactive and follows our every move with beautiful eyes.

Yesterday my wife and I had to turn in several papers that verified our income, living situation and the existence of Josh for our welfare insurance. What a trial that is. Wow. Our greatest benefits were that we were organized and had done it before. Usually we have a few days or weeks to get it all together. This time we had only two days. It really did consume all that we did for a few days! I am glad that we are done. I did have to wait in line for an hour to drop the papers off which was quite a trial. Luckily that is much better than other times when I have had to wait longer than two hours. Ouch!

We have everything in and it will be interesting to see if we still are qualified for the free insurance. It is been wonderful to have while we were in school and especially in paying for out first 3 kids births entirely. Now though I feel ready to move on. They may tell us it is time to move on as well because we are doing a bit better than previously. I will like the continued support if we qualify, but if not then we are ready for what is next and totally believe that we aren't going to be on that forever. We will see.

Lately Alison and I have been trying very hard to pay off our debt. We have been trying hard to make smart decisions and are doing really well. The frustrating thing is how fast we have been able to proceed. Just recently we have had a second job open up for me back at the Desert Research Institute where I did my masters degree research. The good news is that it pays well and I will likely be able to do quite a bit there while still maintaining my current position. It will basically amount to about $5000 extra over the next few months. That is really nice and will go a long way towards helping out our financial goals. I am very grateful, and now a bit busier!

Today now that I don't have much to do I will be happy to go home and swim with my family (whenever I get home)!

Back at Work

2009-07-06T17:33:00.001-07:00

Well I am back at work after a long vacation. While I was gone they were doing a performance evaluation of one of my coworkers to determine if they can make the cut and be a valuable employee. The evaluation consisted of a bunch of scientific test they needed to do all by themselves to show that they are competent here at the Environmental Protection Agency Science Lab I work at.

I actually started work last Thursday but everyone was gone but my coworker. Friday I worked a bit more and it was only me. So today I kind of feel like is the first day of work because everyone else is here as well. Thursday I thought everything went well for my coworker. I am hoping that she does get a good evaluation and can keep her job, I am on her side.

Unfortunately it seems that she didn't do really well. I discovered today that she messed up both machines she was supposed to use, and miscalculated all her data on what she did get done. I have tried really hard to help her understand things better but I guess it didn't take. This does kind of support my suspicion that she doesn't really listen to much of what I say, or remember it at least.

Anyway she was trying to fix one machine she messed up today and I decided to just let her do it herself. In the end I saw her potentially messing it up more so I lent a hand. That may be an issue she faces, I just can't keep my hands out of work. I really like to help and fix things. My little boy is just the same. I can see why I get frustrated with him. He is just like me!

Well the machine is fixed. I would say that is was mostly my direction that helped it get done. I was working on other things and realized that she was waiting for me (after 2 hours). So I made a suggestion and it going again. Oh well. I really don't have a lot of spite for her, I just wish that she could do better for herself (it would also save me a lot of work).

This morning I had one of my nicer morning. I was able to see all my kids really happy before I headed off to work. I was eating toast with my boy Zach and when I finished mine he said that I needed more so that we could still be eating together. He was enjoying himself as well. That makes me really happy to hear. He also helped my make the orange juice. He really is becoming a lot of fun and quite useful in his desire to help out and to be involved. These nice moments are great to have in light of the really frustrating ones that drive parents crazy. Like last night when he wouldn't pick up his blocks. We tried so many things to help him get going. I guess there was just obstacles we couldn't see for him. It ended up with us really frustrated, him really mad and them him falling asleep in his tears. I guess the line of needed the kid to do it your way and breaking their fragile will's (or hearts) is a hard one to walk.

Parenting does have a lot more benefits then negatives. That helps me keep going in the end.

Birding and Babies...

2009-05-28T07:38:00.001-07:00

This morning I went down to Duck Creek (local ponds by the Las Vegas Wash) and hoped to find some American Avocet babies. Well I found them. They are cute little things. They are definitely little things. I have been watching their parents and their nests for weeks and hoping to get some nice shots of the new born babies. Well that will definitely prove to be quite a task I can now see.

The babies that I was able to find are about 4-6 inches tall. They are fuzzy, and black and white. The main problem is that their parents have ushered them to the exact place I would if I had all those babies. They put them on a huge mud flat that is pretty much perilous for anyone weight more than 5 pounds to walk on. Perfect place for not so smart babies to get away from you. Well I just want to take a picture, but that is proving to be difficult becuase I can't get more than 30 yards away. My camera is only a 400mm lens and so you can see the babies in the picture, but they are small.

Tomorrow I will get out there earlier and hope for better success, but I am not sure if it will happen. If I walk up on one side they walk to the other side of the pond, and vice versa. There are a few other ponds that have nests that haven't hatched yet and so I am hoping to get pictures on those possibly because they are much smaller and easier to get birds in the lens. I am not sure if the birds are moving the babies really early by just carrying them in their mouths, or if they herd them and hope for the best with the coyotes. I guess for my lunch break I will read up on that.

Hopefully more luck tomorrow!

Favorite Daddy...

2009-05-27T12:21:00.001-07:00

So I think that I am my baby Joshua's favorite daddy. That does sound a bit ridiculous because I am his only dad, and there isn't any way he could be getting confused on this actually. There are no other grown men that he has around him with any regularity at all. Understanding that I am obviously his favorite.

Overall though I would have to say that at almost 3 months old, he really likes me. Maybe it is because he doesn't see me all the time and I can strike the nice balance of novelty and comfort zone that babies like. I must say though I can probably get him to smile better than anyone. Even if he is tired, and or has a messy diaper (he really hates that), or is hungry. The kid will probably crack a smile in my favor.

The truth is though that he may just be considering my a really funny court jester. The one that acts ridiculous just for him. Dang that wouldn't be so cool...Oh well I guess I will keep the kid regardless. I really like him.

Today Alison took him on her almost daily walk (she would go everyday but I am sometimes gone to work or birding, so we roughly trade off on these things) and he totally loved being outside. She says that when they walked outside he giggled with excitement. Well that makes me really happy to think that he is pleased as punch to be outside and in nature cause I really like it as well!

Joshua is an awesome kid. He is definitely living up to his siblings standard of coolness and it is coming totally naturally. I guess I am lucky to have such a wonderful wife who trains kids well on top of being a great lover!

Sequoia and Kings

2009-05-26T15:17:00.001-07:00

Well we got back a few days ago from a short trip (to short sadly) to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. These have been on our minds for quite a while to be honest. I wish we would have gone sooner, but maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much 3 years earlier.

As is usual with our travel habits we left after work on Wednesday (I worked quite a bit extra to cover for only three days ahead of time), and came home Saturday. We try not to be traveling on a Sunday but this time we almost wished to make an exception because of how nice the trip was.

We saw amazing trees that were older than 2000 years in some cases. Had a great campsite to chill in, which is really important for the little kids and options for them to play around with. Amazing canyons, and waterfalls were all around. We even saw some pretty incredible birds while we where there.

So things were okay for this trip and we could have spent many more days there. We barely scratched the surface, and will hopefully return again before three years is up.

This trip was nice, and ultimately cost us only about 225 dollars. I think I may be overestimating a bit there to try and cover everything. It worked really well for us, and if we had stayed 2 more days our costs would only have gone up to about 275 maybe. So that is definitely nice to think about for the future.

The hard thing is that we really enjoyed this trip and then we are now planning the next one. We will be off to visit family for two weeks in Utah and Nevada. I am quite excited, and hope to do a lot of hiking while there. Also I am planning a short backpacking trip between now and then that I am really looking forward to in Coyote Gulch. That is one that I am really excited about. It is in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

I am excited to be able to hang with family for a few days as well. It seems that I haven't been able to do that at all for quite a while...maybe it has only been a few months though, so I think I shouldn't be complaining any more.

Backpacks

2009-05-19T14:01:00.001-07:00

I will tell you up front that I am a huge bag collector. Thankfully not plastic bags, but more along the lines of camera bags (of these I actually only have very few), backpacks and so on. At our house I can say that I personally have 8 bags that fit in this category. Most are mountaineering bags, which I really love to collect.

Thankfully I haven't purchased any bags that are totally redundant (they do the same thing with little difference beside style or color). Lately though I have really been thinking about a camera bag. I have gone in cycles over the last several years and many times have almost bought one. I really don't know exactly what I want. I know the many places that I could use each different type of bag.

Today I was looking at several different ones and had narrowed down what I thought I wanted or needed (that line seems to blur a lot). So I looked closer and decided pretty much which one I would get and then realized that it was actually a bit smaller than a bag I currently use. So I am back to the considering board.

Well I have been considering for a while and I believe that I have settled things out in my mind (I believe reasonably). I photograph in just a few generalized situations and they follow.

General hiking with my family (this involves me carrying one or two children)
Hiking, exploring a new place (city or nature), and whatever by myself
Backpacking
Shooting people in a studio or location setting

So I may be needing a few different bag types. I was feeling like I just didn't have a bag to cover adequately the second on the list but in reality I am doing well when I considered the bags I thought I wanted to the ones that I actually had.

Overall I realized that I had all the bags that I really need, and they have been serving my photography needs nicely for quite a while. What I need to do is get away from the idea of what type of bags photographers have. For me it is the idea in my mind is photographers having a bag that has the cool foam dividers and the gear all organized beautifully. I will be honest. This is like gear pornography for me. Seeing all those pieces of gear in a bag is amazing because I am a gear junkie, but seeing it organized also leaves me drooling!

But while I was thinking about things, I realized my bags are serving me well, and that all I needed is a system of wraps to protect items individually so that I can load then wherever I need in whatever bag fits the occasion. So I actually don't own a photography company made photo bag and it actually serves me pretty well.

The reasons this system works better for me is simple and has evolved over time. It started with being disgusted that a photo pack designed to carry a large weight of gear was never paired with a decent harness system to do so. Argh. Added to that the fact that photo bags were far to heavy. This is one area that has been overcome by some pretty innovative designs. Mountaineering bags are often far lighter. Lastly there was the fact that most photo bags are obviously photo bags. Being obviously identified also leads to the obvious association that hey, "this bag probably has at least a few thousand dollars of gear in it". For me it would be more likely that the bag will regularly have 10,000 dollars of gear in it. They have steal me signs all over them.

So after all that I regularly use a lumbar pack that allows for very quick access and decent weather protection and overall organization, and a panel loading mountaineering/hiking bag. Both were vastly cheaper, and don't fall subject to all the above compalints.

What I am worried about is actually protecting the gear from damage that may occur in action or travel. So for these bags to remain ideal, I realized that I needed to get a system of lens cases/wraps going. This is actually going to increase protection and organization. Overall this is going to be a great system.

The biggest problem is that I will be going against what everyone expects a professional/cool photographer to look like. I won't have the readily identifyable look going. I really feel like this is better, but my gut instinct is still to try and be like everyone else. I think that with time I can over come that. That is actually what we all need to do. Overcome the desire to be like everyone else!

Websites...

2009-05-13T16:42:00.001-07:00

Well I am currently working on my business, and creativity planning...

This involves websites. I am getting better and managing and making them up to do what I want. I for example today worked on figuring out why one would let me customize something and another wouldn't. The success is that I figured it out and I feel pretty good about that.

Creativity planning? Okay so that is getting to be a bit of excessive mumbo jumbo, but basically I am lately feeling really strongly about myself needing a creativity outlet where I can write about things that I am thinking about, and feel like I can develop my ideas a little better through writing. So I started a website that is talking about mainly what I think works great for myself and my life. I am also thinking that I may be able to help others with this website and the ideas I have.

I did just write the first article/idea today and it is 1200 words. I think that I also only really began to get the ideas out, and not really as a cohesive group. But I was really enjoying the creativity flowing out of writing and thinking. The best part was that it was about things that don't really matter much at all, what I mean is that I don't have to do it for any reason other than I wanted to. That is what was good about it.

Okay that is all for now...but I am really feeling the fluidity about writing about better ideas for living a better life...

Lunch Time...

2009-05-12T16:12:00.001-07:00

So today's lunch I guess I grossly underestimated what I needed to bring so that I could eat enough...I had a lot of tacos, but I have to save some for tomorrow so that I can have some lunch then...oh well.

Okay so I am having a good day working on some experiments at work and I am lucky enough that these aren't very labor intensive, just time intensive so I am able to get a bit of chilling out done as well. I am working on updating my image copyright watermark. Trying to decide what I would want it to look like and whatever else. I am getting a lot happier with the potential end result. You can see it at my website at www.hiddenlightphotography.com. Basically it is my name, and then a striking line beneath that and my website address. After considering it for quite a bit I realized that I have about what I want already, I am just going to add a bit of a glamorous line. I have to laugh, lots of work to change not much at all!

On other news I am looking forward with much chagrin to paying off my student loan debts. That isn't really something I am excited about. Argh. Well poor planning then, but now I can make better plans and hopefully make progress to a bit better financial freedom. We are doing well now, and if I can weather the Student Loan storm things will be a lot better.

I am also working on improving things like my business, and part of that is my photoshop skills. That is something that I have always only dipped my toe into. Well now it is time to really get totally wet. I am glad that I am not totally retarded about it and that I have been doing quite a bit of good stuff already with Lightroom with is kind of a simple and fluid photoshop. So things are looking good!

I am also working on picking out a picture or two that I may print. Yep I want to have a picture to show off to family as well when my father in Law is showing off his sweet action stuff. I have to represent! Problem is that I have no idea what pictures I should potentially get printed...I have like 5000 favorites...sadly that isn't to far off.

Lunch

2009-05-11T12:34:00.001-07:00

So when I started working and providing for our family after we got married my wife was amazing and for more than a short while (I remember more than a year, but I may be off) she packed my lunch for me. That was so nice, even if she was only organizing the left overs and getting them ready for another days battle. Well after we had kids and I started the habit of leaving for work quite a bit earlier than she was regularly rising my own lunch preparation was migrating towards me. So I have gotten into a pretty mindless process of packaging it up and going to work.

Today I had left over pizza that my wife made last night that is honestly really great, but I guess I can talk about that a bit later. I ate that all up and when I was done I had worked on some other stuff and was putting my Tupperware container in my bag so I don't grow a nasty huge pile of them over time on me cubicle desk (it really isn't a cubicle, much less glorius more of a corner desk/cave with walls) I discovered cookies in my bag. I surprised myself. I had completely forgotten that I had packed those. So I am really excited now! I have snack prospects for the rest of the day.

Even better than this is when my wife on the sly sneaks surprises into my bag for me. Those are an even better treat!

So the pizza...we like to have pizza, and regularly if we can. We also don't like to go out to eat for many reasons. Overall for me is the regular dissatisfaction I experience at pay a premium for mediocre food. I will be honest, I can pretty handily make mediocre food. We probably can all do that with ease. The pain is paying 40 dollars for it, and even worse paying for it and having your kid throw it on the floor...

Enter my lovely wife. She likes pizza even more than me and is a great cook. So she decided that she will make pizza each week and over the last few years, the pizza has gotten amazing. To the point that if we ever eat out at a pizza place or take it on delivery I am finding my self wishing for my wife's version! So if you want her version hit her up on that, I just take care of the consumption!

Today...

2009-05-08T15:13:00.001-07:00

I have embarked on a few new labor intensive projects that I am excited about. Mainly because they are thinking intensive! That is something that I miss out on sadly to often. I am working on that no longer being the case for me.

Lately I have done really well at getting the important things in my life ordered to a first place, rather than being put into the place of wherever it may fit as can often happen. Like journalling. I just don't get down to journal writing very frequently. I really like to do it, but I fail to make it a priority.

Today I noticed a funny thing my two older children do. It is really kind of sad, but they have trained each other to do it. Zach hates it when Andy yells, or is obnoxiously loud for whatever reason. She is loud lots of the time, believe me! So she will just yell or scream her little heart out because it drives him nuts. It is funny, but sad that she does it to get at him. I think she is doing it for attention and because she thinks she can control him or get his goat. Well he has a big goat to get in this area, as he feels like he must always be the one in charge and in control. Little does he know about life!

They are also telling each other no. One will say they want something and the other will say no. They asker gets so mad, when in reality there is no reason the other could say no to them. They just base their little world and opinion on what they sibling says and does! How funny. I think that we as adults really do the same as well, and get ourselves often more broke up over it in the long term. This is to bad!

Okay that is all for now, I am going to the father and son's campout today and need to get home a bit earlier to spend some time with the members of the family not going!

What have I been doing?

2009-04-17T08:34:00.001-07:00

Well Hello there my Journal...

I have been gone sadly for a long time. I have thought about you daily. Sadly I have done little to add to you. I always resolve to do better...but actions are what speak in this category. So I won't fill this journal with resolve to right in it, but with writing about other things.

Today I woke up and instead of coming directly to work I decided to go bird watching. It was really nice actually. I jogged a bit (not very far at any time because there were lots of birds around) between birds and enjoy the mornings here in southern Nevada. Sadly in a few weeks even early mornings at 6 and 7 AM are going to be almost unbearably hot. I saw lots of cool birds, my favorite of the day was a Bonaparte's Gull. These birds are really hilarious when you can see about 200 together at once, because of their seemingly crazy actions all synchronized at once. Well there were only two birds and it looked like they were still pretty tired...I guess they haven't gotten their morning worms yet.

I also found an incredibly dense area of Shorebirds thanks to a fellow bird watcher I ran into. Sadly I don't know her name, she is really nice, retired and still actively out chasing birds and enjoying life. I stopped there on the way to work and was amazed, there were not only lots of birds, but they were almost oblivious to my not so sneaky approaches! That is always cool, it must be because I didn't have my camera...

The other cool thing of note that I will write about that has happened in our lives lately is that our boy Zach (our oldest, who is now Three and a half, WOW!) got a new bike. We checked craigs list a wonderful aggrandization of used stuff for sale all over las vegas. We got him a bike that seems to be his size with training wheels and he loves it! Usually he greets me now with a "Daddy, want to go outside and I can ride my bike?" He loves it and is getting better at it daily! This is awesome. I think we got it for him at about the write time as well, beginning of summer, he is starting to hit a growth spurt and getting a bit stronger and the price was right at 8 dollars.

We went earlier and let him try out some bikes at the store to see if he was ready and he was. He was pretty mad that we left the store with no bike after we let him sit on it and ride it around for a while. So we did well there. Ironically our daughter who is approaching 2 years old now is very interested in our little trike we have!

Late night...

2009-04-06T16:55:00.001-07:00

So last night I was up a bit later than I like reading my brothers paper that he needed to turn into today. It was actually a nice paper and well written. That English class is doing him well.

Anyway, it was later than I would have liked getting to bed and I cursed myself before I went to bed. I bragged that my son Josh who is only 1 month old was a great sleeper and that we usually didn't have any problem with him at all sleeping most of the night.

The kid must have heard and decided to show me up. So from 1:30 to 2:30 he couldn't go to sleep. He wasn't very awake, he just couldn't relax and get the sleep he needs and his parents really need. Oh well, tonight we can try again. I hope that he doesn't get into to bad a pattern because he will be sleeping in his own room and his dead to the world parents won't hear a thing if he runs us out to much...

Anyway, he is an awesome kid, I hope he sleeps tonight though!

The Baby is Here!

2009-03-02T21:38:00.001-08:00

Hello All!

I am writing to say that Alison has given birth to our third child, a boy today! He was born at 5:57 pm and was 7 pounds 15 ounces and 20 inches long. Mom and Baby are doing great! Alison's water broke at about 1:45 and she gave birth 4 hours later.

I know some of you are finding out about this baby for the first time now, I am sorry we didn't really mean to keep it a secret. I hope your all doing well! It looks like Alison and the Baby will be able to come home tomorrow or the next day.

The other kids did will at their friends while we were gone and tomorrow we will see what they think about their new brother!

Chris and Alison

P.s. We are thinking about naming him Joshua Paul...but the jury is still out!

Backpacking...

2009-02-24T15:46:00.001-08:00

So today at work I am doing several experiments that leave me with lots of time. Time that I am just sitting a thinking or whatever. So today I am thinking about the backpack trip that I am hoping to do this summer, the Wonderland Trail that encircles mount Rainer. It stared at the mountain and thought about the trail a lot while I was on my mission in Washington.

This summer I may be able to do the 93 mile trip. So I have been thinking about what I will take and how to be as light as possible with comfort still. So I have been able to do a lot of reading about lightweight backpacking techniques and I am pretty excited to try some of these out.

Without a lot of trouble I should be able to end up with a pack weight of 20 pounds without food, water and camera gear. One of the reasons for the trip is the photography, so the camera gear will be allowed to be excessive. I am even considering taking a shoot through umbrella to get some really high quality trail type portraits. It really isn't to heavy. Maybe that would be worth it.

If I go to extra trouble I may be able to even get weights down to 15 pounds or less. That would make the camera weight much more bearable. So I guess we will see!

Mommy and Andy

2009-02-23T16:27:00.000-08:00

This is mom and daughter being adorable!

Monday...

2009-02-23T14:35:00.001-08:00

So it is funny that I now feel a bit of urgency to get my hours finished up on my EPA contract. I was thinking that I had 3 weeks to leisurely finish working 105 hours and help my wife get the house all cleaned up. Well my wife reinterpreted over the weekend what the doctor had said at the last appointment.

You will have the baby by March 15. I was thinking by like the 22 or 25. Well apparently he isn't excited about having the baby take to long so he wants to take the baby by inducement by march 15 or about 2 weeks overdue to prevent complications that may occur. So we will have it naturally by the due date, or be induced some time after wards and we will have our third kid in the next 3 weeks. I guess I realized it would be soon, but this seems to be quite sooner than my mind had been thinking about!

So this week I am going to work a lot and get about 60ish hours done on my contract and then have a regular work week the week after so that if the baby comes around then, I will be done with that commitment. I need to finish because I am going to restart the next contract March 15. So I need to use all the money up on this contract before the next one can kick in.

Things can really start moving fast on you if your not watching out!

Up the Stairs...

2009-02-23T14:25:00.000-08:00

Here is Andy Walking up the stairs by herself! She is growing up.

It is kind of dark, but it is Zach playing hide and seek...good times.

Toy Trains

2009-02-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

Zach loves trains. So he made a similitude of one up out of his cart and dump truck, it is pretty funny.

Andy Loves her brothers toys, and so she plays with them any time she can. This is his other cart, and his train that she discovered stashed in the seat compartment. Fun times

Enjoy!

Ramming!

2009-02-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

Here is another funny video of the kids playing with Derrin and magma blocks.

Enjoy!

Karate Chop!

2009-02-23T12:11:00.000-08:00

This post is a pretty funny one, our friend Derrin had our kids karate chopping magna ball bars with their heads!

Enjoy!

Chris

Falls have fallen out...

2009-02-20T10:22:00.001-08:00

Well I can tell you that I am a bit disappointed. I had great plans all lined up to hike Havasupai Falls and do some serious photography down there and so I had been planning on this for quite a while. I even had a rough time set up to do it.

So I finally called to set up reservations because it seems that March really is an off time down there so I might as well make the effort to seal the deal. Well I was in for a surprise.

I looked up the phone number, and found that getting down there was not available at all. The problem is that reservations aren't full (this is usually my great luck) but they aren't available because of major flooding that occurred last August. Wow. They are trying to get everything built back up but they aren't going to be able to open until May 1, 2009 at best. I bet they are really hurting not having the tourist dollars coming in. Wow.

So Alison and I will have to bank on the family trip down there later, which isn't a bad idea for me. Just amazing that in that narrow canyon area, there is actually flooding that occurs. They warn about it all the time, but honestly, who believes them that it will actually occur! Well it does, and in their case, when it rained, it definitely poured!

Photography!

2009-02-19T11:24:00.001-08:00

So lately I have been trying to expand my photographic skills. Up to now I have basically been a find a cool place and wait till it has beautiful light and take a picture. There is a bit more to it than the just clicking the shutter but I wanted to learn more about other types of photography, like people photography.

When I was younger (read until a few years ago) or before I was married mainly I had little joy in photographing people at all. Then I got married and some great kids came along and well I love photographing people. I have also photographed some weddings and really enjoyed those, much to my contrary belief. I thought I would really hate doing that.

So I realized that I like taking pictures of people and landscapes/nature. So I am trying to get better at that type of stuff. I am amazed at how simple it is, and yet complex, as I guess is the case with everything. The easily most amazing thing is doing much better lighting than on camera flash is simple, then your creativity can take you about anywhere.

Currently I am trying to put together a portable and workable studio. I now have a "tent" for shooting small things, and product type photography, usually they can be pricey but I got mine all together for about $10. I made one that was even simpler for free from a box and some paper. I wanted a bigger one that gave more options and so I spent the big bucks. I am trying to see how much I can do will only 200 dollars. I have about that much in birthday money and spending money saved up, so I am excited. I am currently working on a beauty dish which is really flattering for portraiture. I am going to get a few umbrellas and make some reflectors. The reflectors will thankfully be again really cheap, maybe only 20 dollars for very large ones that you could pay way more for.

After all this work I guess I am most excited about actually being able to shoot some sweet portraits of people. So watch out, I may be after you next to be shot!

Holiday...

2009-02-16T15:01:00.001-08:00

Well today is a Holiday.

I am pretty bad, without a calendar I can only guess that it is perhaps Presidents Day. Fine by me. Anyway, I came into work anyway because the day is kind of wet and murky (it was to start out with as well) and I would rather work the time now and take the time off more to my choosing at some other time. Anyway, so that is the plan. I am enjoying work, just wish as always that I made more money so I could pay my bills faster...

That is what we all wish I guess.

So I was reminded by my wife that 5 years ago we came to Vegas on a group trip to go rock climbing. We were not even dating at that point. And now we are expecting kid number 3. Things change fast. Wow. I think I am going to go home and play with kid 1 and 2. That are so much fun!

I hope that the rest of our week here in the desert isn't as rainy as it has been lately for the sake of my potential fun, but I guess it is good for the sake of our water supply. I guess we always have to pick which evil we accept.

Happy Valentines Day!

2009-02-13T14:34:00.001-08:00

Hey, Happy Valentines Day! I hope all is well for everyone. Singles awareness day can be murky at the best of times. That is why I recommend marrying the special one you love. Then Valentines Day can be a bit more pleasurable. We are going to hang out, have valentines like games, maybe barbecue some food and have a fancy dinner. We will have our kids there for all of it.

Maybe the real celebration of this day will be the day before which is actually today and is Friday the 13th. I wonder why this day is connotative towards having bad luck. I have been doing pretty well with them in the past. For example...I have never had a crazy guy trying to murder me like you see in movies, and I had two of my brothers born on the day. So we consider these Fridays to be good rather than ill. I guess I got a bit sidetracked.

The real celebration is that we have a babysitter for a shorter 3 or 4 hour date this afternoon. Alison and I will go and be able to have lots of fun in the sun on this day and our friend Angela will watch the kids. I guess she fills like she really owes us because we have watched her kids twice now. Both times it really wasn't a big deal at all. So we will take her up on this date opportunity for sure!

Anyway, I am off for that action strait away!

Almost the weekend...

2009-02-12T15:28:00.001-08:00

I just realized that I am usually writing about how mice it will be to have a weekend. I really don't hate the week so much, but I guess that the weekend is a really nice time for relaxation and doing whatever I want.

So this weekend we are going to attempt to have a barbecue for lunch. We were thinking of going to the park (sunset park) and grilling some hot dogs and maybe some of the park geese if they get a bit to close. Maybe I can see some new bird species along the way. I guess I will have to wait and see on that. I am excited for the valentines day activities. My wife is planning lots of fun games for the kids and a pretty fabulous dinner that I am really excited about. She does get me excited in so many ways.

I am trying to think where I will try and shoot some photographs this weekend. I have several options and hope that they turn out well, whatever I decide to do. I was thinking of heading to Red Rock Canyon which is nearby, but I am not sure if I will go there or the Henderson Bird Preserve. I was also thinking of doing some night photography of the Hoover Damn, especially of the bridge that they are putting up that will go over the gorge that houses the Colorado River. That is honestly a totally amazing project. I am amazed every time I see it.

I have also been doing quite a bit of brainstorming lately on my business directives. I have so many ideas that interest me and I honestly have way more in my head than I can actually do. So that is one of my problems. I guess the good thing is that I have lots of creativity going on in my head. For me that is the exciting thing. So I guess I just need to focus on what I can do now and what will be profitable in the future.

One of the things I am really interested in is shooting photography with artificial light. This includes portraits and landscapes. The landscapes I guess I will just be adding a bit more stuff to the mix of what I am doing and for the portraiture I am heading into totally new waters. I like the idea especially because I can shoot all the time and not have to wait for the time to get off to a far off location.

I guess that is all for now. I hope that I have more inspiration by next time!

Birthday

2009-02-09T16:44:00.001-08:00

I definitely had a great birthday. I got to have many of my favorite foods, thanks to my lovely wife. I got some great gifts that I am excite about. Most of all I had a great day playing with my kids and hanging out with my wife. I also got to take a nap with my wife. That is sadly becoming more and more rare. Argh!

Anyway, I am sad that I am not 3^3 any more, it was cool being able to say that I was 3 to the third power years old. Even worse I didn't realize I was that age until about 10 days before my birthday! My wife pointed that out to me. That was pretty cool to realize.

I also got rain the day after my birthday as a late gift. Things are going well for me!

Videos

2009-02-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

Here are some pretty funny videos of our kids. They were just being random and in this case Zach was copying Andrea! I hope that you enjoy these!

Chris

Friday!

2009-02-06T16:53:00.001-08:00

Well it is Friday and almost my birthday. Wow. I guess that I am most excited for the weekend. The weekend is going to be nice because it will house my birthday and maybe a quick day trip to the Mojave National Preserve. This is maybe going to be a cool place to visit that is only about one hour away from us here in Vegas. It is kind of a little know place and I am pretty excited to check it out. There will be sand dunes, mountains, lava tubes and a train station. Plus I will get to hang with my family all day long and be home at a reasonable time to put the kids in bed.

I am also turning 28 this weekend. I am pretty excited for that. Mainly my wife getting excited to make some cool food for the occasion. I really like it when she busts out the recipes and comes up with something new.

Well things are good here, and I am off to put gas in the car and drop off some books at the library, then home for dinner...

Flickr

2009-01-27T15:31:00.001-08:00

Well I just started to add some of my pictures to Flickr. I think maybe that will be a good spot to have some of my pictures that I am using elsewhere to show in more ways than one what I am shooting lately...We will see. I have so many different web things that I do that I am getting tired sometimes of all the work I create for myself to do for my hobby. Ironic but I do create a lot of work to be done.

Currently I have these sites...

www.chrisandalison.name which is our family blog.

www.hiddenlightphotography.com which is more of my hopeful business photo site that until recently I have been able to work on very little.

www.hiddenlightphotography.com/dailypicture which is my current photof the day website.

www.thebookreviewers.com which is a website that I use to occasionally review books that I have read. This is a site my heart is drawn to but I put the least amount of time into unfortunately. Argh on that.

And others that are forming in my brain. I guess that I need to make a plan and focus on what I really want to have accoumplished. That is one of my goals for the year and I am getting better at doing that, but I am really unorganized. It will take a bit of time before I can really get rolling how I would like. My other issue is that I have very little time to just do whatever I want wontonly. Oh well...

New Job

2009-01-26T16:52:00.001-08:00

Today I took a part time job and renewed my current contract job. Both of those options were kind of scary. The part time job is working as a field researcher collecting bird data. I am not sure what the pay will end up being but I will be pretty happy with compensation for travel alone. If they do that by some meager hourly wage then so be it. I am most excited about learning how to do more field science, that it is also involving birds really is nice!

I also renewed my contract here at the EPA for full time work. I am really excited about this. I got a 5.50 dollar an hour raise this year and so that is really nice. That pushes us from surviving to surviving comfortably. Anyway, I guess the weirdest thing is setting up shop for probably another year in the same place. We may even be here longer if we end up doing a PhD. We will see about that in the coming days I guess.

Things are going well. I am also getting the bug to get out and explore somewhere. I don't think this month will see much happen in that category unfortunately but next month may be a good one for me if I plan things right...I think I may get to visit Death Valley for my birthday. Last year it was Bryce Canyon. That was fun but it was really hard for the kids because it was so cold the entire time. Especially whenever we went outside. Which we generally spend all our time doing. Oh well...Death Valley will not be to bad if we head out in February...

CAT Scan...

2009-01-16T17:29:00.001-08:00

Well today my daughter and I had an eventful day.

First of all though, for those of you that see this blog as the only frequently used blog for Chris and Alison Williams we actually have a more family oriented blog at www.chrisandalison.name so go there for better stuff mostly put up by my wonderful wife. Sorry about that misconfusion. Sorry to you especially Liz!

Okay so Alison was gracious enough to let me go with my daughter to get her a CAT scan. For me it was actually kind of fun, and for Alison it would have been stressful.

Andy and I get up at 6:30 so that we can get on to the being sleep deprived thing. Usually she sleeps about 11-14 hours a night. I have to say now that I think about it, she sleeps that at night and often 2-5 more during the day. 16 hours of sleep a day, what a lazy bum. That is if she wasn't one year old and getting beat the heck out of constantly by her brother and sadly sometimes her father during play time.

So we also didn't eat in front of her because she needed to be not fed on account of the sedative can make you barf if you have a full stomach. This I think for her probably wasn't a big deal because she has a strong stomach.

Well we left the house at 8:30 and got there at 8:40 and found the correct office at about 8:45. Well 1 hour and 5 minutes later after my teasing of sleeping old men and playing around in the waiting room we were ushered in to the place where we get drugged.

While in the waiting room she was pretty cute. There was an older gentleman who was trying to sleep while waiting for his wife and when his eyes were closed she would go up to him and pat him on the knees. It would get him to wake up and then she would flash all 16 pearly whites and run off. Luckily he was just bored and thought it was cute.

So we got in the waiting room and the weighed her, she is now 28 pounds, and got her medicine ready. Well she unfortunately saw the juice box first and said I'll take that instead of the junk you have there. I should have shot it all down her throat fast instead of being nice and doing it slow. That just ended up with me having to nicely stuff the last teaspoon down her throat later. Well they warned me she would basically be drunk shortly thereafter and so beware so that she would get any bangs, scrapes or cutes because of her potential wobbliness. Well I was also interested to see what my daughter was like drunk! With out actually abusing her and forcing her to get drunk.

It turns out that she can hold her liquor (medicine) well. The funny thing is that she would probably be the crazy person who when drunk loses all inhibition and fear of anything. After that she was ready to play with anyone (usually she is pretty shy), and wanted to climb on everything and jump off. Usually this is the case but in her inibriated state she was pretty confident gravity had no effect on her. She was trying to climb on top of wall mounted TV's and everything else.

This is were I got frustrated and less sympathetic. She was bouncing off the walls and basically told me that she wan't interested in being held at all. Pretty funny actually. So after 50 minutes of me pulling all the punches to get her to relax and go to sleep they said they could maybe give her some more and hopefully that would knock her out. I thought to my self "get her more crazy?" I said go ahead. So we did and she did get a bit more tired but overall she wasn't giving up. So I finally did what the nurse said helps lots of kids, I gave her a car ride. Usually she isn't really a car sleeper, but with drugs it seems she will sleep fast. She actually fought that hard as well, but eventually went to sleep. I went back and at 12:00 she was ready to get scanned. 2 hours later. Apparently most kids get the medicine and are out in 15 mintues. If the kid lasts 30 minutes then you have a really resistent person on your hands.

I did hear about a kid that never would go to sleep and so he had to reschedule for later. I wonder what they will do next time to him. Probably just not let him sleep at all the night before. Next time we will take her in around nap time if we have to go again. I think that she doesn't go into sleep mode unless she has had a good lunch and is in her own crib. Oh well.

Once she was asleep it was easy. They positioned her on the table, the machine slid her in and did the scan. That all took maybe 10 minutes. Crazy. I guess as well that I could stayed longer to see results but they didn't want me to so I just got her to show off her eyes for a minute and we were gone. I guess they have to check the pupils to be sure they don't have anything wrong.

It was pretty fun to see that sophisticated machine as I enjoy that type of thing. I had to laugh when they asked if she was allergic to any medications. She really has never had anything besides kid tylenol. Well I said she isn't allergic to that. I haven't really been inclinded to see what she can't handle!

Well that is one adventure that was cool, but hopefully we won't have to repeat.

CAT Scan...

2009-01-14T16:16:00.001-08:00

So my daughter is scheduled to get a CAT scan this friday. Which I don't know how I really feel about. The reason is that her doctor thinks her head might be a bit bigger than it should be. She is apparently in the 150% percentile in that category. She does have a head that appears to be a bit larger. So in the last month it grew about one half of a centimeter larger in diameter. The doctor believes that this amount of growth is far to much.

That is where the CAT scan comes in. They want to make sure that she isn't hiding anything else in there. So we are getting ready for that. The hard thing for us as parents is that we have to sleep deprive her and starve her. So put her to sleep later and wake her up earlier and don't give her any breakfast so that she will take the minor sedative and go out like a light.

Doing that to your baby girl who already has me wrapped around her finger doesn't really get me excited. In fact I feel bad. I think this is mainly my fault because as a little kid I had a very large head. In fact even at a year old I sometimes had trouble holding it up. I am fine now, and I feel like she is just suffering from my bad genes. I guess we will prove somebody wrong friday morning. We are thinking that we will make it a daddy daughter date and give Alison a break on this one. She deals with a lot and not having to deal with this may be a relief.

I guess we will see how things turn out...She will be the first in the family to get a CAT scan. Surprisingly her mother hasn't had one even with all the accidents she has been in.

Money...

2009-01-13T17:08:00.001-08:00

Today I payed a bunch of bills. That is always a depressing time of month, to see all the money that you made go out the door. Wow that is really depressing. Anyway, I discovered this month that because of our current economic depression that one of our credit cards that we have with a balance of about 4000 dollars and an interest rate of 4 percent has decided to try and get us to pay it off faster or accept a worse option that would eventually lead to high interest rates before I could pay it off. That is really depressing because the big companies that are making lots of money on us already are now trying to scalp the people that they are already getting fat off of.

I shouldn't complain, I have a job and can pay my bills I will just have to accept the reality of having to pay a bit more and playing a bit less. It is really frustrating to have a deal and then have people change it on you in the middle of it when you thought that they wouldn't or shouldn't technically be able to do that. Big Argh there.

The brighter side of this situation is that I will be able to pay that card off faster than I had thought I would be able to. That is really nice.

Photo Contest!

2009-01-13T09:10:00.001-08:00

So sorry for the form mail type email. I am writing to let you all know that Robert (my brother) and I had a photo contest in the month of December 2008. We have made an online gallery and want you to check it out. You will be the judge. Just visit the site if you want and rate the pictures that you like, and if you feel inclined leave a comment.

Here is the link http://www.chrisandalison.name/zenphoto/2008-december-photo-contest/page/2

I hope you enjoy!

Chris

P.s. I am sorry if I sent you this and you don't care to see it. I tried to avoid that if at all possible!

Been to long...

2009-01-12T16:56:00.001-08:00

Wow I haven't been good lately at writing in the journal. It is even a resolution of mine to do a bit more of that this year. Seeing that it is the 12th of January I have some catching up to do.

Well I am here and so I will keep at it from now on.

So work is really interesting now that I just have work and no school or thesis work to worry about. I kind of feel weird being at my job for 8 or 10 hours and doing just that, not worrying about anything else like a thesis or school work. I like it, but unfortunately I haven't really experienced the huge outpouring of time that some have asked how I like. Mainly what I am experiencing is a big reduction in the stress level of things that I need to worry about. I still have all the regular things like insurance, bills, living issues and all those, just fewer dealing with work.

Work is actually nice because I go and do Science all day long. Currently I am trying to determine the partical size distribution for a bunch of samples that have a high organic matter content in them so I am trying to remove that but it is a slow process. Really slow actually. You add some peroxide and wait a while and add some more and when it is done reacting then your are all done, but I have lots of samples that are taking a while to get done reacting. Not really a bad deal for me. I just add and wait a lot of my time and can work on other stuff in the mean time.

Anyway, the kids are getting big. Zach talks up a storm, and is really developing his personality and ability to express emotion. It was funny last Saturday when we were hiking. He kept saying to his mom that he was "working really hard" and she would say are you having fun? And he wasn't to sure, so she asked if he was sad and he said "no," and so Alison assured him that he was having fun, this got us a contemplative look and a oh I am having fun working hard! He is a smart kid. He also is getting really good at potty training. We are getting to the point that we can count the number of accidents in a week on one have rather than just a day.

Andrea is becoming quite a character as well, and to my hearts delight she really loves her father. She is often a Daddies girl, and is actually now saying DA DA. Pretty nice to hear, and I hear it a lot! She also has decided this last week that she is done with the high chair. She will be using a chair from now on we are seeing. Well that will be the next step for her I guess. Good times.

Alison is getting closer to being due with our third child. I hope that I have mentioned that previously. If not, oh well we are due in March. She is starting to show with about anything she wears, while before now as usual she doesn't show much at all even at 7 months pregnant. It makes me laugh to hear ladies at church say "I didn't know your wife was pregnant!" Well she definitely is...The funny thing about this baby is that we know almost exactly where and when this baby was concieved if we aren't mistaken. Unlike the other two.

Anyway, I think that is all for today, I will be back. Well a bit more. I am reading the bible this year, actually finishing it hopefully. I wanted to finish it last year and I just didn't get far at all. So I am reading 10 pages a day to get done by April. I am currently in Psalms. It is really interesting to read these. To bad we don't know exactly when each was written to get an idea of what was precisely going on in King Davids and the other writers lives. It is also interesting to see the bible in a grander perspective as I read it 10 pages a day. So far I am ahead of schedule so maybe failure won't be the case on this goal!

Dancing kids!

2008-12-17T16:59:00.001-08:00

I think this works. Sorry to take you all over the place!

This video is of our two kids dancing at my brothers wedding!

Chris

All Day?

2008-11-15T17:29:00.001-08:00

So today is Saturday. You know what that means? I think it means that I worked 2 Saturdays in a row. I usually try to get streaks like this going in the opposite direction. Things seem to be going well in the work category. I may be able to get everything done that I need to with my thesis. I know I have complained about my brothers timing on his wedding a few times but man this really is bad timing. I am not happy at all having to really scrape things together fast like this.

Okay most of the having to get things done fast may be my fault but lets be honest, I will be getting my thesis done almost 2 weeks early if I get it done in time to head to Texas via car.

So the moral of the story? I am getting pretty stressed out again now that I am trying to get everything done for texas. I had about a day of stress relief after doing my thesis defense thinking oh I am all done...

Well not quiet yet. I still have to be official.

No Really...

2008-11-14T16:52:00.001-08:00

Well I am getting closer each day to being done with my masters degree. I guess now you could say I unofficially have my masters degree. I didn't realize that this was the case if you pass you defense but haven't yet turned in the final thesis. Well my thesis defense went well.

For my thesis defense I was pretty nervous up to about 3 hours before. I didn't sleep really well, and I had the "pre-race" jitters that I frequently got when I did sports in high school. But a few hours before I guess a different part of me took over and I set aside the nervousness. I was one with the presentation. That was really invigorating now that I think about it. Overall my talking went well. My lovely wife was there to cheer me on. That was really helpful. That was the kind of support that I didn't think I would really desire but actually really appreciated.

Once I started the presentation as always I felt like this isn't enough information or work for my thesis to actually be done. I was worried that people would question the quality or the amount of work. Luckily I worried about that in vain. I got some questions that were really confusing because I just didn't understand the context that people were coming from but those were to bad I would say.

After general questions I got grilled by the committee and that wasn't actually to bad. Overall though it seemed that they mainly asked me really far off questions that didn't seem to actually apply directly to the thesis. Overall they wanted to be sure I was able to think on the next level not just struggle at the one I was presenting on. I understand this as well but it was weird. Some questions were totally in left field from where I did my research but those were to bad because they didn't have to be answered perfectly because they were mostly speculative.

They kicked me out and talked among themselves for a few minutes and then told me I passed and talked about some things that they wanted me to change in the thesis it self. Mostly talking about data and conclusions differently and adding some background information. This was stuff that will make it better. The problem with that is that I could make this project better and better forever. I just want to be done! Okay really now I am getting really close. Maybe next week I will be able to be totally done.

That is a really big relief. I just wish that I didn't have to go to the wedding and Texas. I will have lots fun that is for sure. But overall I don't want to have to be stressed about getting everything done. I guess that would be a perfect world. I am still enjoying this one though...

Things Are Good!

2008-11-09T10:22:00.000-08:00

Well things are going well. I finished an assignment that I had due for monday that was pretty big and in the way of work that I really wanted to be working on, my thesis. So that is out of the way and freed up a few hours of time for this next week. I am afraid and excited that this next week may be the longest work week of my life. Previously the longest work week I have had was about 74 hours. So we will see if I can accomplish what I need to this week and how much time it will take. Here is a list of what I have to do.

Finish my Thesis Defense Presentation (I really have about all of it left to do...)
Read another book for my Sociology Class I am taking.
Work on my soils project at the EPA for probably at least 20 hours.
Format my thesis entirely so that it is ready to turn in with other revisions requested from my committee members.
Write my sociology paper that is due very soon after my trip to Texas.

I guess those are only a few things that I need to be doing this week. I probably won't need 70 hours. Hopefully I can finish everything up in that time. But if need be I will be putting in 80 or 90. I am determined to be worry free when I get to my brothers wedding. So I can focus on birds and the wonders therein of Texas!

Anyway the other nice thing is that the cold I previously had is about down the drain. What a relief. It was really wiping me out. Usually I crack off about 7 hours of rest and am doing well, but with this cold I was needing 10+ hours to be just a bit functional. Argh. Last week I put in about 55 hours and I was really dragging. Hopefully I can put in only 55 and not be dragging at all!

I am also enjoying the 1pm church we will be having until the end of the year. I like the long morning to eat play and do what ever with the family before we head over to church. It is really nice!

Really?

2008-11-06T17:00:00.001-08:00

I have my thesis defense scheduled! This is really weird to actually be at this point. It has been a long time coming. I think it may have been harder to get the four professors together than to do the research and write the thesis. But I am set for my defense on the 13th of November 2008 at 2pm. I am pretty excited about this. I do have a load of work to do before then but hey that is what I do...I just wish I wasn't getting a massive cold. Argh!

Scheduling?

2008-11-06T16:59:00.001-08:00

Well I am working on my scheduling today for my thesis defense. I have to get four really busy people all in the same room at the same time. Today I think I may have done it. But when I think I may have done it I think that I may also be finding lots of problems to deal with. Two of the people on the committee previously had said that Thursday the 13th of November was fine any time. So I set it for 2pm based on what the busiest member said. Well the original two now are saying that maybe I will have a conflict at that time. Let me check.

Argh. The worst thing is that I have to wait a bit longer to set it up. Today was almost a total anachronism in that all four members were in their offices and I was able to contact them all at once. That is really unusual. Believe me. So I am now facing potentially having to reschedule the entire thing again. Oh my.

The interesting thing is that now it is fitting together potentially and our hopeful plans for going to Texas are lining up I don't want to go at all. That may be because I am currently suffering from a bad cold and am tired of everything. I don't want to do anything right now. I don't even want to have a break is the funny thing. I can tell I need to go home and worry about this stuff tomorrow. I will be feeling better about things then. That is no guarantee though in my attendance at my brothers wedding. I am still a bit peeved that he scheduled it at the worst time in the last 3 years for me. Oh well.

DONE!

2008-11-06T16:58:00.001-08:00

Okay so I am almost done. I am finishing printing out my thesis for people to look at. Mainly my committee. What a relief. I am about to finish my masters! Well I am getting pretty close. I may even be able to say that I will be finished this semester. We will see. Anyway, I have spent a bit to much time today finishing up things so I am headed home.

Chow!

Funny Kids...

2008-10-23T17:15:00.001-07:00

So I think that my kids wake up just in time for me to leave for work. They wake up each day about the same time each day. Maybe over time I have trained them to wake up about 7 am because I make a bit of a ruckus getting my bike out to head to work. Oh well. I fell bad for my wife. She has to get up regularly at 7 am! I do it so I can have an evening of little or not work (usually this works...).

So yesterday I was told a story about my son. He woke up just after I left and came out and asked his mother if I was there. She said no daddy is already gone. He replied "aw shucks!" and went about his playing.

A while ago he got up and wanted to have me around for something and Alison said I would be home after dinner. She asked him what he wanted for breakfast and he said that he wanted her to make dinner now. That made my heart cry a little when she told me that. I love to be around my little joys in life and they certainly love me regardless, something I try to always deserve.

Anyway, I am headed to them now. Last night there where no flat tires, but I worry about today, the other tire was looking pretty sad now. I think my bike has the flat tire disease. Oh well. Better than car troubles, these are pretty easy and cheap to fix.

Almost There? Really?

2008-10-22T17:12:00.001-07:00

Well I am getting closer to being done with my thesis. I can tell because I have only so much time so I actually really have to be done, and as I work on it and cross stuff of my list of todo's it is getting shorter instead of getting two or three things longer with each one that is crosses of. So things are looking pretty good.

I am also feeling pretty good about my pictures of the day website. I have had it up for almost 3 months. It is fun to see 90 or so of my pictures and what I decided to put up daily especially as I look at last weeks shots, and two months ago.

I am still a bit frustrated that my brother chose to get married the day my masters thesis is due, in Texas. So I have to have everything done much earlier. I could have it all done much earlier, except that I am dealing with four professors that don't have my thesis getting done very high on their priorities list. So basically I may have a choice to make, finish my master or go to a wedding...stay tuned!

The excitement now is whether my bike tire will be flat or not when I go outside to ride home. Two nights in a row so far it was flat. Hopefully the streak has ended!

Thesis!

2008-10-21T17:31:00.001-07:00

Today I sat down with my professor and went over the rough draft of my thesis. It was good to hear his feedback and to get his perspective on the work I have been able to do so far. He really surprised me when he told me after we had been talking for a few minutes that the thesis in general read really nicely and it was well done. I usually just get criticism and we need to work on this and this type things. He isn't really negative, but he gets on a certain track and just doesn't see anything else sometimes and is also sometimes pretty focused on small things and doesn't give these types of complements ever (at least up to now). So that was really nice.

So after that meeting I have a lot of work to do before I can safely feel confident about my chances of getting done this semester. I will be okay but I have a lot of work to do, especially in the next week. Today was good. I got several small parts of the thesis taken care of like the abbreviations table. I had to collect all the abbreviations in the paper and locate them into a certain table. Not bad there were only 14. So I have a list about 2 pages long of one line things to fix and take care of but that is okay. I have a goal and direction. The only thing between those things now is the work to get there. I can do that. Luckily I have done a lot of work already so I am not really needing to do some serious drafting, just formatting and clarifying.

So at the end of this day I am headed to the park! That is about the best thing to cap off a day for sure.

On the Road Again...

2008-09-23T13:57:00.001-07:00

Alison, Zach, Andrea and I are on the road again. Well in about 30 minutes from when I write this. Alison told me she was ready a bit sooner than we thought, so I am headed home to jump in the car to get on the road to Provo. I will be working while we drive. Oh the fun we have in our lives. I have seriously about 40 graphs, 30 figures and some more tables to be making. I can do that on my laptop about anywhere. Good times.

We are going to Provo to see family and fall colors as well as do some fishing. I am pretty excited. I was going to be done with work a bit sooner and have more time to play but alas work still follows me where ever I go...

Only for a while longer!

I am pretty excited for the future. My family and I have a lot in from of us that we can do.

Friday?

2008-09-12T17:18:00.001-07:00

So today I wish I had many more hours to work. I also wish I had no more work to do. Does that make sense? Well that is how I feel. I am also really hungry. I want to go out to eat, but I know I really shouldn't. The place I want to go eat is Buffalo Wild Wings, where I went already this week. I guess it was good and is sticking with me. Ironic. I hope we don't end up doing that. I need to be strong so that I can avoid eating out for the rest of the month. After tonight almost every Friday and Saturday are booked with things to do. So I need to make it through tonight!

We are also going to go to Barnes and Noble and check out books. That is one of our favorite things to do, but it is hard because the kids drive us crazy there. We would spend all day. The kids can only last so long. Andrea has also lately decided that her main job to maintain her status is pulling all the books off our shelves. We will see if this transfers to Barnes and Noble...

Homeland Security

2008-09-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

So I work at a place called the Desert Research Institute. It is pretty cool to do some fun research, even if it is on dirt. I get to figure out how much of certain things are in stuff, and things like that. It is really cool to work months on a project and get back actual scientific data.

Today I had to go to a safety training meeting that covered lab safety and hazardous waste management. Well they talked about security and things like that. I could honestly make Meth, or other drugs, or produce chemicals that could really hurt a lot of people.

So what is the point, well security is a real issue. Generally speaking I work behind locked doors. I have to have a security card to enter my building and then only 4 people have keys to my lab. So it is kind of secure.

So after we get this lecture about safety I walk back up to my office and see that the security doors are propped open for some reason for maintenance. So all those precautions are out the door. Some things I really could never make but to buy their ingredients, which are in my lab, you have to have major clearance.

Oh well I guess...

Work and Play

2008-09-02T16:45:00.001-07:00

Well we had a pretty great weekend. It got pretty good Friday when I realized Monday was a holiday. That was nice. So we played Saturday by going on a walk and having a good time all day long. I loved it because I basically got to hang out with my kids all day long. At the end of the day it was a bit maddening when my two year old got tired and restless and only tried to get my goat. He used good tactics like hitting his sister and doing things he wasn't supposed to do at all.

Sunday was nice to. We relaxed and had some good fun. I made two kinds of cookies with my son. Oatmeal and Peanut Butter. Zach wanted Oe cookies as he calls them and Ali wanted peanut butter. 50 minutes later all the cookies were made and cooked. It was fun.

Monday I worked for part of the day and then played with kids before our friends came over for a barbecue and swimming. We invited our old friends from the Greenbriar ward the Schotts. They have 6 kids and are so dun to hang out with. I grilled hamburgers and hot dogs along with shishkabobs with Markus and Alison played after she got everything taken care of. It was a lot of fun.

Today I am back at the grind writing and getting closer to being done with the thesis. I am very happy and excited to be getting closer daily to being done.

Tonight I am going to list some things on ebay for sale. I hope that goes smoothly enough...

Temple

2008-08-28T09:46:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-26T17:12:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-26T14:24:00.003-07:00

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

2008-08-26T14:24:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-08-26T14:23:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-26T14:18:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-26T14:17:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-08-26T14:15:00.001-07:00

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

Microscope Work

2008-08-19T15:36:00.001-07:00

4 years...

2008-08-18T17:19:00.001-07:00

Best Day Yet...

2008-08-16T22:15:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-08-15T15:34:00.001-07:00

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?

2008-08-14T16:24:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-08-13T10:41:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-08-13T10:03:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-12T16:47:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-08-12T08:55:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-08-06T09:38:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-06T09:11:00.001-07:00

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?

2008-08-05T14:21:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-04T17:02:00.001-07:00

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.

I am back...

2008-07-31T18:36:00.001-07:00

It is been a while, but I am back from vacation in Yosemite National Park. It was a good vacation. It gave a good getaway from Vegas, and a good perspective on the park and when to visit.

Above all it was really nice to be with my wife and two kids for 12 days strait, basically all day with them each day. The few times I went on a hike and they stayed at camp it seemed really weird that they weren't with me. That is really cool to feel like that.

Some things I learned were as follows (these were the biggest complaints I guess as well)

Be sure to check your sleeping pads before you leave. Nice big thick pads do nothing for you if they have a hole...
Plan on food that is bad for you as well, not just healthy food.
Have a way to recharge you compy if you must take a lot of pictures.
It is okay to be packed a day ahead of time, the late night prior to leaving is a better time to rest than pack.
Arrive very early for a campsite if there is any chance it may be full (we actually we early and had no real issue getting a campsite)
Be prepared to be in a congested campsite (more congested than my current apartment complex by the way) if you want to camp in Yosemite valley!
Always if possible bring grandparents, they are totally awesome!

Those are some of the bigger ones that come to mind. Really overall we did well. I planned very well, and I feel great about the food Alison planned for us even though she had a harder time with it than I did.

Our kids proved our theory correct as well about camping with kids. If you keep them warm, dry (for the most part, actually getting wet is okay), and fed they will be happy about anywhere. The biggest problem we had with Zach was that he started really getting his imagination going and somehow got in his head that there were monkeys trying to come out of the trees and get him. It started as "Mommy, Daddy monkeys in trees!" this helped him have fun driving everywhere. Then it turned into them coming into the tent when he was supposed to be going to sleep. But over 11 nights we had only 1 bad night and 1 iffy night. Otherwise it was as good as at home. I think the kids slept far better than us ironically!

The other thing I recommend doing is getting you kids scared of fire. Zach hated the smoke and also was scared of me lighting it any time I picked up the lighter. This was because he once was closer than his comfort level when I lit some white gas on the stove and then again on the fire. After that he was scramming every time I got close to the flame. This really helped with him wanting to do unsafe things with the fire. Unfortunately the 1 year old (almost, only 5 days or so) never got scared at all. She would have crawled into it if I had let her. Oh well.

Now I am getting ready to plan next years trip...It did take about 8 months of time planning and discussing and preparing for this trip, luckily we spread it out over that time so we were able to do things gradually as they needed to be done.

Vacation...

2008-07-16T07:54:00.001-07:00

Well Alison, Zach, Andrea and I are headed on vacation. We play a lot, yes, but this is actually a planned and hoped for vacation. We are headed for Yosemite National Park. We are going to get a broad overview of the park visiting the valley, and the high country. Most people never visit anything besides the valley and this takes up only 7 square miles of more than a 1000 in the actual park.

Alison and I have been before together, and it was only about 3 days and we wanted to stay longer but it was a trip up the coast, not a trip up to Yosemite only. That trip was actually our longest trip yet together at about 2 weeks. It was hard because we just kept traveling the entire time. This trip will hopefully be better because we will only move camp once in the 13 days and 12 nights we will be there.

I have planned a variety of things that we can do while there and Alison has prepared very nice food that for the most part only needs to be re hydrated for cooking and that is it. This will leave us open to more playing with great food without the need to spend a good deal of time actually cooking.

This trip unlike others we have planned and prepared for actively for weeks. We have planned it for months, but the last few weeks we have been doing lots of little things that always take forever the day or so before we leave. Leaving tomorrow morning we are doing better than usual but the magnitude of the trip is catching up to us. So we will see how much work we have to do tonight...

We have also tried to prepare a head of time because tonight is ward temple night and we always try and go together to this. So we will have to be ready before then!

Updates

2008-06-11T14:47:00.001-07:00

I will try and fill in the questions you have asked...I may not send many pictures because they have wireless but it is really slow...

Okay so we got here Saturday at 4:30. It was freaking cold. High for the day was 51. Yep that was the high. We chilled with Kathy and Ben for the evening. John was working on a can smasher for Ben. The smasher is pretty cool, it makes the cans flat fast!

The sunset was pretty amazing. Possibly the best I have yet experienced in RV. Tonight may rival it however. We will see.

Sunday, I woke up at 5:10 and watched the sunrise. Again wonderful. Alison and I walked around and listened for the kids to wake up. They didn't wake up till 8:10. 3 hours of walk around time was sweet.

Sunday evening we did dishes and let Zach play outside for hours. He had so much fun he didn't know what to do with himself. The cats in the tree house are a huge temptation. He climbs up there with no problem at all, grabs a kitten or two and tosses them out of the tree house and climbs down. Give him credit, those baby kittens wiggle something fierce when you hold them by the neck.

So monday I woke up at 5:25. I walked around the house again and Alison got a great walk in. Zach got a huge bloody nose and woke up Andi at 5:45 screaming. Sadly I didn't really check on him for about 5 minutes. I photographed birds and flowers. Monday evening we helped the Neffs pack and get ready.

Tuesday morning we were going to go to the refuge but decided against it because we wanted to be there when they left. So I hiked up around the mill area looking for sparrows and photographed amazing clouds. Tuesday even we went and saw a movie. Indiana Jones 3. It was good, but parts were pretty hokey. Ben got to start 4 movies. I think we haven't heard anything else from him except that. We got taco time and blizzards at DQ. They were pretty good. That was my first trip ever to DQ.

Wednesday Morning I explored the old school house and found more wild flowers to photograph. I got up at 5:00. I took a three our nap to lunch. Today we are going camping. Later I will give you the update on that. I am working on pictures as well. They are looking dang great.

Oh yesterday We got Kailin to tend the kids. They have never been better for anyone else. I am amazed. I offered to pay her 20 dollars (we were gone 6 hours) and she and her mom said that was to much and took only 10. Oh well what can I do. I would have paid her 5 dollars an hour, but she took on 1.75.

Also I have been checking cows that are supposed to have babies any minute. So I saw a calf 3 hours old. The thing could barely stand up. It was dang cute!

Zach also got to help me feed some sick cows grain. He thought that was the most amazing thing. He also got to drive the huge truck, that was pretty fun as well.

That is it for now. I will let you know more later.

P.s. Zach and Andi love to try and eat the dog food. I understand Andi, but we feed Zach great food...

On our way...

2008-06-05T11:10:00.001-07:00

Well I have worked a good week so far and now I am heading home to head out to Great Basin National Park and eventually Ruby Valley Nevada. These two places should give us a good deal of peace and quite and some nice photos maybe. I am excited. I am always excited however to get out and photograph. Ruby Valley is possibly my favorite place to photograph. I hope that I find a plethora of new and exciting pictures out there this trip. I would move back if I could but I just can't find a real great job there. Oh well. Maybe fortune will turn our way on the Job thing out there...

The Weekend?

2008-05-30T16:50:00.001-07:00

Well I will be honest. The weekend has come much faster than I thought that it would. Wow. I have had a good week but a bit busy.

I spent a good part of the week trying to schedule time to use instruments, track down other instruments that hopefully I can use some day and moving mine and others offices and laboratory instruments.

It has been good, but today I topped the week off by starting to build a soil drying table out of PVC pipe that took forever to get started on because I didn't have regular PVC cutters, but had to use the hand saw I had. Argh! It wasn't to bad, but I had to make about 25 cuts and it took more than an hour with the typically dull blade you find on a saw when you need it. After a while of breathing fumes I decided that I had had enough for the day and went to order some equipment for my DRI lab.

I needed to order a thermometer that wasn't filled with mercury so we can be safety compliant in our lab. It is amazing how many types of thermometers that are available for the typical scientific lab. I found hundreds and it took a while to get through to what I needed. Also it was interesting that the company we order through was a terrible website but a great catalog. That is kind of unusual in our day.

I am heading home now for the weekend. I hope that all is well there, I am sure it will be my wife is amazing. She does way better with our two kids than I could.

School?

2008-05-21T15:50:00.001-07:00

Well I can say that it is weird to not have school before me. I mean specifically classes. I have lots of thesis work to do this summer, but really I am done with my classes. This is really a big relief, and a nice feeling to have overall.

The nice feeling extends to not knowing what to do with myself actually. Anyway, I have lots to do but not really many close deadlines. This is really weird. I will try and clear my mind this week...by going to Zion National Park. I am beginning to think that my wife and I really do love that place! I believe that this trip will be the 5 time in two years. It is close to us so that really isn't a problem at all.

Well I am wondering what else to write, I really am not knowing what to do with myself. I fell like I need to go home and ask my wife for some chores!

I think that is what I will do...

DONE!

2008-05-15T15:20:00.001-07:00

Well I am about done with school. I guess that I need to finish my thesis and I will be all done. That is a real relief. I hope that day will come really soon!

Anyway, today I am going to go home and play with my kids. I might try and sell my books on the way home to reduce the load of bad books on my book shelf. I hear that the book store here next to campus pays pretty good money for textbooks...

Tomorrow I hope that I can go birding and find some really good stuff, I hear clapper rails are possible and those are ones I don't have yet...

Almost done...

2008-05-13T17:37:00.001-07:00

Well it has been a while since I typed in this journal. I regret it but also have an excuse (Yes I hate to even give them). I am finishing the last set of my classes forever. This is a nice feeling to say the least. I have currently 2 papers and a test. I am trying really hard to still do my best. I have my 4.0 on the line. If I can pull off A's this semester I will have a 4.0 for my entire masters degree. This is pretty cool from my perspective, and I am excited. If I don't get it, then oh well...

Anyway, I am writing to just let the journal know at least that I think about it constantly and want to write more. I am very excited about my new work schedule after school is out...home by 5:30 every day. My poor wife might not know what to do with me!

Work and mostly school...

2008-05-01T17:57:00.001-07:00

I am in the final stages of my classes for my masters degree. I have been fit in all my classes for my degree in only four semesters. That is if I can survive my last few weeks of classes. Argh! Well I have only 12 credits. But I am kind of stressed out about a few different papers and projects, and other similar things. I have cut my work way back to get through this all. I am a student after all. The hard part is working on several different projects and not really making much progress (at least if feels like).

Today I have done research on several aspects of recycling and have read hundreds of pages of papers and books. Wow, my brain seems like it is about to melt. Starting soon though I will be getting several big projects done and have a bit less stress on what I am trying to accomplish. Monday and Tuesday of next week I have major papers, and presentations and then I will have another week to go before my last paper and two finals come around...

I have decided that to relieve stress I am going to go and do some bird watching tomorrow morning. Anyway, that is the plan. Then hopefully I can focus a bit more on the rest of the days projects...

Moving in and out...

2008-04-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

So today my wife had to decide to work on our new residence (it is an unorganized mess, but not bad) or cleaning up our old place and checking out of there (lots of small things to clean but basically empty). I didn't envy her. I was off to work and didn't have to work on that much at all today (I will later tonight, but not much at all compared to what she will do). I feel bad. Ironically most days I feel rather guilty about just heading off to work while she fights what seem to me real battles at home.

I guess possibly the biggest product of this move and stepping into the reality of being people with jobs and not so much students is that we are considering getting a Sams club card. We may actually begin to make that worth our while. That makes me cringe actually. I guess that it is one more sign of growing up and becoming a bit more established...

I am excited about that prospect a little bit though, we can buy a few things in bulk that will be nice to get there rather than other places that are much higher priced, or worse not even available...

We are also trying to build up our food storage and there really has been a bit of a scare on the availability of flour, rice, sugar and other staples to the point that prices have really risen lately, and things aren't looking much brighter in the future. This is sad, and hopefully not a permanent thing.

New House!

2008-04-28T05:38:00.001-07:00

Well I am in the new house and it is looking like I do have an internet connection that I can leech off of. That will at least hold us over until I can set up a real connection of our own if that is feasibile...

So the new house (it is technically a condo) is pretty nice. Sadly the neighbor smokes...so that will be a small thing to deal with while we are here but other than that things are good...

Robert I hear that you have a hot date on your day after I am home from the mission day. That is cool...I wish for old times sake I could double with you, that was always fun.

Things are going well, I just have a huge week of work and school this week. As well mom couldn't believe that I probably won't be there for when you get home...Just in case however what are the details? Like what flight, time and those things. So what else is up my brother? I am actually way tired. I think you are potentially in the same position so I will not complain about that.

I hope that this is the second email you read from me this week, I might be able to drop you a line monday morning.

The newest thing from the kids is that Zach goes up to Andi while she sleeps and honks her nose to beep her awake. He was doing this all the time to me before I guess he just thinks it is funny to do to her. He seriously takes away so much sleep from here...

The other thing is that we started our new ward today and in nursery (I think he actually likes it more though) he was fighting with another boy. Luckily at that age hitting is really not more than laughable. Still the intent that they have is the actual problem...

Have a good day, week cause you only have 12 more days! That is awesome and really stinks...now is the time to pull the "you need to get baptised before I leave guilt trip"...I hear that works well!

I love you brother!

Car and Barf...

2008-04-22T15:53:00.001-07:00

Well the last few days have been interesting.

I may not have mentioned it but we are going to move come this Friday and Saturday. So I am actually pretty excited. The new place of residence is a condo that we will rent for a year or so and then see what comes next in our lives.

In getting ready to move I am getting wiped out by the work that I have to do. First of all it is the end of the semester. I am wondering why am I trying to do anything but finish my masters degree? Well I guess I wanted life to be interesting so I threw in the idea of moving, and starting a new job. This is fine and dandy except that each of these things is actually a pretty big deal in and of itself.

Really I shouldn't complain because overall none of these things would be overly difficult by itself. It is just that each of these things is really time consuming and I only have so much more time...

My wife always teases me about my new job and finances. Like "wow if you were single that would be a ton of money"... Actually for me I have never really been occupied by the money that I am supposedly giving up but rather the time that things take to be a good person for family and all that other stuff.

So before we move we really want to cover the issue of baggage that we have hanging around in our lives. I have a little truck (big baggage) that I really just need to get rid of. It has given me fits for a long time on getting repaired. I just can't figure out what the problem is. Despite that I feel a good bit of nostalgia over it. Oh well it will save me lots of money on insurance and grief seeing it daily and knowing that it still needs work (I am trying to lower the number of those things that exist in my life...).

I listed my truck on Craig's list here in vegas and got about 10 responses in less than 2 hours. Wow internet classifieds are pretty amazing. They are all trying to low ball me though, so I will have to wait a bit longer...

The other part of the title on this entry is that my daughter isn't feeling well and throwing up a lot (mainly yesterday). It is amazing how much a little body can throw up...

Sick Day...

2008-04-20T21:20:00.001-07:00

So brother,

How are you today? You didn't get sick today as well did you? I am on the verge of Ralphing and have been so all day.

I woke up at 7 (this is now sleeping in 2 hours...that is sad kind of...), and felt very sluggish. I just thought I was being a lazy bum. So I tried to get up and I was not doing well. So I got into the shower and got one bite of yogurt in and decided I needed to go back to bed. Well about 5 mintues before my meetings started I thought I can get up. I got up and immediately thought this is a mistake! But being the hard head I am got dressed and went to all the bishop meetings (for me church is 6 hours of meetings, not 3) and then church. The whole time I was wondering what was I doing. At one point I ran out of sacrament (I like to think I was being quite non-chalant) to the bathroom. I never barfed, but just felt like it all day.

The big reasons I went were that I wanted to find out how much the Young Womens bake auction made, if the help for us moving was coordinated, and it was our last sunday (and I was asked to teach Elders quorum but the Sick EQP). So I went through the day, and the times I felt best were when I was teaching and later playing with me kids. Right now though I feel really worn out and want to be asleep. Sorry if this is a bit shorter.

So before I forget, I want to explore the blue ridge mountians in Jamaica (I hope that I am pronouncing that correctly). I hear that they are way remote and many people, even Jamaicans, have never even gone into the interior. Pictures of the places inside there look like fallbacks to the 1800's...

Okay, so I hope that the videos are good. I am sorry about the not being online, my job is moving right ahead at that time of the morning. I feel really responsible at 20 dollars an hour to not slouch around...

Well I am now thinking that we may not be in provo until the 4th of July time. I don't know. Anyway, things are good here but we have lots to do, and of course money isn't unlimited. I am really thinking seroiously about the bus ticket thing. If we do that I can in good conscience spend more time playing (in cooler places as well) with you. I have a huge list of fun things to do and photograph or whatever you would want to do. We can talk about that when you get home.

So you heard that Sam is getting hitched? Good stuff for him. Hard times for Ben. He doesn't get to fly or go to Texas for the wedding. He is fascinated by the way about how he will crash the plane and wonders what the pilots will do when he does. Anyway, Kathy was trying to soften the blow by getting mom and dad to chill with him. Hard thing for them is that most all day each day only Melissa will be around. So I found this out and really quick like called kathy up and told her we heard her situation and said we would love to come and hang out with Ben and tend house. Alison was the one that talked to Kathy and when she proposed the idea she swears that she could hear angels singing in Kathy's head.

For us it would be a sweet deal, we would get to spend our vacation with ben, camping, watching videos, and I could photograph a ton at a wonderful time out there...

We asked Ben what he would thing about that and he was stoked...He was worried if we could really go camping 3 times though. I assured him we would be set and okay...

Anyway brother, that is the latest. I hope your doing well. I love you and know what your capable of. You are amazing. Continue to make the choices that magnify that in yourself!

Chris

Marathon Crawl...

2008-04-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

This is a video of Andrea doing a long crawl to get a phone (my kids love electronics...). I hope you all enjoy...

Zach is in a full body lock on the couch to keep him from getting the phone first.

She really isn't that good at crawling in this one yet, but it is hilarious and adorable!

Here is another video of her crawling a little bit more adeptly...

Okay one last one of Zach telling us he will be right back!

Work and Things...

2008-04-16T18:58:00.001-07:00

Well I have started a new job, and my kids still amaze me. I currently am in a new (still additional to my DRI graduate assistantship) position with the Environmental Protection Agency. It is good already. It is interesting that there is such a comradeship there. I always imagined a government job as backbiting and infighting. Everyone I have met is enthusiastic and welcoming me to the team.

I will admit that the office I share is crappy and the computer is kind of a joke (okay, not kind of...). But the work is actually really interesting. I am working on developing methods for tracking toxic environmental compounds that are analyzed using Mass Spectrometry and Gas Chromatography techniques. We are testing if these techniques can adequately identify the pollutants.

The good about this job is that we are going to be in Las Vegas for at least another year, possibly two and we will be able to be near the places we really like to travel to and avoid the harsh winters that are located else where! :)

I am excited because the place I go to work is right in the middle of campus here at UNLV and my commute won't change at all. Well that is a Lie, we are moving closer and my commute will get shorter. This makes me happy and sad. I like the workout. However, with days like today that are really windy and I am kind of tired this is a nice prospect to be 10 or 15 minutes closer.

So some funny things my kids are up to lately. My now 8 month old baby (holy cow she is an old woman! To bad that makes me her dad still), hates applesauce but loves yogurt. Apparently Texture is not allowed in what she eats. She also really digs carrots and onions, a nice mix that Alison whips up for her.

Zach is crazy. First he is so compassionate that it blows me away. He worries about us getting what we need all the time. He also prefers Oatmeal to Waffles and Pizza. Make a note of that, cause we can only get him to consistently eat oatmeal. Argh! We are going to hold this over his head when he is older!

Another One Bites the Dust...

2008-04-11T23:09:00.001-07:00

Today I was back on the ranch in Ruby Valley for a few minutes. I guess that I had some bad/good experiences with equipment breaking/dying on me and those around me.

I thought that when I got to my science lab in Vegas that I wouldn't have to deal with things like that. Well it turns out that even in the science lab you still have to fix things and get them going. I have had terrible trouble with two separate pieces of equipment here in Vegas (Atomic Absorber, and hot water bath/circulator). Both of these machines aren't cheap. They aren't as costly as tractors for farm use are but they are still up there 50,000 and 5,000.

So with the hot water bath it just had its computer system get totally fried by gaseous acid coming off a certain experiment we do. We do it a lot and well the bath died. Luckily when we dropped 5,000 on a new one we got one that had a setup protecting from the gaseous acid for this future experiments. So that wasn't to bad, it did take almost 3 months to get that taken care of however which really put me way behind schedule.

The Atomic Absorber on the other hand has been far worse a nightmare. For me it worked pretty well for several months then a coolant hose wore out on me. Well that was easy enough to fix. Then later another hose died on me. This one was deep in the instrument and so I really had to tear the machine apart to get to it. It got fixed and then putting it back together the auto sampler that picks up the samples wouldn't work for some reason. That was two months and 3,000 dollars ago.

Fast forward to today. I got the repaired auto sampler back. I get it all hooked up and things are looking like they will run well (this is when I get the old ranch feeling of this is to good to be a permanent thing). I start up the machine and I smell something faintly burning. This is a bad smell in a scientific lab. In a tractor you don't really worry, in fact it almost had to be on fire to really be worthy of a problem. Well I thought maybe some coolant that I wasn't able to get cleaned up earlier was burning or evaporating off with a bit of it burning. This was actually a faint hope, but I actually believed in it for a short time.

Well I turned it off and cleaned it up and then I started it up again. Because I had to run the thing so off it went. Good feelings were gone when the burning smell started twice as bad almost as soon as I turned the machine on after 2 hours (this means that something was burning regardless of the machine being warmed up or not :(). So I turned it off. I told my boss and he was pretty sad/mad/pissed all in one. I tell him things because he needs to know what is happening, not because he actually knows how to fix anything at all. So I called the repair rep (he gets $325 and hour if he comes out) to get an idea of what was happening. He gave me a few scenarios. Basically I needed to get out the torch and start singing that old song that goes "burn baby burn!!... Well I invited my old friend over who has had more unhappy times with the AA than even me and my professor over. We started it up and it was smoking again before it had been on for 10 seconds. That was not a good thing. So we possibly can now fix it for about $15,000 to $20,000 dollars. That is definitely an un-cheap price.

The good part was that since I had my camera I took picture of the broken thing and will send them to the Repair man to see what he thinks. Basically my professor just has to be sure of whatever it means before he can deal with the problem. I wish I could have know this would happen 5 months ago when these problems had started that this may be how the poor beast ended. In my case the hay is in the field rotten and we never even hardly got it cut...

Surprising as this sounds I am a pretty happy person today. Maybe I am just one of the odd ones that is indefatigably optimistic... It really isn't my machine and this is creating bonds with the professor that will last a really long time. He won't forget me, for good or evil. Anyway, that is what has going for me the last few days.

I guess what really made my day was coming home to hot wings and tending some pretty cute little girls with my wife. For me this was great because I didn't have time for a pity party that I wasn't interested in. Now I am excited about tomorrow. I left that junk at the office, and it will stay there until Monday.

Thinking about that, on Tuesday I think that I will head out on a little camping trip (little is only 4 or 5 days by the way). This is how I deal with stress...