Finals week

Anyone who has spent any time around me while I have been going through finals knows that finals week is probably my favorite time of the school year. I know several people don't share my enthusiasm for finals, but I try to remind people that throughout the semester they have to take tests and write papers while they are still attending classes, whereas during finals week, they don't have classes to get in the way. This usually results in me spending a lot of time during finals week in the apartment playing Guitar Hero and a little time studying and taking tests. This finals week has been markedly different for me though. I only have 2 classes this semester, and only one final, so that part isn't really that different. I have been spending a lot of time on campus this week, however, and no time playing the usual games. The reason for this is that as a graduate student, I have to write a thesis. Unfortunately, I do not have a thesis topic. So, this last week, instead of spending all day in my pajamas loafing around the apartment, I actually have been getting up early and going to campus to do some experiments for possible thesis projects. The good news is that things seem to be progressing, and I should have a clearly defined project by the middle of next semester. The bad news is I haven't been improving my Guitar hero skills at all.

As Promised...

Here it is, the most recent, and most likely last, live performance of Love Machine, in all its glory. Enjoy!

Almost Famous

So, I went home for Thanksgiving this last week. While I was at home, I had occasion to look through my high school yearbooks (I had a good reason for pulling them out and looking at them, but the reason is not important to the post). Of course, as I flipped through the pages, I looked at a lot of the signatures and notes people had written in the on yearbook signing day (I won't tell you how many signatures were there, just know there were enough to pretty much fill the front and back cover, but not so much that it would take me more than an hour to read them all). As I read the things people had wrote, I thought it was funny that so many people told me I would be famous someday. The justification seemed to be that I was smart, so I would be famous someday. I don't know who came up with that idea, but I am pretty sure that intelligence doesn't equate to fame. So, I hate to burst the bubble of all those people from high school, but I will probably never fulfill their desire for me to get in touch with them when I am famous. I don't think any fame is in the future for me, and I am perfectly fine with that.

Love Machine, Part 2

Well, for some reason it is an annual traditions in Singles Wards everywhere to have some form of talent show. Our ward this year decided to pair it with Thanksgiving dinner. Last year, our ward did a similar thing a little bit earlier in the earlier in the semester and with a chili cook off instead of turkey. So, last year we took a song we recorded on Lamar's computer freshman year and made a live version of it (I am sure all of you have seen it by now, but if not go here). That turned out well, so when it was announced that there was a talent show for our ward this year, we decided to do it again. The only problem was that several of our performers were gone, so Pilgram had to learn how to play the bass, and we couldn't find a drum set, so Lamar's computer had to fill in for a drummer. So it wasn't as good, but it went okay (I will try and post a video of the performance sometime). We didn't win the talent show, but the prize was a pass to a rock climbing gym, so we weren't too disappointed. We did gain some more fans, which was the ultimate goal anyway. We think after this that live performance of Love Machine have been put to rest.

Life Off, Game On.

I know what you are thinking...what in the world, he doesn't post for two weeks, and then all the sudden he posts four days later. Well, suffice it to say, my week this week has been a little more interesting than the previous few. And (a little teaser here), it should continue to be interesting, at least through tomorrow night. So, my Dad came into town this last week for a training for work. He was staying in Sandy, and when he first told me he was coming down, he suggested we could catch a Jazz or BYU basketball game. Since there was no BYU game last night, it had to be the Jazz game. I had only been to one professional sporting event previously, an Angels game. And I was so young when we went to that that up until I talked to my brother on Tuesday, I didn't think I had ever been to a professional sporting event. So, it was fun for me to go and witness a Jazz game in person. We were in the upper bowl, about 18 rows up, but we could see pretty well from our seats. I learned something from the game though...I am not really a Jazz fan. I like it when they win, but there was a time yesterday when they were down by 10 points and I didn't really care all that much. It is interesting because I am such a huge BYU fan that I hate whenever they are behind in football and basketball because I can't stand to see them lose. I pretty much hang on every shot or every play. My roommates will attest that I can get pretty angry when the BYU football team makes a dumb play. So it was interesting last night to just be able to watch a game and not be too terribly concerned about the outcome.

You always get lucky in West Wendover

So, starting a blog has made me realize something. Each day for the past couple of weeks, I have looked at my blog and thought "I really should post something, I haven't posted in a week (or whatever length of time it had been)". But I really had nothing to write about. Most of my weeks are fairly uneventful, and I pretty much do the same thing each day of the week. A friend suggested that I take the mundane things and make them sound interesting, but I am not blessed with that creative gift like he is. So, I went two weeks without posting. Finally, this weekend I broke form and did something out of the ordinary. Saturday morning, I got up bright and early to head out to Pilot Valley to do some field work for a Professor. I spent all day on a playa (a dry lake bed) helping to drill a couple wells and put some instruments in them. It was a long day, but afterward we went to a buffet in a casino in West Wendover. Later, after I came home, I was watching television with my roommates and we saw a commercial for West Wendover touting "You always get lucky in West Wendover". I guess since I got a buffet dinner for a few hours of work, I got a little lucky in West Wendover myself. Hopefully I can have a little more excitement this week.

Going for the Gold

So, this last weekend was parent's weekend at the Y, and, as usual, my parents came down to see me and to catch a football game. We don't usually participate in many of the parent's weekend activities (last year was the exception, when we went to the "Blue-au" dinner and pep rally). There is one parent's weekend activity that we have participated in every year I have been at BYU-the 5K. This particular 5K is unique because not only do you run individually, but you can compete with your parent as a team. Every year since my freshman year my dad and I have ran together. My freshman year, we were good enough to to get third place, a feat which we duplicated the year I got back from my mission. Two years ago, we moved up to second place. Last year was a dark time for us, as illness and lack of training led to my Dad and I not finishing in the top 3 father/son teams. This year, things fell in our favor. First off, the father from the team that had won the last several years had a broken foot, so their team was out. This left the door open for me and my Dad. Unfortunately, I am not the best at training for running events, and all I have done all semester is run a mile every Tuesday and Thursday, so I knew I would be a little slower than my best. However, after the race was won and the times were added together, we finished in first place. After 5 years of running this race and always finishing behind another team, we finally reached the top of the mountain. We do have one more year to go, but at least now when there are no more parent's weekends left for us, we can say we won it once.

The Gold Medal

Somebody's gonna win...

So, this last Saturday I got up bright and early (5:50 am, well before any person should ever get out of bed), and headed down to Monroe, Utah with one of the geology professors to help collect some rocks. Apparently this area had been incorrectly labeled as bedrock on a map when it appeared to be glacial till. The purpose of the trip was to collect samples from some of the rocks to see if they could be cosmogenically dated to determine the age of maximum glacial extent. We went down to Monroe, rode the department ATVs up the road and stopped at the moraine to search for rocks. When we found rocks that were good specimens to sample, we had to beat the rocks with a hammer to try and get about 1 kilogram of sample from the top of the rock. As it turns out, one of the rocks I found was very hard. We pounded on it for probably two hours and made very little progress. When asked about a half an hour in how I was doing, I just said, "Well, at some point either the rock will win or I will." We did eventually get a fair amount of peices off after we were about to give up. We did have quite a few laughs on the trip from several situations which I won't recount. I guess the takeaway message is if you pound on a rock with a hammer long enough, you will eventually get it to break.

The Maze

Last Saturday we went to a corn maze with some friends. I have been to several corn mazes in my life, and been hopelessly lost my fair share of times. There are a few things I have learned about corn mazes in my time. First, the correct path always leads over the bridge. I have never been to a corn maze where I didn't cross that bridge you always see. Second, large groups inevitably split into small groups in the maze. Third, as fun as a maze is at the beginning, it always gets frustrating at some point and you just want to get out. This last experience in the maze was unlike any other I have had, however, for a few reasons.

The Maze we got lost in at Cornbelly's

It was obvious as we started the first "phase" that the wind had blown over some of the corn, and lots of people had made paths in the corn that weren't actually paths. This led to us going back and forth between the two "phases" as we followed paths that weren't really paths. We did make it out of the first phase, thankfully, so I am not sure how many of these wrong paths we took, since we got to the right exit. When we decided to go into the second "phase" of the maze, we decided to get this piece of paper that was supposed to give you hints on the right direction to go. This was accomplished by having numbered boxes throughout the maze that corresponded to numbers on the paper that had multiple choice questions (ours were about TV/movies). A correct answer supposedly gave you the right direction to go. We ran into a few problems with this, however. The first box we ran into was in the first phase by number, so this is when I figured out we had been taking false paths. The second box we ran into was in the second phase, but it lied to us. After answering the question correctly and taking the path it told us to we went in a circle that brought us back to the box. We repeated this action 3 times just to be sure. After having poor results with another box, we finally just took whatever path led us back toward the entrance and found an "emergency exit" to get out of the maze.

We had lots of fun after that jumping on their giant air pillow and riding their pedal go carts. I think we maybe should have skipped the second "phase" and just gone straight to the other stuff.

The Buffer Zone Principle

Well, since I haven't had a blog for the first 24 years of my life, and since I have been thinking for as long as I can remember, I have lot's of random thoughts I can post to keep my blog interesting. Since I have 20 minutes to kill before I have to give some poor, unsuspecting Geology 101 students a test, I figured I could blog about an issue that I have harped for a while now. That issue is one I like to call the "Buffer Zone Principle" (or theory, depending on how much you believe my evidence). The basis behind the principle is this: when you walk into a room where you must choose a seat, you will sit with at least one, and usually two, seats between you and the next person unless you know that person. Church is an exception, especially for the first 4 weeks after a new semester begins in a singles ward. Happens all the time. The sad part is, even though I recognize this happens, I just go with the crowd and sit in seats with the buffer zone, even if it means uncomfortably crawling over several people to get to the seat with an empty seat on each side.

In The Beginning...

Well, since I now have a blog, I figure I should grace it with a post. And what better subject for a post than to state the purpose of said blog. First off, this blog is written in response to Lamar's "reality blog" detailing the mundane activities of my daily life. I figure I should have some forum where I can dispute any false claims made on that blog. But, since that blog purports to detail my life, I figure I might as well use this blog to post my random musings and deep thoughts. To begin with, some of you may be wondering about the origin of my blog's name. I had been on my mission a little over 18 months and was at a meeting for the LDSSA on Wright State University campus. I was provided with a Jones Soda for refreshment at this meeting. Under the cap, I found the saying "Question Your Assumptions". For an aspiring scientist such as myself, the idea of questioning assumptions was a great reminder that we should always look carefully at the things we take for granted. In science, the assumptions you make can greatly affect the outcome of your experiments. So, each assumption should be carefully examined and questioned in order to make sure that you don't have a skewed view of reality. If you don't question your assumtions, someone else will. This view can be expanded to includ all aaspects of my life, not just science. It is the situations where I failed to carefully examine my assumptions that I end up getting embarrassed. So, for now, that is all the back story my blog will contain. Enjoy!