Productivity

I didn't really think about it until Child mentioned it, but a lot happened today.

1. My laptop was shipped today. Estimated TOA: Wednesday to Friday
2. Passed a potential (Spanish-speaking!) hire along to the animal shelter. They get a lot of Hispanics, including a lot who don't speak any English, so they really need a Spanish-speaker.
   
3. Got an appointment to get our neighbor's cat spayed. No more litters of kittens! Yay!
4. Talked Apple into giving Child an upgraded laptop for free, since her current MacBook has had so many problems. Now we can have new laptops together!
5. Got halfway through shortening my 80-page thesis into an 8-page journal submission. Not required, but my advisor strongly suggested it. Since he determines whether I graduate, I usually take his suggestions.
   

Writers of the Future Finalist!

So I got a voicemail on my cell phone this morning. "Hello, Ben, this is Joni from Writers of the Future. I have really good news for you, and it's not honorable mention. It's better. So call me back."

Always a good sign!

I called back, and apparently I'm a finalist! Yay!

In a month we'll get the final results--whether I actually place, or just stop as a finalist.

Wedding!

SunStarr got married yesterday, and Child and I attended. It went well, from a guy's point of view at least.

There was one amusing incident. At least I found it amusing.

Photographer: "Alright, pose here now."

Me: "SunStarr, it's like you're in a photo-shoot."

Photographer: "Well, it only happens once!"

Actually, it was SunStarr's second marriage. It went silent, except for a few coughs. A cricket chirped. The photographer realized his mistake.

Photographer: "Or...twice." He pauses for a moment, and obviously realizes that he has no idea how many times SunStarr has been married. He tries to make it into a joke. "Or six or seven times!" There's another pause. "I, uh, meant it was your first time in this dress."

Actually, SunStarr had worn the same dress the first time she had been married. Poor photographer. They better be good pictures.

Tae-Bo

Child does Tae-bo most mornings, and this morning I decided to join her.

I punched myself. Tae-bo is harder than it looks.

Ethical Dilemma

I have an ethical dilemma. I do occasional freelance projects, including sub-contracting from a friend who in turn contracts directly with clients. A couple weeks ago, we had a three-way call with a client to discuss a project. My friend introduced me as the programmer who would be working on the project, and I gave the client my contact information so we could discuss the project more directly.

Anyway, due to certain circumstances, I didn't end up taking this project from my friend. Time goes by, my friend doesn't get the job done, the client starts getting irritated with the delay, and finally emails me, asking if I'd like to work for him directly, rather than going through this friend.

What's the ethical response?

My immediate response is: No. It would be unethical for me to take this job. My friend lined it up, presumably has the intention of doing it, so I shouldn't interfere. However, do the following facts change the situation?

1. It's been 4 weeks since my friend lined up the project, and still hasn't completed it. The client obviously needs it done quickly, and doesn't care who does it.
   
2. My friend owes my $1,000.

I still don't think that changes the ethicalness of it, not to mention I just wouldn't want to get caught in the middle of anything.

My response was initially going to be that I'd be happy to take on future projects, but I was going to take a hands-off approach to the current project. However, just now while I was typing this blog post, my dilemma was solved.

My friend and I started talking on IM, and I delicately mentioned that his client was getting impatient. My friend promptly asked if I wanted to take over the job. Dilemma solved.

Although that's good, I was actually looking forward to seeing other peoples' takes on the situation. Feel free to comment if you'd like. :)

P.S. Amazon is interested in doing an interview with me. Is an interesting job/good pay/good benefits worth living in Seattle and giving up the freedom that freelancing would give me? If all I had to do was the programming side of freelance work, I'd stay as a freelancer in a heartbeat, but I also have situations like the one I posted about above...

New Laptop!

With my laptop starting to get issues (ethernet port not working, wireless iffy, standby not working, 'enter' key falling off), I decided I needed a new computer.

For a while I debated between a desktop and laptop, but finally decided that the convenience and travelability of a laptop beat the cheaper price and better specs of a desktop.

After doing some online and in-store searching, I finally decided to custom-build a laptop on dell.com. I started with one of the cheaper ones (since my computing needs are pretty light), then upgraded a couple things. The final laptop had a price of $750.

Right before I bought it, though, our in-house online coupon expert walked in. "Hey, find me a good Dell coupon!" I said.

After a little searching, he uncovered a coupon that gave 25% off a Dell laptop of $1000 or more. A little math revealed that a $1000 laptop at 25% off was...$750.

I went on an upgrading spree. More memory! A larger hard drive! A better processor! Finally, my computer hit $1000, the coupon kicked in, and the price dropped back to $750.

So thanks to Philip, I have a much better laptop for the same price I was going to pay originally. For those who care, here are the specs:

• Dell Insipron 1520
• Dual-core Intel processor (2.0 GHz/800 MHz FSB/2 MB L2 cache, up from the original 1.73 GHZ/533 MHz/1 MB)
• Windows XP (I deliberately chose this over Vista, and plan to dual-boot Ubuntu)
• 4 GB RAM (up from the original 2)
• 15.4" screen
• 160 GB hard drive (up from the original 120 GB. I don't need a lot of space; I'm not a "media" person)
• CD/DVD drive (reader/writer)

Quark BBQ

On Saturday, Quark had a barbecue. It was a lot of fun, with Ultimate Frisbee, marshmallow guns, and food.




In this last picture, look about a foot from the bottom of the tree, near the middle if it. You can just barely see the top of a PVC sniper rifle, delivering high-velocity marshmallows to the backs of peoples' heads. The guy even had camo on an everything.

I should have taken my potato cannon...

Badminton

On Monday, Xirax taught me how to play badminton. I thought I was doing pretty good, but when it came time to pick up Child from work, I told him we should play to 11 before I had to leave.

"Okay," he said. "I'll spot you 10."

He still won. I have a long way to go...

Writers of the Future Winners by State

The first few sets of honorable mentions for the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest have been posted, and I thought it would be interesting to break the results down by state. In other words, which states had the highest ratio of winners to population?

There have been 121 Honorable Mentions (so far) from the 2nd quarter, and to increase the sample size I also looked at the 114 Honorable Mentions from the 1st quarter, for a total of 235. (For those who care, the results are shown in 10,000ths percent of state population.) Again, this is the ratio of winners to population, not the ratio of submitters to population.

The top five winners:

1. Utah: 5.5
2. Montana: 4.2
3. Alaska: 3
4. Oregon: 2.4
5. Washington: 2.2

Apparently, living in a Western state makes you a good writer. Or perhaps the good writers all move to Western states... Anyway, Utah blew away the competition, and Montana, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington weren't far behind. (I don't want to say that Utah being in the lead was entirely due to me *cough cough*, but I did get an honorable mention last quarter... :)

A handful of states didn't produce any winners at all (again, there might be more H. M.s to come from this quarter), but we've hidden them at the very bottom. Curiously, being Western isn't enough, since both Wyoming and Idaho (two of Utah's neighbors) didn't have any winners. A full listing of the results is below.

When we look at the percent of total Honorable Mentions by state, however, we start off as expected. California and Texas, with the largest and second-largest population respectively, have the most and second-most winners. California had over 9 percent of the total Honorable Mentions, and Texas had over 7 percent.

1. California: 9.1
2. Texas: 7.2
3. Washington: 6.7
4. Utah: 6.7
5. Massachusetts: 5.7

Also, while we're at it, everyone should check out the Writers of the Future forum! Kathy haunts it, Joni has been known to appear from time to time, and some past winners are always ready to give out advice. If you want some great discussions and the inside scoop on WotF, go there! Also, here's an RSS feed of the forum comments if you'd prefer that: http://stormhorse.com/wotf.xml.

All 50 states in order:

1. Utah: 5.5
2. Montana: 4.2
3. Alaska: 3
4. Oregon: 2.4
5. Washington: 2.2
6. Massachusetts: 1.9
7. Oklahoma: 1.7
8. Colorado: 1.3
9. Wisconsin: 1.3
10. Delaware: 1.2
11. Minnesota: 1.2
12. Connecticut: 1.1
13. North Carolina: 1.1
14. Arkansas: 1.1
15. Michigan: 0.8
16. Hawaii: 0.8
17. New Hampshire: 0.8
18. Maine: 0.8
19. Maryland: 0.7
20. Louisiana: 0.7
21. Missouri: 0.7
22. Iowa: 0.7
23. Virginia: 0.7
24. Arizona: 0.6
25. Pennsylvania: 0.6
26. Texas: 0.6
27. California: 0.5
28. New Mexico: 0.5
29. Kentucky: 0.5
30. Illinois: 0.5
31. Nevada: 0.4
32. Florida: 0.4
33. New Jersey: 0.3
34. Tennessee: 0.3
35. Indiana: 0.3
36. New York: 0.3
37. Ohio: 0.3
38. South Carolina: 0.2
39. Alabama: 0.2
40. Georgia: 0.1
41. Kansas: 0
42. North Dakota: 0
43. South Dakota: 0
44. Vermont: 0
45. Wyoming: 0
46. Mississippi: 0
47. Nebraska: 0
48. West Virginia: 0
49. Rhode Island: 0
50. Idaho: 0

Walrus

This is Wally. He is named Wally because with his feet splayed out like a ballerina's, he looks like a walrus.

We have seven litters of kittens at the animal shelter right now, and who knows how many pregnant cats. Anyone need a kitten? Or 30?

Our "Pet Wish List" is a clipboard where people can write down the type of dog/cat they want, and if we get it in, the idea is that we'll call them. Here's what our Wish List usually looks like:

• Small dog
• Small dog
• Small dog
• Inside dog
• Small-breed dog
• Anything small
• Small dog
• Small dog
• Chihuahua/Pekingese/Pomeranian
• Small dog
• Small dog
  

So, yeah, good luck with that. We get maybe two or three small dogs a week, and they're usually snapped up before they have time to warm the floor. I told Pat we should start breeding them. Might not do anything to solve the animal over-population, but we'd make a killing. The sad thing is that these people aren't coming to us because they want to rescue a dog, but because the cost to rescue a dog is about 1/4 the cost to buy one.

The funny thing was that one of the workers at the animal shelter was going through the list today, and came across an entry: "Black Lab mix." Not even a pure-bred black Lab? A black Lab mix? Well, that describes about half the dogs at the shelter! And the other are chocolate Lab mixes.

I might exaggerate, but only slightly. There have been times when half the dogs are the shelter were Lab mixes (black, chocolate, white, yellow).

One more incident of note happened at the shelter today. A man from a Brittany Spaniel rescue called, asking if we still had a Brittany that he was planning to rescue. When informed that it had already been rescued by a different organization, he started a surprising rant about how he was "the only official Brittany rescue in the state!" and how Brittanies were special dogs and required special knowledge to care for them and you couldn't just give them out to anyone and had we done a background check on the person?

Wow, friend, cool down. Be happy the dog is out of the shelter. I'm sure the other rescue took all the required college-level courses on Caring for Brittanies and passed any necessary Brittany Appreciation certification programs.

Vegetarianism

I don't like being an "every detail about my life" blogger (although I enjoy reading some). I usually only like posting when something I consider "eventful" or "interesting" happens, like canyoneering trips or thesis advancements.

Every now and then, however, it's nice to post an overview of what's been going on, more for my own information than anyone else's. It's turned out to be handy to go back to my blog to see when something happened, but for that to be useful, I have to have posted about it.

Last week Child and I visited an old friend of mine, and his wife and new baby. My friend informed me his wife would be cooking chili, so I asked if his wife wouldn't mind setting aside a bowl for Child before she put meat in, assuming it would contain meat. (Child is a vegetarian.) He doubted she would add meat, but assured me a bowl would be set aside if she did.

We get down there, and his wife assures us that there's no meat in the chili..."except for a few tiny bits that were the spaghetti sauce" which she added. That's like telling a Mormon "there's only a little alcohol in the drinks," or telling a Jew that "there's only a little pork in the stew." Believe me, vegetarians are just as serious as any religion.

I think it's just simple misunderstanding of what a vegetarian really is. Reference my earlier post about "vegetarian cookies," and even after my wife tried to explain the difference between a vegan and vegetarian, the clerk refused to believe her. Come on, she IS a vegetarian! She should know what one is!

Anyway, at my friend's house, Child quietly eats chips and cheese, the friends pretend not to notice that she isn't eating the chili (they're smart, they probably immediately realized that even a little meat was apparently un-kosher), and I take seconds to make up for Child.


On a different note, the thesis is going good. I'll be defending in May (did I already post that?), and the Boss wants me to submit a shortened version of the thesis as a journal paper. I'm also working on my resume, and the Boss said that as soon as my second committee member approves the thesis, I can start freelance work again. Yay!

Things are unraveling faster now!

The thesis is almost done. I've got the bulk of the writing done, and have submitted draft -1 or so to the Boss. The thesis defense will probably be in less than a month.

Along with that, I've been getting ready to go back into Job Mode. I've been sending out emails, telling contacts I'll be taking programming jobs, and have been looking into apply for jobs at Google, Amazon, and other smaller companies. I still need to decide exactly where I want to love; Child wants Texas, but I'm not sure I'd like the humidity, heat, and bugs.

A week ago I put together a website for the South Utah Valley Animal Shelter: suvas.org. The previous programmer hadn't done anything with it for two years, and it was only half-completed. Not to mention that the information that WAS there was outdated. I set up the website with Joomla, so the people at the shelter could update the website themselves.

After doing so, and showing them how to do it, I remembered why I didn't like doing that though. Joomla allows the user to update their own website, but it still takes a slight amount of technical savvy. That means it gets passed off to the "young 'un" on the staff, which means the pages end up looking like an email or text message. I might exaggerate slightly, but the pages are still full of misspellings, weird formatting, and other issues that make me wince.

It also makes it difficult to create a portfolio of sites to show other potential clients. The SUVAS site should be okay since I only showed them how to modify the text, not the "look 'n' feel" of the website, but I've done other sites where the owner would take over the website when I was done and completely trash it. Giant purple font, animated gifs dotting the page, messed-up tables, etc.

While I was at the shelter showing the staff how to edit the pages of their site, a man came in to reclaim his dog. It had been brought in when he had been taken to jail the night before, and he wasn't happy about having to pay money to get it out. Not that he wasn't used to it, "This dog's been locked up here before...and up in Salt Lake too...and pretty much anywhere I got caught." The guy was obviously a regular in jail, with no sign of ever changing.

Speaking of which, five of the "garden inmates" (inmates who work in the jail-run acre-wide garden behind the shelter) and their supervisor came in. They wanted some dogs to walk up and down the rows, hoping the scent woulds care off critters who were eating their seeds. We picked out six dogs for them, and I was pleasantly surprised when they actually came back with six dogs as well. With that many dogs in close proximity to each other, all excited about being outside for the first time in weeks, I sort of expected some attrition. :)

Tutoring

At the beginning of the semester, I volunteered to tutor at school. I was paired with a freshman taking the introductory programming clas. He contacted me once and I helped him out, then I didn't hear from him for the rest of the semester.

On Friday, he contacted me again. "I need some help!" he said, and we arranged a time on Saturday to meet.

I quickly realized that he didn't want tutoring, he wanted someone to do his projects for him. During the course of the semester, they had to do about 10 programming projects. The grade was important, but if nothing else they had to complete them to pass the class. This kid had skipped the three last projects, and had to complete them before Tuesday (tomorrow) to pass the class.

I helped him for a couple hours, but it was apparent he wanted me to look over his shoulder and tell him exactly what to do. I finally took my leave, and when he IM'd me again this morning, I politely pointed out that I was supposed to tutor him, not do his projects for them.

This morning:

Him: "Are you there?"

Me: "Yes. How're the projects coming?"

Him: "OK. I just need to do some of those labs I showed you."

There are three labs. Each lab takes a week to complete. They are due tomorrow.

Me: "I have an hour or two free later this afternoon, but I can't just help you code the projects. If you are stuck on a particular concept or question, I can help you with that."

Him: "Well, the problem really is that I have no idea as to where to begin with these labs. They're pretty complicated, and they're due tomorrow."

Then don't you think that ONE DAY before the semester ends is the wrong time to BEGIN them?

I feel bad for him, but I'm not going to sit down and code them for him. If I worked the next 24 hours, I could probably squeak them out myself. Helping him do them? Not a chance, even if I agreed to do it.

This, That and The Other

Yesterday was a busy day. Child didn't have to go to work until noon, so I visited the animal shelter that morning. It turned out to be a very busy day, and we were able to do several adoptions. That's always the best part of working at an animal shelter. We also had a Boy Scout and his mother and sister visit for a merit badge, so I got to show them around for that.

At the moment we have three rabbits. They're hard to adopt out, and usually end up being adopted by a...well, raptor rescue. To try to adopt them out faster, I made up a card for them that said, "Long-eared Pomeranians. Guaranteed not to bark!" It seems like 3/4 of everyone who comes in wants a small dog like a Pomeranian or Shih Tzu, and I figure that maybe we'll get some older couple who doesn't see too well. "Goodness, dear, this Pomeranian is the quietest, most well-behaved dog I've ever seen!"

In other news, Pat also told me that someone had come into the shelter and mentioned that they had seen their dog on my website. Another success!

Junk Mail

A little while ago Child became frustrated with all the junk mail we were receiving, so she searched online about how to get rid of it. She filled out some forms to get off the credit card companies' lists, mailed one or two things to various companies to get off their lists, but that didn't handle some of the more infrequent fliers from smaller companies.

This afternoon, we started calling a few of them to see about getting off their lists. We got some interesting responses.

A car dealership told us they used a 3rd-party and gave us their number, but the supervisor I talked to, in an unusual fit of candor for a car salesman, told us that he hated mailed advertisements too and his wife had once spent a year trying to get rid of them. It didn't work--he explained that there were 400 different ways for your address to get on mailing lists, and that companies like RC Willey will sell your address to other companies.

He hastened to add that "We here at Larry Miller Auto have NEVER sold our customer lists to other companies!" ...but apparently they have no qualms about BUYING lists from other companies, since we get their advertisements.

One guy from an ad company asked me, a little patronizingly, if I was "a tree lover or something." Because there's no other reason I might not like having my mailbox stuffed full of advertisements every day. (Ironically, I had worn a tee-shirt the previous day that said, "Save a tree, ask me!")

The worst offender, The Daily Herald, was surprisingly easy. It took talking to three people, but the third person just said, "Yeah, sure, we'll take you off the list." We'll see if they do it...

Birthday

Choice quotes from a birthday dinner for Child at my parent's house last night:

Brother: "How do you find where the holes are in your ears when you put in earrings?"
Sister: "How do you find where the holes are in your nose when you pick it?"

Brother: "Do you eat fish?"
Child: "Yes, I'm a pisco-lacto-ovo vegetarian."
Brother: "I'm never touching you again."
(Dad: "Why are you touching her to begin with?")

Brother: "Of course it's fake, it's science-fiction! If it wasn't fake, it'd be fiction."

The Few, The Proud, The Trusted

A couple of days ago, I realized that I really had a very short list of people that I implicitly trusted.

Oh, I have lots of friends and many more acquaintances, but (excluding my family) I can probably count on one hand--maybe it would take both--the number of friends that I would trust without question in any situation.

Can anyone say the same of me?

The Squeeze

This weekend, a few friends and I did some canyoneering. We went through a canyon called The Squeeze in the southern part of the San Rafael Swell, in the Moroni Slopes to be exact. After driving through some back roads, we finally reached a tee in the road. Left led to a different canyon, right led to The Squeeze, and straight forward went off a cliff, but fortunately there was a sign forbidding the latter choice. Because, you know, we were considering driving straight off the cliff.


At the bottom of the picture you can see the Muddy River, which we followed on our way in. When the Muddy River disappears in to shadow, you can see a large canyon splitting off to the left. That's the Squeeze. We had already been hiking for an hour, and we then had to hike from where I took the picture all the way to the across the hills to the top of the Squeeze. All in all it took maybe three hours?


The four of us who went were Corin, me, Mike (Randall's brother), and Randall. The Squeeze is known for having keeper potholes full of icy cold water, so we all brought our heaviest wetsuits. As it turned out, the canyon was almost completely dry. We still got wet, but it was just from sweating in our wetsuits, so eventually we peeled back the top half.


We did find some water, however. Some of it was okay, but there was the usual nasty collection of floatsam that had been stewing in a pothole for who-knows-how-long, probably with dead things sitting at the bottom of it.

And I thought these green bubbles so intriguingly-nasty that they deserved a picture of their own.


Like I said, we did come across enough water in places to keep us from removing our wetsuits completely, but not until we had taken them off and put them on several times.


There were quite a few rappels, probably a couple dozen, but only two long ones. The following rappel is one of the 100-footers, although it was a two-stage rappel: 70 feet to the first ledge then another 30 feet to the bottom.

It always amazes me when I come across flowers in the desert. They just look so out-of-place among the sand and rocks.

Hiking to the head of the canyon we followed the Muddy River, but coming back we had on our water shoes and wetsuits so we just went straight through. To illustrate how winding this river was, we crossed it 8 times retracing.


The Hangin' Tree. Got a complainer in your group? Make a stop here.

I protest!

Everyone should have a cause. When my cousin picked up protesting Scientology as his cause, at first I thought that was pretty stupid. Then I thought to myself, "you know, someone who has Darfur, the independence of Tibet, or curing cancer as their cause might say the same thing about my volunteering at the animal shelter as my cause."

Every cause is importance, and I don't think anyone is qualified to judge the relative importance of causes. Not only that, but even causes that might be less "significant" need people, and everyone has different talents and interests. You don't tell me that my cause isn't important, and I won't tell you that yours isn't.

(Human) Babies

Me: "Look, my friend had his baby!"
Child: "What is it?"
Me: "Um...human?"

I've been writing science fiction for too long.

Farm

Even though the vast majority of the animals we receive at the clinic are dogs and cats, we do cover some rural areas. At the moment, we have a goat, a few chickens, two pigs (I forget to get a picture of them), and we often have horses coming through.




Someone who's into LOL cats should come up with a caption for this. Preferably more unique then, "In your copier, jamming your paper."

It all makes sense now!

Child and I were talking this evening and something she said made several puzzle pieces fall into place. In short, she mentioned that the way her (extended) family shows another member of the (extended) family that they don't like them is by not Showing Up. For a graduation, birthday, wedding, family reunion, whatever. Absence = Dislike.

Not only did it make some of her family's behavior that I've observed make sense, it also explains why she was..."unhappy" about our wedding.

First, here are a few things about my family:

1. My immediate family is large (I'm the second of 10 kids), and my extended family is more of the same.
   
2. Even though no two of my mom's siblings live in the same state, there's always communication, ranging from family reunions to homeschooled kids being passed from family to family to casual spending the night on the way to somewhere else.
   
3. My parents married off three of their kids (me, a brother, and a sister) in a five-month period--and with an extended family the size of ours, weddings, graduations, etc. happen with monotonous frequency.
4. My relatives range geographically from Alaska to Arkansas.
   

As a result, it's not considered necessary, or even expected, for relatives to show up for every event. When you only have three kids (like my wife's parents), you might expect all the relatives to show up for each of their weddings, nicely spaced two years apart or whatever. When you have three weddings in five months (like my family), however, there's no way relatives can get time off work and collect from all corners of the U.S. to attend.

Thus, when Child and I were married, a few nearby aunts and uncles showed up to say hi and offer their congratulations, but that was about it. They didn't consider it a big deal, and neither did I.

Child, on the other hand, did. I think Child consciously understands that my relatives weren't trying to make some point by not attending, but I think her subconscious still equates their not Showing Up with an active dislike of her/us/whatever.

Thesis Project

I guess I've never really described my thesis project in detail, and since my wife recently heard a horror story about a husband who had been pretending to go to school for, like, four years before his wife found out he wasn't, I decided it might be wise to show a little bit of what I'm currently doing.

My thesis project, in short, is to show that letting a robot (well, 200 of them, in simulation) and an operator jointly decide the correctly level of autonomy (independence) results in them doing better (at a wilderness search and rescue mission) than if just the robots decided on the level of independence they wanted, or just the operator decided on the level of independence to give the robots.

(Officially: "Given a search task in a Wilderness Search and Rescue domain performed by a large heterogeneous group of agents, a mixed initiative system implementing both adaptive and adjustable autonomy performs better in a complex or high workload situation than a simply adjustable or adaptive system.")


This is the main window. The little yellow squares are the 200 robotic searchers, and the big yellow box is their current search area. At the moment they're on "Low Independence," indicated by their yellow color. If they were red, they'd be on "High Independence," which basically just means that they'd be creating their own search areas, rather than waiting for the supervisor to do it.



Somewhere on the map, there's a missing child. (Actually, there's five so we can average the length of time to find them.) The picture at the top is a picture of the kid(s), and the 16 items below him are his backpack items.


As the searchers search, they find items. Most of the items are "distracting" items, such as the three that they've currently found. If they look in the right place, however, they'll find the backpack items that the children lost as they wandered, which will let the supervisor narrow down their search and (hopefully) find the children.


I'm in the middle of having handfuls of experimenters come in so I can gather data, but I'm sort of simultaneously writing the thesis, at least the parts I can without actually having data.

As the initial results are showing, the scenarios where the robots make all the decisions take top marks in several measures (such as the amount of ground they can cover, and the speed of response when a backpack item is found), while the scenarios where the supervisor makes all the decisions takes top marks in several other measures (such as the number of backpack items found), but the scenarios where they jointly make decisions comes a close second in MOST of the measures.

So it's a tradeoff. What measures are the most important? And are you willing to sacrifice being best in a FEW measures to be second-best in a LOT of measures?

Cat and Tape

Last night we had a friend over for some games, and amused ourselves by sticking little pieces of tape on Acouchi. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a proponent of cat-abuse, but Acouchi enjoyed it. She'd go crazy getting the tape off, then she'd race off and hide behind some furniture. A moment later she'd reappear stalking the abandoned piece of tape, then pounce on it and repeat the whole process over again when it became re-stuck to her. This morning, I'm sitting here typing while she's trying to eat the tape. I better take it away before it becomes stuck (heh heh) in her throat.

Songs 'n' Stuff

Liking an odd assortment of music, I thought it would be amusing to see what my answers to the following questions were, to I asked Prin to tag me. Note that I downloaded the entire torrent of 1500 songs from OCRemix.org, so it dominates my collection of 2191 songs. As a result, statistically speaking, 70% of the songs should be game remixes. :) If the songs are game remixes, I've put the game (none of which I've played) in ( ).

1. How are you feeling today?
Just Chill (Chrono Cross) - The Pancake Chef - Surprisingly applicable.

2. Will you get far in your life?
Trisram Rock (Diablo) - mp - Unsurprisingly inapplicable, unless you read something into the game that the music comes from. In which case, I'm in trouble...

3. How do your friends see you?
Through the Dark (Chrono Trigger) - DarkSworde - Hmm. Do they see me through the Dark (it seems like it should be capitalized)? And is that because I'M in the Dark, or they are? Or is it just a Darkness separating us? Either way, it doesn't bode particularly good...

4. Will you every marry?
Explosive - Bond - Not sure how to take this. Since I'm already married, can I change the question to read "How will your married life be?" And can I assume that "explosive" refers to our love for each other, in a "fireworks" kind of way, rather than our daily interpersonal relationship in a "bombs" sort of way? :)

5. What is the favorite theme of your best friend?
To Far Away Timescapes (ChronoTrigger) - DJ StarChild - Apparently I either have a time-traveling friend, or he/she's just a history buff.

6. What is the story of your life?
Come Home (Secret of Mana) - JAXX - Interesting. Is it a plea for me to return home, or just a caustic note that I keep going home?

7. How was it like in high school?
Static Aversion (Silent Hill 2) - Steve Pordon - Well, I didn't attend high school, I took a correspondence course. Did I have an aversion to that? I didn't really care one way or the other, high school was more or less just something to get out the way so I could get to college. Maybe that's the "static" part of the aversion. Hmm.

8.How can you advance in life?
Mystery of a Planet (Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear) - Jared Hudson - Alright, apparently I need to drop computer science and go into astronomy. Or maybe it's saying to become a full-time science fiction author! I wouldn't mind that, since that's my hobby anyway.

9.What is the coolest thing about your friends?
Last Breath, First Breath (Phantasy Star 4) - djpretzel - My first free-form interpretation is that they'll be there for me whenever I need them. Sounds good.

10. What's in store for the weekend?
I Feel Love - Vanessa Mae - Alright! Finally, a good one! (And a good song, too.) Wife, are you reading this? Unfortunately, being Sunday night, I have another week to wait. Sigh.

11. What song describes you best?
Track 2 - Unknown Artist - Awww. The story of my life: anonymity. Actually (does some research) the song is called "Ride On" from Final Fantasy VIII, by Nobuo Uematsu (one of my favorite composers). Hmm. I like that. "Ride On." No matter what happens, just keep pushing through. Don't let anything keep you down.

12. How about your grandparents?
Frame of Mind - Beyond Good and Evil - Kind of a random question to begin with, and not sure how to interpret the answer.

13. How is your life going?
The Beggars - Les Miserables - Aiee.

14. What song will play at your funeral?
Dead End - Nobuo Uematsu - Perfect! ...well, perfect except for my religious beliefs that death isn't, in fact, the end of much at all. Including but not limited to life, relationships, beliefs, and desires. So, not very perfect at all. But amusing. ;)

15. How does the world see you?
Cruella De Vil - 101 Dalmatians - Ouch.

16. Will you have a happy life?
Shoo-Rah! Shoo-Rah - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - I...think this is...good. Shoo-Rah!

17. What do your friends really think about you?
No Flesh Allowed (Castlevania 2) - goat - Someone, feel free to interpret this for me. Please.

18. Are there people that secretly want you?
Misery - Tran-Siberian Orchestra - Another...intriguing one. Misery for me? For them? As a result of them wanting me? Or not wanting me? Look, whoever you are, I'm happily married. ;)

19. How to make myself happy?
Angel - Shaggy - "Girl, you're my angel." I love you, Child. ;)

20. What should you do with your life?
Trippin' on Ecstasy (Sonic the Hedgehog 2) - PxFury - Uh, no thanks. However, this would have been even funnier if it had been the answer to the previous question...

Anyone interested in being tagged...?

Three and Nine

Child's coworker switched Days Off with her, so I was left with a day with no user studies to conduct and time on my hands. I headed down to the animal shelter, where things were moderately busy.

There was a border collie mix that I played with for a few minutes:





And we had a lab mix that had nine puppies a while ago. Today was their first day trying out "real food," although their little teeth were plenty sharp.

Their meal consisted of puppy food softened with warm water, mixed with meaty chunks of food samples, and garnished with liquid food meant to be fed through an IV (hey, we figured it had to have just about every vitamin and nutrient in it).

Yes, it's being prepared on the lid of a trash can (well washed). The idea was that it was the only thing big enough to seat nine, but then I made that rather moot by putting the food in the middle of it rather than around the edges.



The puppies' mother had been removed to let them eat in peace, and they were just starting to settle down for a nap when I took the food in.


It didn't take long for them to wake up, and pretty soon it wasn't a problem that I had piled the food in the middle of the trash can lid; the puppies took care of spreading it around.



And now, if you passed by the pictures of the border collie with nothing more than a "Oh, that's cute," Sherlock Holmes would cluck his tongue at you. Go back and look at the pictures again.

Minorities

This is a picture that a school photograph took of our lab about a year ago. I believe it was for an alumni magazine or brochure that talked about advances in the Computer Science department.

Either way, the picture found its way to the BYU homepage, where it now links to an article about mentored learning, where undergraduates work with faculty on research. Rather amusing, since none of the people in the picture are undergraduates.

Another funny thing: the girl in the background doesn't even belong in our lab. She works up the hall, but anytime public pictures are taken, they call her in as a matter of form. She's female, Muslim, Indian, and (although you can't tell from this picture) is in a wheelchair. That's four minorities right there, and the department wants to display her whenever possible. Not to mention she pretty much has her pick of scholarships. She's a great person, and I've worked with her on several projects in classes we've taken together.

Lotsa Fur

I went to the shelter yesterday. It was crazy busy, so it was a lot of fun. Here's a key for organizations that use volunteers: keep them busy. There's no worse feeling for a volunteer than feeling that they aren't being useful.

A family came in that was interested in a malamute we had. I don't know if it was because of the spring-like weather we've had the past couple days, but the malamute was shedding huge clumps of fur. I put them in the Get Acquainted room, then got them a brush and told them to brush the dog. Twenty minutes later, they had an enormous pile of fur and had decided to adopt him.


Near closing time, a family came in that spoke only Spanish. From time-to-time we'd have inmates that spoke Spanish (human inmates, not animal), but no one at the shelter that day spoke Spanish. The family wandered around a little, looking at the animals, but couldn't really communicate what they wanted. I was thinking to myself, "You know, I could probably use the online Google Translator to talk to them...but it would be awkward, and they probably don't have the money to adopt an animal anyway." Yes, even I fall prey to stereotypes sometimes.

The dad and one of the daughters finally went out to the car, but the mother and another daughter paused in the lobby to look over our board of "Happy Tails" (success stories). Finally I decided to just go for it. I motioned the mother over, then pulled up Google Translator. It was still difficult, but I finally found out that they wanted to adopt a cat, and that the little girl had actually already picked out the one she wanted. They didn't have any problem with the adoption fee, and twenty minutes later they walked out with a new pet cat.

Big Dog Day

Today was Big Dog Day at the animal shelter. Two Great Danes, a Saint Bernard that was only six months old but still as large as most of our dogs, and the biggest lab I've ever seen, probably 90 pounds. The picture of the lab doesn't really get across how big he is (although he knows "Shake!") but the Great Dane is pretty obvious.

The smaller Great Dane:


The larger Great Dane:

The six monthold St. Bernard:

The Labrador retriever:

Mandatory Update

My wife has forbidden me from reading until I update my blog.  She found out the hard way that after I get a stack of new books from the library, I'm not good for much for the next few days.

Mandatory update completed.

Mafia!!!

For last week and a half, Child and I have been playing an online version of Mafia. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, a small number of the players are chosen as the Mafia, while the remaining players are Innocents. The Innocents try to discover who the Mafia are and lynch them, while the Mafia do their best to convince everyone that one of the Innocents is in fact the secret Mafia and get them lynched. It's a very fun game.

Well, this past game, out of 15 players, we had three Mafia members. We lied, we deceived, we mis-directed, and by the end of the game, we came out flawlessly victorious with all three members still alive and the Innocents lying in a heap in the Town Square. I believe it was unprecedented--usually at least one Mafia member gets lynched by the end of the game.

I told Child to watch out--if I could get away with lying for that long, there was no telling what other secrets I might have!

...actually, she doesn't really have to worry. As a general rule, I'm not particularly good at lying, as she's found out in previous Mafia games. I just got lucky this time around, and figured out that the less I talked (and ironically, the less I defended myself against flying accusations), the better off I was.

Trapped!

Acouchi loves the outdoors. We made the mistake of taking her outside to look at the snow a few months ago and now she'll sit at the front door and meow or paw at it for hours. The problem is that she is very much an inside cat--declawed on her front paws, and terrified of anything that moves.

I finally came up with a solution--that laundry basket kennel. With a bucket of cat food for weight.

UCPets.com News Article

The local newspapers picked up the story on the UCPets website.

• Daily Herald
• Deseret News
• BYU Newsnet

Notice how the BYU paper doesn't have a link. That's because the article never got published. Yeah, funny story about that. Child hates BYU and everything BYU related. When the newspaper called, she answered my phone. When the caller said who they were, she put the phone against her chest and said "It's that crappy newspaper."

I talked to the girl at the other end, answered all her questions, then hung up and looked at Child. "Um, if you put the phone against your chest, the person at the other end can hear quite clearly what you're saying."

"Oh," she said.

The article never appeared in the paper.

Not that I mind; my thesis adviser has been "strongly encouraging" me to get my thesis done, and I'd just as soon he didn't see I've been spending time working on another website.

Super Tuesday

Yesterday, I went to vote in the primaries. Child drove me to the polling station, but when I saw the two-hour long line, I told Child that I changed my mind and I'd just vote in November. She countered with "Who cares about the presidential elections? Your vote only really counts in the primaries." I countered with, "This is Utah, and a Mormon is running for president. If you're voting for Romney, is your vote really necessary in either of the elections?"

Sure enough, Romney took the Utah primaries with 90% of the vote, followed distantly by McCain with 5%. Still, I guess it's a good thing to exercise your civic duty.

Anyway, Child left me to stand for two hours in the hallway while she went off and did other things. While slowly shuffling along, I got a little bored. Child saved the text messages I started sending her, but I'll reproduce them here for your convenience.

Lonely...I'm so lonely...

Day 3: it seems like I've been stranded here for months. The fluorescent lights are beating down...No water or food. No sign of rescue, but am building a fire.

Can feel myself going crazy--am contemplating voting Huckabee. Another survivor slaps sense into me...signal fire unsuccessful. Ate leg.

Reached end of hallway! Line curves and goes back up other wall. Am standing next to fire alarm. Temptation is strong. Realize evacuation would reset line. Bad.

Discovery: shouting "vote Huckabee!" at a Mormon polling station equivelent to shouting "fire!" in crowded theater. Also bad.

Actually, I really did shout "Vote Huckabee" while in line, just to see if I could get a brawl to break out, and from somewhere up the line, someone called back, "Vote Romney!" Child told me I should have called back, "OK!"

The main reason for the lengthy wait was that some genius in the election office decided to combine several precincts into one voting area, but they didn't increase the number of old people manning those books where they check off your name. The process wasn't very efficient either: the first old guy would ask your name, then put a checkmark next to it in a giant book. The second old guy would also ask your name, then write it down (a lengthy process since he was like 90 years old) in his own book. It seemed a little redundant.

The voting itself took about 30 seconds, and to back up my claim that the old people were the hold-up, there was only one, and occasionally two people actually at any of the five electronic voting machines at any given time.

E-Cards

My beautiful wife sent me an E-card, so I decided to send one back. While filling out the form, however, I came across something that seemed a little...wrong.

Step 4: Do you want to send this card to more than one person? Yes or No?

Well, when your sentiment is "You're the only one for me," probably not. Unless, of course, you're a player and have several irons in the fire; in that case, send it to your entire email list and see who responds.

It reminds me of the guy last year that I saw getting into his car at the flower store, carrying two bouquets. "Hey, nice work!" I called to him.

"Oh, no, one's for my dad to give to my mom," he said.

"Of course, of course," I said, giving him a knowing wink, and getting in my own car.

Snowstorm of Puppies

Along with the snowstorms of...snow that we've been having, the shelter is starting to enter Puppy Season, leaving us with a snowstorm of puppies. ...puppystorm? Either way, we had two litters last week, and another pregnant dog come in on Friday. Add that to the litter of kittens we'll start having, and we'll be keeping pretty busy.

Tangentially, I had another idea: PSAs. Public Service Announcements. When I worked at a radio station 10 years ago, we'd do PSAs for non-profit groups, like "Quit Smoking!" or "Keep your guns out of reach of your kids!" I'll bet we could find a few radio stations that would be willing to do some PSAs for the animal shelter.

Encounters of the Trojan Kind

When I got home from school today, I had an instant message from a friend. We only talk every few weeks, but I had just stopped by his work to see him that morning. Also, my name's been in a few newspapers because of articles about the http://www.ucpets.com website. The IM said, "Hey, isn't this you?" and had a link to what looked like an MSN news site.

"Why would the website story be on MSN?" I wondered, and clicked the link.

The IM had been sent by a virus on my friend's computer, and the link led to a malware website whose purpose was to install a Trojan on the victim's computer.

Fortunately, I use Firefox with NoScript installed, and my computer was safe. Just goes to show, however, that even the most paranoid computer user (myself) can be tricked.

Prayer

Several months ago, Child lost her scriptures at church. My guess is that some kindly soul saw them laying on a pew, decided to find the owner, then ended up taking them home at the end of the day when they couldn't find the owner. I'm sure they were planning on bringing them back the next week, but forgot or lost them.

Regardless of the circumstances, Child's scriptures were lost, and she was very attached to them. We visited the lost and found every Sunday, asked people, and did everything we could to find them. No luck, and the months went by.

Finally we realize--hey, we're religious. We believe in prayer. Four months after the scriptures were lost, we start praying for their return, and the next week they show up on a table in the hall at church. Thank you, God, for nudging whoever it was to remind them to bring the scriptures back.

17 Victims in Morgue Shooting Remain Dead

I just saw a headline on CNN: 1-ton Rodent Remains Discovered.

That's odd, I thought to myself. Is there some reason it would suddenly become...undiscovered? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad it remains discovered. It's always a setback to science when some previously-discovered rodent becomes undiscovered, but apparently it can happen. I just wouldn't have guessed that something remaining discovered would have been newsworthy. You know? It just happens all this time. For instance, I discovered that my Cinnamon Toast Crunch remained in our cupboard overnight, which was nice because I wanted it for breakfast. Apparently the internet remains discovered as well, because I'm using it right now. Not to mention about 30 billion other things across the world. Must have been a slow news day.

X-treme Sledding

Yesterday, our family went on our annual Sledding Behind the Van trip.

On this trip, we go to some plowed-but-still-snowy country road, tie six or seven sleds on ropes behind the family van, then dad will drive while everyone on the sleds tries to hurl each other into snowbanks.

Child got a couple pre-sledding pictures with my camera, but as soon as I can snag some during-sledding pictures from the parents, I'll post those as well.

Busy Busy Busy!

Wow, there's a lot on my plate right now. Let's summarize, shall we?

1. Thesis! This is actually my top priority right now. I'm at the stage where I'm a little stuck, and need to do some thinking about exactly what data I want to collect, and how I need to arrange the experiments to get it.
2. Finishing up the Utah County Pets website. If it weren't for the snowstorm outside, I could go down to the animal shelter and finish most of the stuff up. Soon enough, though.
3. Business idea. I have a product that I think would be interesting to produce, but no idea where to start and no time to do it, even if I did know where to start. However, as soon as I get time and really want to start on the project, I have a few relatives who'd be good resources, and I actually have a short get-together tomorrow with a mentor from the entrepreneurial center at school.
4. Writing. Wow, this is where I really need to get motivated. I have a ton of story ideas, but I haven't been very good at sitting down and pounding them out.
5. Apartment hunting. This is low on the priority list, but still at the back of my mind. We have a place, but we'd like a better place. It'll just depend on how much time/motivation Child and I can scrape together.
6. Planning fun stuff. I want to get together a couple friends and do some snow-caving.
   

Lost n Found Pets

I have a new website under construction at http://www.ucpets.com.

It'll be a place for people in Utah County to post lost or found pets. Steps to completion:

1. (done) Add administration pages.
2. (done) Set up Google Analytics
   
3. (done) Take picture of animal shelter for "Resources" picture on home page
4. Create script to periodically delete old pictures
5. (done) Clean out "test" listings
   
6. (done) Find good domain name and set up on new host
   
7. (done) Get endorsement by North/(done) South Utah Valley Animal Shelters
8. Help (done) NUVAS/(done) SUVAS set up regular uploads of all their animals
   
9. Get story on KSL/(done) Daily Herald/BYU paper/etc.
10. Add option to print a flyer?
    

Comments on features or problems are highly appreciated!

An Idea Actually Worked!

A few months ago when I first started fiddling around with Google Gadgets, I tried to think of something useful I could make. Then I got a Good Idea.

I went to a website that listed the top 100 sites of the internet, then started going down the list, checking to see if each website had an associated Google Gadget. Wikipedia did, CNN did, etc. etc. Then, I found one that didn't: Bloomberg.com. It's a financial website of some sort.

So, I made a gadget that simply displayed the headlines from Bloomberg's site, and uploaded it to the directory. Now it gets an average of 675 users a day.



(I was also just informed by Child that the entire time she read "Where the Red Fern Grows," she was picturing the two dogs as dachshunds.

...Dachshunds?)

Customers

Sometimes I envy Child's job, and not just because she works with massage chairs. She also gets to deal with "interesting" customers.

At lunch, I overheard her telling a customer that a cushion was made from Australian pigmented leather. "That means it's made from Australian pygmies," the man informed his daughter, completely straight-faced.

That evening, when I went to pick her up, a customer was trying out a massage chair. Waiting for Child to finish with him, I found a massage chair of my own and relaxed. I listened to her and the man discussing the chair, then there was silence for a moment. Then,

"Wow, look at my stomach jiggling."

Silence for another moment.

"That's not very attractive."

I had to laugh. A few minutes later he came to try out the massage chair next to the one I was in. After lying in it for a moment, he glanced up the built-in microphone. "What's that?" he asked. Child told him it was a microphone to give the massage chairs voice-commands, and he thought that was pretty fancy. "Pretty soon we won't even need wives anymore!" he exclaimed. "But it still can't get you a cold drink from the fridge," I pointed out, making sure Child was out of earshot.

BYU for the Win!

UCLA was down by one point with only seconds left on the clock. However, they were lining up for an easy 28-yard field goal attempt. They had already scored three other field goals during the game, including to 50-yarders. This was going to be a piece of cake. The whistle blows, they kick the ball, one of our players lunges into the air...blocked! The field goal spins away and misses the posts! Time expires! BYU with the win!

Go Cougars!

(Although that's about as close as you can get to a loss and still manage to pull it off...)

Shelter Updates

Spay or neuter your dogs. Somebody dumped off four pitbull puppies at the shelter this morning...now who's going to adopt those, especially with half the cities in our jurisdiction disallowing pitbull ownership?

...

One of the girls was on the phone with the shelter director, when a pheasant booked it across the parking lot. Being uninhibited and ebullient, she screamed at the top of her lungs, pointed at it, and shouted, "What is THAT?"

The poor director was probably deaf at that point, and from the tone of her voice I expected a tidal wave, raging forest fire, or possibly several platoons of armed ninjas sweeping down on the shelter. Fortunately, before I dove for cover, I glanced out the window and realized what she was pointing at.

"That...is a pheasant."

"A what?"

"A pheasant. You have never seen a pheasant before."

Apparently not.

...

There were a couple other things I was going to post about, but they slip my mind at the moment and my slip of paper with the reminder on it is not at my present location. Updates on the updates later...

Snow Shovel From God

Sunday morning, God put a snow shovel on our porch. It was well timed, since the weather had dumped 8 or so inches of snow the night before and both our landlord and his wife were sick in bed. After shoveling the walks/driveway of our fourplex, I shoveled their walk/driveway as well, since they live right next door.

I have to say, either God's on a tight budget, or he assigned some intern angel to create the shovel, because it was old, orange, and the corners were bent. I guess it got the job done, though.

Christmas Songs

There is only one month a year that we can officially sing Christmas songs in church. Apparently, our church does not realize this, singing Thanksgiving songs on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

My favorite Christmas hymn is Joy to the World. As I ran home from choir practice yesterday morning to pick up Child, I told her that since it was the first Sunday we were going to be late getting back to church, it would be the week that the opening hymn was Joy to the World.

Of course it was.

Acouchi's Drug Habit

Today, Acouchi experienced catnip for the first time. This catnip-infused object used to be a ball.


From the way Child reacted when I suggested getting the catnip, I think she expected small valuables around the house to start disappearing as Acouchi pawned them off to support a newly acquired catnip-habit; then Acouchi would become sullen, unresponsive and defensive, wreck the family car while high on catnip, then end up at a low-paying dead-end job flipping burgers in between stints at the county jail.

Dark Matter

I woke up this morning with an interesting idea. What if "dark matter" was the same thing as "spiritual matter." I.e. our spirits are made up of dark matter. I'm sure this idea isn't unique to me, but I've never heard someone suggest it before.

Scripture: All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes.
Doctrine and Covenants 131:7

Science: Dark matter is matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly.
Wikipedia: Dark Matter

If spirits are "matter," then God gets that matter from somewhere when he creates spirits. No problem, the latest estimates (from the same Wikipedia article) are that only 4% of the total energy density of the universe is visible matter (stars, planets, human bodies, etc.) That leaves 96% left over to create spirits from.

No idea if there's really any truth to this; "spirit matter" could be an entirely different type of matter that doesn't even have gravitational effects, much less electromagnetic ones. Still, it's an interesting idea.

Let's see how long we can make this birthday thing last...

So far, my birthday has lasted since last Tuesday, and it's going at least until this Wednesday. Child sure knows how to throw a party. ;)

It started last Tuesday with an early birthday present: tickets to the Tran-Siberian Orchestra concert. We drove up to Sandy and took TRAX the rest of the way. As Child will attest, I hate dealing with city traffic and parking, and snow just makes it worse, so I was happy to leave the driving to TRAX. (I don't have a problem with the snow, it's just the other drivers that I don't like dealing with. On the way back, we saw three cars off the road between Sandy and Provo, and that's not counting any that may have been towed throughout the evening. Slow down, people!)

Anyway, the concert was great. After it started we tried to sneak better seats, but we didn't wait long enough and the real seat-owners kept repeatedly showing up. Eventually we ran out of seats and were forced back to our own, helped by an old and irate usher who demanded to see our tickets.

Child and I agreed that while the music and laser lightshow were great, the band members themselves left something to be desired. I've never understood the whole "rock-star mentality" so I don't really "get" concerts to begin with; I hate pretentiousness in all its forms, and rock-stars seem to embody it. Not only that, but Child pointed out that the TSO stars are sort of "wannabe" rock stars. They only tour at Christmas time, they're kind of older, and no one really even knows their names. :)

Overall, though the concert was a lot of fun. Then yesterday, Child set up a little GPS course for me to follow, with a present hidden at each location. Later that evening, we went up to my parents' house for dinner and pie, and this upcoming Wednesday (Child's day off) we're going to finish off my birthday celebrations with laser-tagging and cake.

Snowshoeing and Other Recent Activities

I've realized it's hard for me to make a decent blog post without pictures. Maybe it's because I personally find posts with pictures more interesting. Anyway, Child and I have recently visited Idaho (and did some geocaching), hit up the Tran-Siberian Orchestra concert, and celebrated my birthday (which also involved me using GPS to find my presents, scattered through the neighborhood).


However, the only event I thought to get pictures of was some snowshoeing a friend and I did this morning.

Child let me open a Christmas present early and it was snowshoes! Coincidentally, we got a nice snowfall a couple days ago, so I called up a friend to ask if he wanted to go out. He rented a pair of snowshoes and we headed up to the Big Springs area.


For being in the mountains, the weather was surprisingly pleasant. I had packed for bitter cold, but most of my clothes ended up staying in my backpack. Even the streams were still running, although there was plenty of ice on the rocks. Another picture I didn't include here shows a bush with branches dangling just above the water, and huge gobbets of ice forming on the branch-tips like giant frozen raindrops.


Here's a shot of my snowshoes on my feet, as best as I could do. If my friend sends me the pictures he took with his (really nice!) camera, there might be a better one among them.

One thing I quickly realized the first time I went snowshoeing is that snowshoes don't exactly make you float like a butterfly on the surface of the snow. You still have your whole body-weight concentrated on a fairly small surface area. This translates into you sinking up to a foot in the snow...but when the snow is several feet deep, you still come out ahead. Regardless, it's still a fairly strenuous activity when you're hiking in unbroken snow. I'm hungry now.


Sunny day, blue skies. Both the previous times I've been snowshoeing, it's been snowing. And dark. So this was a change.


The obligatory wolf footprint shot. This print was almost as big as my hand.