Englestead

On July 26 a few friends and I hiked Englestead Canyon, dropped into Orderville Canyon, and finally dropped in the Narrows in Zion's National park.

Englestead was fun because of a giant 300-foot (91 meter) drop at the very beginning. You don't quite realize how high 300 feet is until you're hanging over the edge, and it takes well over four seconds for a falling rock (or body) to hit the ground...

Below is a picture at the head of the canyon. It's amazing how abruptly it starts, going from a slight slope to a sudden, 300-foot drop.


Below is us gearing up for the drop. Putting on harnesses, unpacking ropes, packing up everything else. We had a 300-foot rope for the rappelling side, and a 100- and 200-foot rope for the pull cord.


Here's our first person going down. The descent took probably 3 or 4 minutes, depending on how quickly you went.


Looking down the Big Wall from the top. I'm not even sure if you can see the bottom in this picture.


Once in the canyon, we were met by BOUSs (Bugs Of Unusual Size).


We had quite a few more rappels as well, but none close to the first rappel.


Once we dropped into Orderville canyon, water started appearing and things started getting a little greener.



Watch your head.



In the lower part of Orderville, we ran into a lot of tourists that hiked up the Narrows, and once we reached the Narrows themselves it was postively crowded.

Goals!

A couple weeks ago, I realized that I had a really hard time following through on things. There's a lot of things I want to do, but I'm terrible at sticking to a schedule and meeting goals. Here's just a sampling of things I'd like to do:

• Exercise regularly
• Write regularly
• Regular morning prayers
• Wash dishes regularly instead of letting them build up
  
• Learn Spanish
• Learn guitar
• ...and several other things I can't think of at the moment.
  

My current goal is to become better at keeping goals.

I decided to start with something easy: a regular exercise program. Coincidentally, Lifehacker just featured a website completely devoted to helping people get into a push-up routine. Theoretically, if you follow the program, you'll end up doing 100 consecutive push-ups after six weeks.

That's my first step. Other goals will follow.

Disappointment

I didn't win the Writers of the Future contest, despite being a finalist.

Ah, well. On to the next story.

Recover Deleted Ubuntu File

While working on a Firefox extension, Firefox deleted a file I was using, "overlay.js". It was gone, but fortunately, a few minutes previous, I had manually deleted a temporary backup file that my text editor was using, "overlay.js~".

Since I had manually deleted it, it should have been in my Trash Can, but it wasn't, probably due to the "~" at the end of the filename which indicated that it was a temporary file. Even "Show Hidden Files" didn't make it appear.

However, by going to a command prompt and viewing my trash folder there, it appeared:

ls: ~/.local/share/Trash/files

So I'm not sure why the Trash Bin didn't show it, but it was there.

Massage Chair!

For the last month or so, Child's store has been participating in a contest sponsored by one of their suppliers. Every time one of their dealers' sales associates sat a person down in a massage chair for a test drive, the customer could fill out an entry form and their name would be entered in a drawing for a free chair. If their name was drawn, both the customer and the sales associate would win a massage chair.

Last week, right before we left for our vacation to Texas (more on that later), Child received a call from her boss. "You won!"

Child screamed. We were in the car, stopped at a stoplight with the windows down, and got some curious looks from nearby cars. I rolled the windows up. Child was still screaming.

In short, Child had won a $4,000 massage chair.

Child's boss called up the customer who had won the chair, an older gentleman, but had a hard time getting the idea across.

"Sir, you won a free massage chair!"
"What are you selling?"
"Nothing! You won a free massage chair!"
"Yeah yeah, but what's the catch? I have to pay 'shipping' and 'warranty costs,' don't I."
"No, it's totally free!"
"Look, just tell me what you're selling."

Keylogger Firefox Extension

This is my latest Firefox extension I'm working on. There's been too many times when I've lost a post on a message board, or an email, or something similar because my browser crashed. This Firefox keylogger will record that, so I can retrieve the lost text. I added the "Minimum string size to log" so it won't save really short text--like passwords.

Official Firefox add-On page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8261

Quick-link to download: http://stormhorse.com/keylogger-1.1-fx.xpi

Updates

It's kind of curious how the more stuff that happens, the less regular I am about updating.

First things first, I can't even remember if I already posted about this or not, but I have a full-time job now. It's doing web programming with a real-estate company in SLC. I go into work on Mondays, and work from home the rest of the time. That's fortunate, because the office is 45 minutes of nasty interstate away, and I wouldn't have taken the job otherwise.

My advisor isn't too pleased--I know he's afraid I'm going to stick with web programming instead of getting into robotics, which would be a waste of my M.S. degree. However, my brother-in-law is working on starting up a robotics company, and I'm hoping he'll need an employee soon. If that's the case, I don't want to be committed to a more permanent job.

I think I'll put each chunk of update into it's own post. No one likes reading longs posts.

Give It An Hour...

I went to the shelter this morning. There were only two workers there, and they had been the only two working yesterday (the Fourth) as well. Apparently everyone else had taken a long weekend.

Experienced Employee had been warning New Employee that the Fourth was a crazy-busy time, what with all the pets getting scared by the fireworks and running off. When they had arrived at the shelter that morning, however, they had been surprised to find a single cat in Intake.

"Give it a few minutes," I said. "Animal Control is just starting their day."

A few minutes later, Spanish Fork pulled up with a dog. Then Provo. Then Springville. Then County. Two hours later, we had a packed Intake room and were processing dogs left and right, looking up microchips, and calling owners.

One guy had been watching his friend's dog, and it had escaped. Not only did this guy have to pay the impound fee, but the dog wasn't licensed, so he had to pay for a rabies shot and license as well. I wonder what his friend would think when he got home and found out his dog had been licensed in his absence?

I called another owner, and he informed me the dog belonged to his son. "Oh. Can I talk with your son then?" I asked.

"He's a minor," he said. Okay. Does SOMEONE want to come get the dog?

The man mentioned that his son was planning on breeding the dog, a female German Shepherd, while I was looking at the computer screen. Apparently the dog had been picked up by Animal Control in March, April, and now July. Three impounds meant the release fee was now $70, but it irked me that someone as irresponsible as this son obviously was, was planning to bring a whole new crop of dogs into the world. Take care of the one dog you already have, yeah?

Speed Racer

This evening, Child and I saw Speed Racer. (Tiny spoiler alert.)

Let me stop here and say that sometimes, Child and I have very different taste in movies. She likes things like "depth" and "plot," while I go more for things like fat men spinning ninjas around over their heads. It was funny, because while he was doing it, throwing stars started flying out of the ninja's clothes, then his car keys flew out and impaled themselves in the wall! Ha ha!

So, yeah. I liked the movie, while Child thought the only thing funny about it was me thinking it was funny. :)

Line of Fire

Child and I live in a four-plex. This morning, we were walking to our car when our neighbor, who was also the landlords' daughter, walked by.

"Laying low? Out of the line of fire?" she asked.

I stared at her. "Is something going on?" I asked.

"Oh, if you haven't heard, I probably shouldn't say," she said, and kept walking.

Aaiiiee!! What?! What's going on? Do we need to worry? Is it something to do with our apartment? Will we be living on the streets tomorrow?!

Programming

In today's digital age, knowing how to program is a great ability.

In the past couple months, I've built Google gadgets to show Child and I how much money we have left in our bank account, and how many minutes we have left on our phone plan (see below).


(Most of the content [text/images] is grabbed directly from our account at tmobile.com. The black and white bar across the gauge is a custom addition, however. It marks where we should be for the time in our billing cycle--currently we have minutes to spare.)

I've also built custom RSS feeds for some forums and sites I frequent. This has a downside, however. In the past, whenever I'd get bored, I'd browse my collection of sites. Now, however, any updates to the sites are delivered right to my door, so it takes me 10 minutes to scan all new content, and I'm bored again.

My most recent project has been learning how to build Firefox 3 extensions. As my first example, I built a word-replacement extension. It can run automatically, or you can run it per-page from a right-click menu item. It replaces a list of words with replacement words on all webpages you view. Good for cleaning up forums with a lot of bad language, replacing common misspellings or abbreviations, etc. Something maybe parents might be interested in.



The first comment someone posted after I submitted the extension to the extension-directory was as follows:

First- I find this hysterical... not because it exists, but because I have a list of friends that I could get to transfer from IE to Firefox just for this extension. (I live in Utah- and all my friends are Mormons- turns out the stereotypes are true)

This person doesn't know that I'm also a Mormon living in Utah. :)

I found the comment amusing, but I'm really not sure why people are so (egotistical? self-centered? close-minded?) that they think everyone else in the world shares their exact same moral standards.

I don't laugh at, look down on, or denigrate your use of language on your (website, blog, whatever). You didn't ask me to read it, and I accept you for who you are. So why do I get laughed at or looked down on for holding to my own moral standard?

Polygamy

Does anyone else find it ironic that the American Public is so rabidly against polygamy when our culture (primarily media such as movies, sitcoms, and music) implicitly condones, if not outright advocates sexual promiscuity?

I don't think you could find a bigger double-standard if you tried. Sure, be outraged about exploitation of minors or people being forced into polygamy against their will. That's fine--and the only real reasons I could find that anyone should be concerned about the FLDS compound.

But don't complain about the institution of polygamy itself. For the Christians: at times it's condoned by God himself in the bible. Go look it up. For the secularists: at least when polygamists sleep around, they do it after being married and the man sticks around to support his family.

Despite my own belief that the Lord has commanded that we NOT practice polygamy at the current time, I do NOT believe there is inherently anything wrong with it.

I lied. And I want the dog back.

When I arrived at the shelter, it was 9:15 and the shelter was still closed. I went around back and only found one car there. I knocked, and Pat opened the door. Apparently the person who was supposed to open with her (at 8:30--a half hour before the shelter officially opens) called to say she would be late...for about the 10th time in the last month.

Even worse, she didn't call Pat to tell her because she didn't want to face Pat's wrath, but called the shelter and left a message, knowing that no one answered the phone before 9:00. Something tells me this person will not work at the shelter for much longer.

As a result, Pat was glad to see me, because then she could open the shelter and call the inmates to come over and start working. When the phone rang, I answered it and there was a lady looking for a dog. Apparently, her daughter-in-law had gone into the hospital, and the step-father was stuck with caring for a half-blind Jack Russel terrier. As far as she knew, he had tried to get it euthanized at a vet clinic, they had refused because it was healthy, then he had gotten rid of it somewhere else.

The problem was that she didn't call it a Jack Russel, she said it was some strange breed, and I didn't see that breed in our book of occupants. I told her we didn't have it, so she said she would keep calling around.

However, later that morning, the step-father came in. He didn't beat around the bush. He walked up to the counter and said, "Last night I brought a dog in. I said it was a stray, but I lied, It's my step-daughter's dog and now I need it back."

Personally, I though we should have charged him for the owner release that he should have paid for the previous evening, then charged him for an adoption. However, Pat let him off easy with just paying for a night of boarding and a rabies shot (we couldn't even charge for the licensing since he lived out of our jurisdiction).

As he filled out the paperwork to get the dog back, he told us what he had done. Apparently, he hadn't been looking forward to caring for this dog by himself for an indefinite period of time, so he had taken it to a vet clinic to get it euthanized. They had refused since it was a healthy dog. Failing that, he decided to bring it to our shelter and claim it was a stray, but asked the vet clinic to say they had euthanized the dog if his wife called. They had refused that also.

Predictably, his wife had called the vet clinic, but all they could tell her was that her husband had taken the dog to a shelter somewhere. She didn't know which one it was, so she had been calling around. Apparently she had finally put enough pressure on him, and he came in to get it back.

Some people are crazy.

Incidentally, a second lady called asking if we had her cats. According to her, he had been dumping horse manure in her pasture, so she yelled at him. He had retaliated by trapping her cats and taking them to the shelter so she had to pay to get them out. She called him on the phone to yell at him, then he came over to her house to yell at her. Then he had apparently trapped her cats again, and she pondered aloud the possibility of going over to his house to beat him up. I told her to wait until he came to her property again to do that. :)

Fox-Face

So what kind of dog is this? It has the shelter a little stumped.

Underhanded C Programming

A couple days ago, Slashdot posted a link to The Underhanded C Contest. The idea is to write a program that redacts part of an image while making it possible to recover the lost information. The trick: it has to look innocent to another programmer reviewing your code.

My first version has the following output:

Before	After

Here's the pertinent part of the code:

Redact to black (the "right" way):

p.rgb[R] = 0;
p.rgb[G] = 0;
p.rgb[B] = 0;

Redact to random noise (an acceptable way, see image on right):

p.rgb[R] = rand();
p.rgb[G] = rand();
p.rgb[B] = rand();

Nefarious redaction to random noise (see image on right):

p.rgb[R] ^= rand();
p.rgb[G] ^= rand();
p.rgb[B] ^= rand();

The key is using "^=" rather than just "=". The "^" will perform a bitwise XOR, and XOR has an interesting property. If you XOR A with B, and XOR the result by B a second time, you get back A.

So all we have to do to get the proper image back again is use the same sequence of random numbers, and that's easier than it sounds. It's customary to seed the random number generator using the following code:

srand((unsigned int)time(0));

But the file we're spitting out has the timestamp it was created--the exact time we're using as the seed in our RNG!

(If you're worried about the timestamp changing as the file is copied and passed around, then simply embed the time as a comment in the file--not nefarious at all.)

Moonshine?

I swear our neighbor just had moonshine delivered to their door. Child and I are leaving this morning for Wyoming for my grandmother's funeral, so I was up early packing things in the car. A flatbed pickup truck pulls up in front of our fourplex, and an old man in jeans and a jean jacket gets out. He walks around the passenger side, opens the door, and pulls out two quart Mason jars of clear liquid. He nods and walks towards our neighbor's door, while I head back inside. As I look back, I can see into his truck cab, and there's several more quart jars, along with a few gallon jugs. What other clear liquids get delivered in quart Mason jars? It has to be moonshine.

Family Reunion

Well, Grandma's in the hospital. As a result, the family reunion got moved from Colorado to here in Provo. At least everyone already was planning on gathering, so they can all see Grandma.

In other news, Child's coworker called up the manager of the store late at night to tell her that he was quitting, effective immediately. I don't think he warned her he was leaving rather than just disappearing out of any kindness of his heart, since he and the manager hate each other, it was probably just to gloat.

It turned out to be a bad move, however. The manager promptly drove down to the store, where she found that this employee had stolen not only a carload of products from the store, but also some files that showed he owed the store owner money, as well as other customer files. On top of that, the owner had bought a new car and had sold this employee his old one, since the employee's car had been impounded a few weeks previous, and the employee was planning on taking off without paying for that.

And last but not least, the Rent-A-Center had called the store a couple weeks ago to verify this employee's job, so the manager decided to call them back and let them know the employee had been planning to flee the state and head to the west coast. As it turns out, this employee had about $5,000 of Rent-A-Center stuff in his moving van that he had been planning to take.

All sorts of excitement! Especially since the owner is out of town at the moment. And guess who gets to deal with everything, covering for this now-missing employee. The manager of the store, whose responsibility it is? Of course not! Child! And since we're not longer going to be in Colorado, the manager is able to call Child to come in whenever she wants, even if we still have a family reunion going on.

Previous Post

Yes, that previous post was grossly oversimplified, completely inaccurate, and highly one-sided.

Still, that's how I felt.

:)

Frustration.

A = B. B = C. Therefore, A = C.

I don't believe it.

Why not?

I just don't.

But why?

Because I've seen cases where A != C.

Did both A = B and B = C in those cases?

I don't know. I don't have that data.

Well, okay, but in cases where A = B and B = C, then A = C.

I don't believe it.

Gah!

Weird Clocks

At the shelter today, three volunteers were giving a dog a bath. When they were done, they stopped at the clipboard on their way out to sign on. On the clipboard there's a place that says, "Sign out time."

The girl who was signing out looked at that, then up at our analog clock at the wall. It was one of those dime-a-dozen Walmart clocks, big white circle, black hands, you know the kind. She stared at the clock for a minute, then looked at me. I kid you not, she said, "What time is it?"

I looked at the clock. "Uh, 3:45?"

She bent over and wrote it on the clipboard. "Those clocks are weird," I heard her mutter.

Are analog clocks really that old?

Getting Money? Easy. Giving? ...

Yesterday I posted about raising $700 for Aspen and Patches. That turned out to be the easy part.

This morning, Child and I drove to Zions Bank with $700 in hand to deposit in the Aspen Granath Fund. Our local (Provo) branch couldn't find any record of the fund, so they started calling every branch in Ogden to see if anyone else knew of the fund. We're sitting in the drive-through this entire time. 20 minutes later she comes back. "None of the other branches have record of the fund."

Okay. We now have $700 and no one to give it too. We'll try the bank again tomorrow--hopefully it's just taking a little while to propagate through their system, or perhaps Aspen's dad just hasn't gotten around to setting it up yet. Worst case scenario, we'll get someone up Ogden-way to hand deliver it.

Amazon

Word on the street is that Amazon wants to fly me to HQ for another interview. A little bird said they might fly Child too if I ask nicely.

To Amazon, or not to Amazon?

Aspen and Patches

Today, Child was reading a story about a cat, Patches, who needed an amputation. The owner, Aspen, was selling lemonade to earn the money for the operation. The operation was expected to cost $500, although it could have gone as high as $700.

Child suggested I use the donation capabilities of http://ucpets.com, so we put a notice on the homepage that all donations during the next week would go to Patches.

It took about 4 hours. Donations from KSL and Standard readers poured in, and we reached $700 and then some. The power of good people in large numbers can't be underestimated!

Remap Keys in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

My new Dell Inspiron 1520 keyboard is a little different from my old laptop, and now there's a "menu" key where I'm used to the "delete" key being.

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/08/02/remapping-the-caps-lock-key/ had a good explanation of how to remap a key, but my case was a little different. Here's what I did:

1. Get the proper key codes

First, I had to find the key-code for my Menu key and my Delete key. At a terminal, type (thanks to Tom for the "| grep keysym" addition to make the output more succint):
> xev | grep keysym

This lets you press keys and get the codes for them. Pressing my Menu and Delete keys, I got a lot of data. Buried in it were the following lines:
keycode 117 (keysym 0xff67, Menu)
keycode 107 (keysym 0xffff, Delete)

Okay, pretty simple. "Menu" and "Delete" are the pertinent bits of data.

2. Make the change

Next, I used VI from a terminal to open ~/.Xmodmap (which didn't exist--I had to create it).
> vi ~/.Xmodmap

(If you don't know VI, I'm sure the regular Text Editor would work just as well.)

In ~/.Xmodmap, I put a single line:
keysym Menu = Delete

Then save the file.

3. Apply the change

Finally, from a terminal, run the following command:
> xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

External Drive Power Problem

Both Child and I have an external hard drive. The key to both the problem and the solution is that our drives use the same-sized plug, but hers is 9 volts and mine is 12 volts.

Child's drive stopped working on her MacBook. The drive power-light would light up (briefly) when it was turned on, but it wouldn't register with her MacBook. I tried it on my Dell, and Windows would recognize that a device was plugged in, but it wouldn't install it correctly. We took it to SimplyMac, and it wouldn't work on their computers either. Again, the drive would light up, but not register on the computers. I even tried MY external drive (but using her power cord!) on her Mac, but it didn't work either.

The key turned out to be the power cord. The issue was very subtle, because her 9 volt power cord was apparently enough to turn the drive on, but not powerful enough to make it function correctly. Which is strange, because it was the power cord that came with the drive.

However, using my 12 volt power cord, the drive would not only turn on, but function correctly. Maybe this will help someone else...

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.