Vegas and Papers

Life has been non-stop busy the last couple of weeks.  That is the reason I haven't been able to get to writing what I have been up to.  Sorry about that.

So the fun began with the beginning of August.  I was spending most all of my time preparing for DefCon in Vegas that week.  Because everyone was so paranoid about having our laptops hacked there I setup the lab’s laptop to take with me.  It was fun trying to get everything setup.  I am slowly getting used to the Mac, but I must admit it just makes me want my PC again =p

On Wednesday I drove down to Vegas.  The drive actually went pretty well.  We had rented a pretty large car, and so everyone was pretty comfortable the whole way there.  The hotel room we had was also pretty nice, though it was in a casino, which wasn’t the cleanest place.

We though that DefCon was starting on Thursday, but it turned out it didn’t really start till Saturday.  Because of this we just kind of chilled the day away.  On Friday we started the real hacking competition.  At first things went pretty slowly.  We had problems figuring out how to get our network setup.  We successfully attacked a computer that would allow us to get to the various challenges, but we were stuck on how to go from there.  Luckily it wasn’t just us that was stuck, but the rest of the teams as well.

The second day went a lot better.  It still took us quite a bit of time before we got any points, but eventually we were able to get a couple.  When we finished the day we were in fifth place.  This is actually pretty good for us have only done this a couple of weeks now.  I personally helped solve half of the problems.  None of them were too hard once you knew the trick, but some of the tricks were pretty hard to see.

On Sunday we went to church and headed back.  I almost managed to drive the whole way by myself, but towards the end I had to switch out.  When I got home everyone was pretty happy to see me.  I guess it was pretty conspicuous that I was gone for several days.

 

After DefCon was over things kept just as busy.  While I was at DefCon, Dr. Seamons found a conference he wanted us to submit a paper to.  So for the last two weeks I have been working like crazy to try and help get the paper together.  It is a lot harder then I thought it would be.  It wasn’t until this last Saturday that we even got the paper to look mostly like we wanted.  It is finally starting to look really good, which is making me awfully happy.

Other than that the only thing of note was that FLSR move outs happened.  It will be sad to see everyone move out.  Hopefully we will get some really sociable new people that move into the ward.  That would be just great. 

 

Oh yea, the best thing of all is that Drew and Cassi are back in town.  I missed them so much when they went to Hangzhou and I came back to America.  We still live in different cities now, but at least we are in the same country.  They came by to visit a week ago Saturday.  It was really awesome to see them.  We just chatted for a while, and it made my day.

 

Well that is what I have been  up to.  Things have been busy but they have all been pretty simple.  I can’t wait for school to start up again.  I have some really great classes I am signed up for, and this semester should be just wonderful! 

Blogless weeks

It seems as if these last couple of week shave been without blogs for nearly everyone.  I haven’t written and neither have any of the people that I follow.  It has been kind of strange like that.  Anyways, since it has been so long I will try to only hit the highlights of what has been happening.

 

One of the more fun things I have been able to do is play more tennis with people.  I have gotten my cousin Ryan to play with me, and even though he is a lot better than me, it is still fun.  It also gives me someone to chase after   I have also been playing with another friend from the FLSR who is just learning to play.  That has also been a lot of fun, especially since it allows me to just work on fundamentals.

 

Probably the craziest thing that happened was last week Tuesday and Wednesday.  Me and three other people competed in a security capture the flag.  It was attended by students from across the country, and involved data forensics and other techniques often associated with hacking to capture information for points.  Our team ended up winning by a pretty good margin, which felt absolutely amazing.

One of the cool things with that is that they are now paying for us to attend DefCon in Las Vegas next week.  The school is even pitching in to take care of incidental expenses.  This is great, it will be my first time attending a conference not hosted by the organization I am either working at or attending school at.  I am really excited about this.

Last weekend I also was lucky enough to have my dad come down for the afternoon.  I prepared a little picnic lunch, and we ate over at Rock Canyon Park.  It was good to be able to spend that little bit of time with him.

This last week I also finished the project that has been the main focus of the lab this whole semester.  I was able to finish fixing up the last peace, and finally everything finished coming together.  Now we can focus on writing papers, which will be very helpful for getting into better programs in another two years.  I am excited for that.

Saturday was the first time I have ever seen a movie in 3D.  I went with a friend to the movies, and since the movie we wanted to see was sold out we saw Thor in 3D instead.  It wasn’t as amazing as I had heard it made out, but it was still a lot of fun.   If we could just ditch the glasses, I think I would like it even more.  It was a fun movie, so that was good.

 

And that is the cool things that I have done recently.  A lot of little things I didn’t write about also happened, but that is just me and my busy life.  Next week I will try to write about how DefCon went.  Until then!

Slow week

Well, to be honest this week hasn’t been nearly as crazy as the others.  But it has still be fun.  July 4th was a really good start to the week.  I went to the parade with some people from the FLSR.  It was pretty fun to hang out with everyone like that.  Later that day those same people and I went to go swimming.  It was a lot of fun, and I got my first sun burn since before my mission.  It is itching like crazy, so I guess next time I will just have to put on sun screen =/

 

Other adventures this week included a random trip to Macey’s at 11PM at night for candy.  Those of us in the car then spent the next 40 minutes in my car talking and eating candy while watching the rain outside.

Wednesday night had a similar adventure in that we decided to go and get something to eat at about 11PM at night.  Wendy’s was closed so we ended up going and getting food at the Malt Shop.  While there I danced with some of the girls, and so of course that counts as a wonderful day :)  Good times!

Thursday was a rock band party at Sean’s house.  It was fun, we had 6/7 possible instruments, and it was just a blast.  Everyone had so much fun.  Really good times!

Friday saw me getting a Shake and then driving all around Utah County trying to find the Justin Bieber movie with Naomi.  I swear, whenever I am with that girl we just do the most random things possible.  Silly us, it was a lot of fun though :)

Saturday was a night with a dance party, sort of like the one I wrote about a couple weeks ago.  It was good fun, even though I didn’t personally dance as much this time.

 

So as you can see, no huge adventures like I have been having, but a lot of little small ones.  I must admit that in some ways I feel more like a 21 year old just home from my mission then I did when I when I was actually 21.  Funny how that works :)  Now, this week I just need to figure out how to stop going to bed at 2AM!

July 4th

Well, I seem to have gotten into the habit of only writing my blog every other week.  I will try to do better, but I can make no promises.  It just seems that every other Sunday is especially busy, so I have no time to write in my blog.

 

Lets see then, what has been happening.  Well two Thursdays ago (21st) we had a really fun night.  It started with several of us from the FLSR going out to play volleyball.  When we got there the courts were full, but we joined a game with another team.  It was a lot of fun to just get out and play with everyone. 

After we got back we all just talked for a while, and then we all decided to go to Sonic.  It is funny to me that I am doing stuff like this.  It feels more like I am 21 now, then when I was 21   Oh yea, that night I also asked out a girl while she was on a date with someone else.  Sure felt silly when I realized what I had done, but you know what they say, all is fair in love and war.

The next day was the date with the girl that I just mentioned.  It was a double date with someone else I knew from the FLSR.  We went up the canyon and had tin-foil dinners and roasted Marshmallows.  It was pretty much as awesome as it gets.  We had such a great time. 

As we were leaving Kari, the girl I was on the date with, said she wanted to watch a movie.  So we went to my uncle’s house and watched Frequency.  It was so fun, made especially so by the fact that Kari super reacted to everything that happened in the movie.  She was more fun to watch then the movie itself ;)

Then on Saturday I had another date.  We went for dinner at Café Pasean, which for those who do not know is like Café Rio, but with Italian food instead of Mexican food.  While there we just happened to run into Brittany and Ryan which was crazy.  After dinner we went to watch “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, performed by the Shakespeare in the Park group.  It was so much fun.  I must say overall, and amazing date with an amazing girl, the highlight of that week for sure.

 

Wednesday of the next was the next day where anything happened.  I got some people together and we watched “Howl’s Moving Castle”.  It was fun, even if some people thought it a bit over the top.  After the movie Kristen, the cousin of one of my friends in the FLSR, came over to return a guitar she had borrowed.  I then helped her listen to some of the stuff she had recorded to submit for a scholarship.  She is a really amazing musician.  There can be no better way to end a night then listening to amazing music with great people, and so that night ended wonderfully.

Saturday was also a lot of fun.  In the afternoon I had a picnic with a bunch of my family.  It was great to see everyone, even though it took quite a bit of time for everyone to trickle in, but that is just how a darling gathering works.

Later that night I was also able to go to Stadium of Fire.  It was really good.  The music and everything was just wonderful.  It is amazing how incredible fireworks are.  They seem to be able to do anything, even make a heart shape.  I then ended the night by going to the creamery with some friends, and then just talking the night away.  Wonderful.

 

So that is how life has been going for me.  Full of fun and eventfulness.  As I try to be more and more social the Lord has truly helped me to find amazing friends.  That is actually the story of my life as it sits now.  The Lord leads us and guides us, even in ways that we don’t understand.  I am not fully sure how current things will help me to accomplish my goals, but I know I am doing what the Lord wants, and I know that He will see to it that I can do all that I am supposed to.  This is truly one of the greatest blessings of the gospel.  We can have confidence that if we but do what the Lord tells us to do, that He will help us accomplish what He has promised we can accomplish!

FLSR life rocks!

Apparently I have become rather bad a posting every week.  Maybe that is good, since there is less long windedness for everyone else to listen to   Regardless, two weeks has gone by super quickly.  It seems like everyday is as long as can be, but the weeks as a whole take forever to be over.  It is strange.

 

We had a bonfire for FHE, and that as a lot of fun.  I love the smell of campfire.  Smores are always fun as well.  It was also fun because I got to hang out more with the French house, something that doesn’t happen too often.  They are a really cool set of girls, and so it is fun to get to know them better.

Tuesday was the start of our weekly ultimate Frisbee games.  It is a lot of fun to get a bunch of people together and just enjoy the exercise.  The teams are generally pretty even match, though there are a couple players who truly stand out.

On Friday I had a really fun date with one of the girls from my ward.  We went up to the park above the state mental hospital.  Up there we roasted shish kabobs and played croquet.  My date actually one with some very masterful club work.  It was pretty awesome.

After that we played some Frisbee golf.  We did end up going to two different parks so that we could play some more, but it was still a lot of fun.  LauraLee is actually pretty good at getting the Frisbee in the basket.

After that I came home and joined the French house who was having a dance party.  It was a lot of fun to get up and move.  It was a silly Wii game, but it was still a lot of fun.  We danced forever, and then when the last people were leaving we left and started having a conversation on dating.

The dating conversation lasted about an hour and a half.  What came out of it was that everyone should be less couched in what they do, and that secretly none of us thought that the other side would.  So dating as normal in Provo

Saturday was another really great day.  I had another date with another girl in the ward.  This time we went and had a picnic lunch.  We followed that up with a game of Frisbee golf, followed by some Nertz.  It was a lot of fun.

After the date I went off to the stake activity.  It was also a lot of fun, we played volleyball, ultimate Frisbee, ate catered JDogs, and watched comedy sports.  Yeah, it rocked as much as it sounds

After that event I got a text from Naomi that night, and so I spent the night with her hearing about her adventures with Bruno Mars.  I feel really lucky to have friends as wonderful as Naomi.

 

So as you can all see a week ago was pretty busy.  Luckily it was pretty busy just having fun.  The Lord has really blessed me by allowing me to be in such an awesome ward with such wonderful people this summer.

 

Well last Sunday was also really busy.  I got set apart as the Elder’s Quorum president.  Lets hope I just don’t manage to burn down the church   I did have to wait till this Sunday to get my councilors called, but luckily there wasn’t much to do that first week.

That Sunday night after ward prayer we played Nertz, and it was a fun time.  I think I won every round but one.  For me that is incredibly successful, so I felt just wonderful.  It is so wonderful to be able to spend time like this with other people.

On Monday we had another wonderful FHE.  We went to the Bishop’s house, and there roasted hot dogs, marshmallows, and swam in his pool.  Did I not mention that I have an awesome ward

A had a couple little adventures Tuesday-Thursday.  The one that was the most fun was going to the creamery with a bunch of people in the FLSR to celebrate the end of finals.  We had a fun time together, and even played translation telephone as well.  It is like the standard telephone game, except that at each person the language changes as well.

Friday continued the fun.  We invited everyone over to watch “The Next Three Days”.  There were not that many people that were able to come, but luckily we were able to get a bunch of the new people this term.  And let me tell you, the new people in our ward are pretty awesome.  I am really excited to get to know them more.

I found out one the girls, Rebecca, had never watched “Stardust”, so we decided the next day that we would watch it.  So on Saturday we got people together and watched the movie.  Everybody really loved it.  After that we just all talked for a while, and it is so great knowing these people.

 

So yea, a pretty busy but awesome week.  One more thing, Sean has decided to start teaching me Russian, so maybe in a few weeks I will be able to say some broken Russian phrases!  Oh how I love the FLSR.

I hope that you are all also rocking it wherever you are.  Thanks for reading my blog you all, I hope you like it.

A couple fun weeks

So, once again it seems that I have skipped a week of writing in my blog.  It just seems that there is always so much to do, that I don’t ever get around to finishing the blog.

 

On Sunday, as in two weeks ago Sunday, I got to give a lesson in Elder’s Quorum.  It was about proper Sunday observance.  I was really happy to be able to give this lesson.  I feel that as I have done better to properly observe the Sabbath day, my life has been greatly blessed.  I know that when we sacrifice for the Lord on this day, he gives us back much more in return.

The first real party item of the week was Thursday.  At my lab we decided to have a curry day to celebrate the progress we have been making on our project, and also that one of the Master’s students did their defense that day.  We did a curry potluck where everyone brought a different type of curry, and we stuffed ourselves on it.  I myself made a Thai coconut curry that turned out well, even if it was as strongly flavored as I would have liked.

Out professor also brought in his week and supplies for root bear floats.  So as you might imagine we got absolutely zero work done that day.  But it was so much fun just to relax and spend the day playing games and eating curry with everyone.

That night we also had a fun complex activity.  It was an open mic night.  It was really cool to see how talented a bunch of people in the FLSR where.  I even got up and performed some stuff, even though I had just barely begun to learn the guitar.  Crazy, huh.  Oh well, someday I will be able to perform something a little harder then “Puff the Magic Dragon”, and that will be a good day :)

Saturday was also another good day.  In the morning I went out with one of my old friends to the canyon.  There we walked around and had a picnic.  It was a lot of fun to catch up with her, and see how life was going for her.

In the afternoon on Saturday Sean and I got some people together to play volleyball.  It was actually pretty hard to get the requisite number of people since quite a few people were actually out of town.  Eventually we did get together 9 of us, and we had a fun little while playing volleyball.  We kept playing until it start to rain a little, and then we headed home.

 

My second week was also just as fun.  Last Sunday we had dinner at the Bishop’s house.  It was a lot of fun to go with several members of the ward over there for dinner.  It was a lot of fun to get to know those people better and just have a great time.

After that I had Brittany and Angela’s birthday parties.  They are growing up so fast!  I know I am not that much older than them, but I still remember them so clearly from when they were just little girls.  It is crazy to see them both all so grown up now.  It was also great just to be able to spend some time with my family.

Lastly on Sunday we had pie at the Spanish house.  They had made some extra apple pies, and they invited us over to eat.  I must admit, every time I am in the Spanish house I do feel a little bad that I have let my Spanish comprehension slip so much.  I really should do something to get it back… yea, that will probably never happen though…

 

On Monday the ward came over to my apartment to watch Inception.  I must say I really do have a cool ward, and I just love doing things with them.  Inception was really fun since we had it on Blue-ray and 5.1 surround sound.  It is also just great movie.

On Wednesday I had a really fun date.  We went to an acoustic guitar concert,  The bands that played were really good.  I would sure love to be that good someday.  It was just fun to be outside in the beautiful weather, enjoying good music with good company.  After the show was over we went and played a little Bocce ball.  We then came back to the FLSR.  All in a all a really good night.

Thursday saw some drama with the language coordinator of my house.  I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say it made the first part of my day pretty terrible.  At least the end was better as I had another date for Thursday night (different girl.)  We went to Rock Canyon park.  First we played Bocce ball, and got killed by the other couple that was with us.  After that we played some Croquet.  It was a lot of fun.  My date, Leah, was really good at Croquet.  She got through all of the hoops super quickly.  one of the sweetest shots was when as the stringer she took out Sean’s ball from about 10-15 feet away.  It was just an epic shot.  After that it was all I could to dodge her attempts to take me out.  Luckily I did make it to the end, and then we tried to kill each other off for the rest of the game.  Eventually she missed my ball by all of an inch, and I was able to hit her ball from that distance to end the game.

After Croquet we came back to the FLSR and went to the ice cream social that was happening for complex mingle.  There we both competed, along with Allyson from the French house, in an ice cream eating contest.  We all had a bowl of ice cream and we had to eat it with our hands behind our backs.  It was a lot of fun, and ice cream certainly got over all of our faces.  It was such a wonderful night, which is what I needed after such a terrible morning :)

 

On Friday I went up to the cabin.  I had invited several of my friends, but in the end only Ashley and Leah from the French house were able to come.  The ride up was a lot of fun as there was good conversation and good music.  Once we got up there we decided to make some German chocolate cake.  While we were waiting for it to back we watch a couple really funny divine comedy music video spoofs.  After that we played some Apples to Apples.  Overall it was just a really fun night.

 

On Saturday we made an amazing breakfast of eggs, pancakes, French toast, bacon, sausage, and orange juice.  It was just delightful.  Then the people that came up with me, as well as Ryan and Sarah and one other boy, went out for a hike.  It was a lot of fun.  Everywhere was flooded because of all the snow and rain we have been getting this year.  At one point I just had to take off my shoes and socks and walk through a new river that had formed to get where we then wanted to go.

Everything was so beautiful on the hike.  The creations of our Lord are truly magnificent, and I am grateful that I can enjoy them.  During the hike we even got to have a snowball fight that was a lot of fun, even though I did cut my leg on the snow since it had frozen ice shards in it.

After that we played Upwards for a while, and then made ourselves some Spaghetti for lunch.  Actually, for lunch, the girls did most of the work, and for that reason it probably turned out so good :)  After that we all headed home.

And yet that wasn’t the end of my Saturday.  No this was mega-Saturday!  After I got back there was the ward opening social.  It is kind of weird that we are having it now, even though in two weeks about half of the ward is leaving, but that is just how life is.

While there we started a game of ultimate Frisbee.  It was so much fun.  At fist I was playing just like normal, but then I decided to get crazy and start running down every Frisbee, even if I wasn’t sure I could catch it.  I had some sweet misses, and some even sweeter catches.  My favorite was when I had to run, jump, and then slide to grab the Frisbee, catching it with only one centimeter between it and the group.  It was pretty crazy.  That did cause a bunch of grass to go into my ear and hurt a lot, but it was worth it for that catch =p

And then to end the day I went to Orem to spend some time with family, and also to watch the season finale of The Mentalist.  It certainly did not disappoint.  I just love how everything has wrapped up.  I can’t wait to see what they plan to do next season!

 

So that is what I have been up to these last two weeks.  I assume my friends have been having as much fun.  They seem to all be doing little mini adventures before they come home from China in the next couple of weeks.  I have missed reading their blogs, but I am sure I will get to read plenty of updates soon enough (hint, hint.)

Busy enjoying life! Pt. 2+

Continue from the last post:

Then that brings me to last Sunday, when I should have written this last blog post. I probably could have found time to write my blog, but I think I did do a lot of really good stuff as well. Me and Ben first made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for our home teachess (hint: be my home teachee and get baking goods.) After that we taught the guys, and then me and Sean chilled on the lawn singing hymns together while he strummed them on the guitar.

At night we went to a regional fireside, a fireside for which we were the only BYU ward that went. Our high councilor is cute, and had just happened to hear of this fireside, and so had us crash it :) It was actually really cool. It was a Navajo convert to the church. He told us of his conversion which included the fact of how he had heard the stories that are in the Book of Mormon from his medicine man father long before he had ever even heard of the Book of Mormon. It was really interesting to hear those stories told from in their Navajo story form. It was also a testimony to see such proof that the modern descendants of Lamanites knew of these stories still. It was cool.

That night I was introduced at ward prayer. It was hard to come up with interesting stories, but still it was fun. After that I played some games with people and then headed off to bed.

On Monday I made chicken enchiladas for dinner. It took longer than I wanted, but they actually turned out really well. That night we also played ultimate Frisbee for ward FHE. It was great to get out and play with the ward. It was also great to see that my workouts are most certainly helping my cardio. I was able to keep running the whole time and be a real participant, which was really fun.

Tuesday was a fun little morning. After getting done with swimming me and Ryan went back to my place and made pancakes. We ate them covered in raspberry yogurt and watched economics rap. It was so much fun.

That night I went to a speech club. It was really interesting, really formal, but still really cool. The night did turn a little weird at the end when this guy found out I was in CS. He started telling me all his “great” programs and ideas. He just kept going, even when I would shake his hand and start leaving he would just keep following me and talking to me. It was crazy.

To end the night Sean and I got together a bunch of people and played Apples to Apples. A great way to end the night!

Thursday and Friday were not the best days for work. I ended up only going to work about 2 hours between those two days. On Thursday I slept in till 11 AM, and then spent the rest of the morning installing some custom firmware on my router. Hopefully this will help the router be a little more stable.

That night I also went to the FLSR’s dinner. I have to admit that it is a bit hard for me to enjoy those kind of dances as it is mainly just dancing around. But still I went to support the RAs. Maybe if I knew how to dance Hip Hop it would be a little better, but unfortunately I do not. I was able to actually dance 2 songs, so that was at least good.

Friday was a pretty chill day. In the afternoon I went down to SLC to take my down out for lunch for his birthday. It was good to be able to spend a bit of time with him. At night we celebrated the birthday of my roommate Michael. One of my other roommates, Ben, made a really good banana cake, and then we sang and ate. We finished the night all watching the Bourne Supremacy together. It was really just a good day.

 

Saturday was the real highlight of the two weeks.  The day was just beautiful, and while I wasn’t raptured, it was still a great day.  As most wonderful days started this also started with time in the temple.  Sean and I then spent our time getting ready for out date that night.  We managed to finish getting all of the food and everything made and packed into the car just in time.

For our date I took out Kate Erekson.  It was a triple date.  We went up to Vivian park, where we had a picnic dinner.  While waiting for the third couple to come we played some Apples to Apples.  We then had a bow tie pasta salad that Sean and I made for dinner.  We also had sun chips and watermelon, very picnicy. 

After that we played some Frisbee, culminating in a game of 500.  It was really fun, even if it did degenerate into cheating to help our dates win each round, but I guess that is what makes things fun :)  After we got worn out from that we played a little Cranium.  Kate and I did a great job as a team, and won pretty handily.  It was a lot of fun.

After the game was over we packed up and headed back to Provo.  In Provo we make some frozen yogurt.  While waiting for it to freeze we played some Rock Band.  We then had yogurt, and just talked for a while.  After that I walked my date home.  Really quite a fun date, and a great way to spend a day in which I wasn’t raptured :)

 

So that is what I have been up to these last two weeks.  It has kept me really busy, but it has been fun every second.  I am so grateful that I am a grad student, and as such have the time to do all these things.  I truly do feel blessed at this time that I could do graduate school in Utah.

I hope that all of you area also enjoying your time wherever you are.  For all of my friends in China, I have missed seeing you blogs the last couple of days, I hope to see some cool new adventures before you all come home :)