Two good weeks

Well, I guess I forgot to write my blog last week.  I have been updating a bunch of my programs I use for e-mail and contacts so that they will sync with my new phone, and somewhere amidst all of that I accidently lost the outlook task that told me to write my blog.  Without those I can’t remember anything for more than five seconds. :)

 

I was offered a job by Qualtrix two weeks ago.  After hearing how much Jordan Plater talked it up, I was quite surprised by the low offer they gave me.  Most likely I will not take it, but maybe I will make a counter offer, though it is doubtful they would be willing to accept a counter offer that is about twice what they offered me.

On Thursday I had some really sweet curry.  Cameron, a family friend who is leaving to enter the coast guard, came over and made some curry.  I guess it is in the Japanese style, but whatever it was it was really good.  I certainly have missed by Asian foods since coming back to the “land of butter”, so it was good to get some.  It was also really fun to spend the evening with a bunch of my family and friends.

I had more Asian food when I went with another one of my friends, Naomi, to eat some Chinese hotpot.  It was really good food.  There broth tastes amazing after you have cooked all of the foods in it.  My favorite part is drinking the soup at the end.  The meats were also all really good.  I really do miss hot pot, it is so good.  What I miss most is the individual hotpots they had in China.  Those were just amazing.  It was also fun to spend some time with a friend that I have not seen in two years.

On Friday I helped Jared beat the entire set list of country music for the country track pack on Rock Band.  Is there anything better then an afternoon sitting around listening to country music?  Certainly, but not too many things are.

 

This last Sunday we had my cousin Ashlyn’s birthday party.  Once again it was great seeing all of my family.  That is really what I missed the most being in China.  It is great being so near to my family, and being able to see them.  I also got to play a new game called Spot It.  It really is a lot of fun.  I will just have to make sure to never play it with Brandon Carroll, or he will kill me in it just like he does with set.

This week was one of the most productive weeks I have had at work.  In just this week along, I finished up the main projects I was working on, wrote two new servers, and started writing a new mail client for our code-base.  So in these last two weeks I updated years worth of code, it feels rather good.

Wednesday was a sad day though.  I have really gotten into BYU basketball.  I have to admit that I was worried what not having Brandon Davies would do to us on our game this Wednesday, but I didn’t imagine it would go as bad as it did.  We were killed by New Mexico.  What worries me about this the most is that New Mexico has now kicked our buts twice in a row, and I am afraid another team in the tournament will see how they played against us, and use that style to also kick our butts.  I think BYU’s team is still really good, I am just not sure if we will be able to do as well as we have in the rest of the season.  Sad day :(

On Saturday I went to Zuppas for the first time.  I was actually really interested to see what the food would be like, since I know it is my cousin’s favorite place to eat.  It was actually pretty darn good.  At the prices they have I might just have to go more often.  It was crazy packed at the store though, since they were giving out free desserts that night.

I also decided to be silly and get the chocolate fondue for myself.  It was sooooo good.  It was a little expensive, and I thought dipping brownies in chocolate was a little excessive, but it was delightful.  I am going to have to buy myself a fondue pot and due chocolate fondue soon.  Well, maybe not soon, but rather when I finally have discretionary funds again.

 

So, overall two really good weeks.  I will be going up to the cabin next weekend, and I am really looking forward to that.  Maybe I will even take my camera so I can get some pictures.  Until then, I hope all of you are well.  I can tell that my friends in China are still having sweet adventures.  Thanks guys for keeping me jealous of not being in China ;)

我靠!

That is exactly what this weekend felt like.  One thing after another.

 

The week did start out well.  On Sunday I was able to go over and see my little nephew Kashe.  He is so cute, even when he spit up most of his bottle all over me :)

Then there was valentines day, which was a wonderful reminder of just how single I am, and how that seems likely never to change… sigh…  I did get a crazy amount of work done at the office though.  In just three days I worked 20 hours, and was able to make real progress on the implementation of our system.

When I got home I saw the aftermath of Valentines dinner here.  I unloaded the dish washer, and then to keep my angel of an aunt from having to wash dishes when she got home from a wonderful valentine excursion I set to washing all of the dishes by hand.  It took me over and hour, but I enjoyed doing it.  It was great to see how happy she was when she walked in and saw she wouldn’t have to do dishes.

 

Tuesday was also a good day in that I got to see one of my friends I haven’t see in nearly two years.  She went off on her mission when I was still in Washington for an internship, and got back when I was still in China.  I have loved being able to see all of my friends back in the US.

 

Not too much happened on Thursday, but the real “fun” started on Friday.  When I got home I saw that my phone and license plates had arrived.  I was so happy, everything looked to be going awesome.  Unfortunately when I opened up my registration on my car, I see that they had registered it as a rebuilt car, which it isn’t.  I got way to over-worked about the whole thing, and was kind of miserable because of it.

I do love my phone, but getting it all setup was a pain in the but.  It runs everything through a windows live account, the problem was that I have my most important information split between two windows live accounts, so I had problems with getting everything worked out.  After about 2 hours Friday and Saturday I had everything working, but that just felt like four wasted hours.

Sunday had its own adventure with me trying to make carrot cake with limited supplies.  It actually turned out ok for being so rigged together.  We didn’t have carrots, so instead I had to use freeze dried carrots.  We didn’t have enough cream cheese.  I forgot to re-hydrate the carrots.  The cake needed 45 minutes to cook.  You name it, it seem to go wrong.  The cake actually turned out decent, which is just a miracle.

Then on Monday (today) I go to drive to school and do homework.  I get to school just to find the building I needed locked up.  I had meant to get after hours codes from my professor, but never got around to it.  On top of that at the same time I got the e-mail from Cornell letting me know I didn’t make it into their grad program.

 

See, just one thing after another.  Who knows, maybe the sky will fall on me tomorrow   Ok, I know things really are not that bad, it was just a little much this weekend.  Didn’t help that I saw pictures from Harbin, and once again sad that I didn’t stay in China.  Oh silly Scott.

 

I hope that I took all of the bad luck this weekend, and that the rest of you had amazing weekends.

Busy, busy, busy

On Sunday I got to drive my Aunt Janelle to church.  It was really crazy, she always takes me with church to her, but now it was my time.  It was funny.  After church I went over to Barry Phillips house for the super bowl.  To be honest I didn’t care about the game, I was just excited for the food, and it was good.  I just love eating Barry’s food, best there is of any of my friends parents.

 

This week I was really busy.  I got behind on homework because of the time I spent on Saturday looking for a car.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were me scrambling to get caught up.  I was able to get it all done though, and now I am all caught up in school again.  :)  Now lets just hope I can stay caught up.

Thursday me and my lab mates picked up a copy of Magicka and we played that as a lab.  It has been a lot of fun, and it gives us something we can all do when we want to play for a few seconds.

On Friday I got really lucky as my professor has given me a go ahead to revamp a section of our current research.  It is really good because it is something I have been hoping to do for a while, and it great that I have free reign now.  I am also using this experience to get more experience with programming by contract.  It should be interesting to see how it goes.

Friday night I also went home and got to spend time with my dad.  It was good to be able to see him.

 

Saturday was my fun day.  In the morning I finished up some homework and then I headed over to the FLSR and hung out with friends for the entire day.  We totally beat the entire country song pack for Rock Band.  It was a lot of fun.  After that we went to Village Inn for dinner, and came back home for a rousing game of castle crashers.  It was a lot of great fun.

At night I picked up Hongyi’s laptop to help her get it fixed.  Hopefully everything will go smoothly with that.

 

Wow, as I write this I realize life in the US really is boring.  Don’t get me wrong, it is extremely comfortable, but it can be just a touch boring.  Wish I could be there with all my friends and their adventures in China.

After three and a half years of waiting…

Wow, this has been a busy week.  I tried to stay on top of things, but some of my lazy habits really didn’t help with that :)  It has been a really good week.  I am constantly being made jealous by those people in China.  I wish that I could be there having those adventures, but I guess I have my less cool adventures in the US.

 

Well Sunday was a pretty uneventful trip back home.  It all went rather smoothly which was rather good.  It was good to be back home and rest up. 

On Monday I finally got my information for my tax returns!  This year went the smoothest yet, I was able to get all the information I needed.  I was able to get my tax returns filed quickly, and now I just have to wait for my return to show up. Yeah!  Now I will be able to afford to survive for the rest of the semester!  I also finally have enough money to pay back flagship if I don’t return to China. (Which isn’t to say that I won’t)

 

School overall is going really well.  I am falling a little behind in CS 462, but I am getting faster in abstract algebra.  My plan is to use this week to once again get ahead in all of my classes, oh how nice that will be.

On Thursday I interviewed at Qualtrix to make Jordan Plater happy.  They have an OK company.  Some things they do rather interestingly from the development side of things, but nothing too strange for a startup.  I don’t think I would want to work there long term, but it might be an option if I choose to stay in Provo for my Masters degree.  We will just have to wait and see how that pans out.

Thursday night was eventful.  I finished up my part of a large group project earlier in the day.  At night I could see that my teammates were getting their parts done, when all of the sudden we get an e-mail from one of the team mates saying that they were dropping the class and wouldn’t be finishing their portion of the project.  Boo, no good.

Anyways, on Friday morning I finished up that persons part of the project, because I was the only person that had finished by then.  Luckily everything did end up coming together which is good.

 

Saturday was the climax of the week.  In the morning I went out with my uncle to go car shopping.  We first looked at some Honda Accords and Civics.  The Civics were a little underpowered for my tastes, but the Accord was really nice.  The center stack is messy, but other than that I like the car a lot.  We also test drove a Fusion, but it was pretty beat up.

We originally were going to test quite a few, but my uncle had a basketball game to go to at 2:00 so we headed straight to Woods Cross to check out the Fusion I wanted to see most.  When we first walk in they told us they sold it.  I nearly died when I heard that.  Luckily they were wrong about that, and the car was still on the lot, so we went and test drove it.

It was just a wonderful beauty of a car!  It was so much nicer then the other Fusion I had driven, and it was even cheaper.  In the end I decided to buy it.  There was one hidden fee that was a little nasty, but other than that buying the car went rather well.  I am now the proud owner of a 2010 Ford Fusion SE, and I must say, it is a nice car.  I really love the way that Ford has turned around in the last couple years.

So, that is what I have been waiting for for the last three and a half years.  This whole time I have been saving up and waiting.  It actually turned out to be a good thing to save and wait this long.  It has allowed me to get something really close to my dream car, and I didn’t even have to go into debt for it.  This though has made it so that I am back to being a regular poor college student.  I probably won’t be able to clime out of this whole as quickly this time, seeing as I now have car payments to make, but that is life.

 

Well that is where I am at right now.  Things are going pretty good.  Now if I could just find a girl willing to date me   Hope everything is going well for all of my friends in China.  Who knows, before too long I might be joining you all again.  I am starting to work with Jian Laoshi to get that all set up now.

An ice festival and a funeral

So on Sunday I had a fun little experience getting to church.  Aunt Janelle wasn’t going to church in Provo, so she decided to let me take her care so I could go.  Right as she was leaving she asked me to lock the door behind her.  Unfortunately I forgot that, and even more unfortunately I didn’t remember until I got to BYU.  I thought to myself, well I will stay around and take the sacrament, and then I will return to lock the front door.  Just as I was about to enter I remembered I had also left the front door open!

Needless to say I raced back home (obeying all the traffic laws of course).  Luckily nothing happened and I was able to lock up the house.  I ended up going to sacrament meeting at the local ward.  All in all a pretty stressful morning.

At night I went to Crystal’s for dinner.  It was good to see Koda.  He has really grown up so much since I last saw him.  I am glad that I could come home and see him.

 

Monday I went over to the Chinese house at the FLSR and talked with Ryan.  He is leaving for China this week, so it was good to talk to him before he left.  I have missed talking to him.  It seems his life is going well which was good to hear.  I even lucked out and Rob was able to give me a rid home that day.

Tuesday and Wednesday were days where I rushed to get done with homework so that I would be ready to leave for my Grandpa’s funeral on Friday.  Wednesday night was fun because I got to watch the BYU vs. SDSU game.  Jimmer was just amazing.  I really enjoyed it.  Too bad we then lost on Saturday.

 

Thursday was a race to finish my homework before it was time to leave.  Thankfully I was able to get my CS 340 finished just in time to rush and get some lunch before taking my Chinese test.  The test went well and then I raced to meet with everyone to leave to Idaho.  It took us a little longer than I would have wanted to leave, but we eventually got on the road.  The trip was the most fun when Brittany got in the car and we sung Karaoke Jericho Road and Everclear for several hours.  It was fun.

We didn’t get into Weizer until 2:00 in the morning.  Luckily the lady at the house where we were staying was still up.  The rooms were actually rather nice, and it was good to stay in a house.

 

Friday morning was the morning of the actual funeral.  The first time I real felt sad about the whole thing was this morning.  I was surprised to see how much weight grandpa had lost.  But what really broke me up was seeing how hard it was for some others, and especially my grandma.  She had found the other half of herself, and even though it is only for a little season, she still has to go this season without her husband, and it broke my heart to see that.  That is ultimately what makes death sad for those left behind, not that they won’t get to see their family again, but rather that they will not get to share that union for a small while.

It was a good service overall, and I am happy that I was here to attend it.  In the afternoon we were all together as a family, which was wonderful.  My grandma seemed to be taking things rather well, and that was good to see.  It was good just to spend time to be with her, and support her through this difficult time.

 

On Saturday most of the grandkids that came went to McCall to go and see the ice festival.  This was especially nice for me since it in some way made up for the fact that I wasn’t able to go to the Harbin ice festival.  When I went to China this time, the one thing I wanted to do most was go to the Harbin ice festival, but timing just made it impossible.  Why McCall’s ice festival can’t even come close to comparing, it was still a good trip.

My favorite part was walking out onto the frozen McCall lake.  Out there I wrote my name in Chinese characters (harder then you might think) by stomping around in the snow.  I then got some pictures of it, it was just so much fun.  It was also good to be able to do this with my family.

At night I came back and spent more time with the family.  Sunday I went to church, and then came home.  Everything went well, and I do thank the Lord for that.  It was a good weekend, just too bad that grandpa wasn’t there to spend it with him.

I love America!

I must say that I am loving it back in the US.  That is not to say that everything is perfect here, I doubt there is any place where everything is perfect.  But if I had to choose one imperfect place to be, it would certainly be here.  It is probably just because I am so used to the way everything works here, but I do love it.

 

On Monday I finally got caught up with all of my homework!  Thank goodness.  I am kind of worried about this semester.  It took me far longer to finish my homework then it should have.  I really hope that I will have time enough to do all that I should this semester.  I just want to be done.  I am really excited for grad school, and the busy work that is undergraduate studies is starting to drag on me.

Tuesday was the first day of school this week, and the first day of school where I wasn’t half asleep in my classes :)  I am also getting back into the flow at work.  I feel really blessed that I had this job to come back to.  It isn’t that great of pay, but it is something I like doing, and it is extremely flexible as far as my schedule goes.  Perfect for me.

Tuesday night also saw me getting a temp phone, until I can get a WP7 on sprint.  I was also able to watch some TV shows.  I have missed my American TV ever since it was removed from PPStream.  It is good to have Psych and the Mentalist back.  I also bought Castle Crashers to play with my friends in China. (P.S. That means Drew and Lars you need to download it!)

 

Wednesday was my first day going back to the FLSR and spending time with all of them.  It was a lot of fun.  I really wish that there was some way for me to live there again.  We will have to see how everything happens.

Thursday was more school, nothing much special.  Friday was the same.  I do have my group for CS 340 setup now.  The team I have looks like a good group of people, so hopefully the project will go really smoothly.  I also got to read Scott Robertson’s (one of my colleagues at work) thesis.  He did a really good job.  It gives me hope that grad school is doable.

 

On Saturday I found that my Grandpa Darling had passed away.  This was pretty surprising for me to hear.  I had hoped that because I had come from China early I would be able to see him again.  At least coming home has meant that I will be able to attend his funeral.

I have to admit I don’t feel to sad about this, and I don’t really know why.  It seems like such a transient thing.  I haven’t been able to see him since I was in China, and now I won’t be able to see him since he is dead.  But all of these are but temporary barriers.  I will be able to see him.  Because of this I don’t really feel that sad, but rather it actually gives me determination to live as I should.  Through living as I should I allow myself to be with him forever.  This is what I hope for, and thus my response is determination instead of sadness.  Maybe that makes me strange, but for some reason that is how I feel.

 

Even though Saturday had that sad start, the second half of the day was really good.  In the afternoon I went to the Russian house again.  I got to play RockBand with them, something I certainly miss.  It is so fun to just be around my friends.  I am really sad that soon we will all be separating.  We can still do stuff together, but it just won’t be the same then.

After a while we all went to Village Inn.  The ultimate skillet is as good as ever.  It made me so happy to sink my teeth into it.  The conversation was also heavenly.  I have missed the outings to Village Inn a lot.  We were just missing a Cassi and a Drew, and then it would have been perfect :)

After dinner I went back home for my aunt’s birthday party.  It was good just to spend the entire night with my family.  I missed them the most when I was in China, and it is wonderful to have so many opportunities to spend time with them.

Back in the US!

When I came home from my mission I was more appreciate of the US, but I didn’t really think it was that much better.  Heck, I actually thought thought that the better food might be good enough reason to live in Taiwan.  Well, this time back I was filled with a much greater sense of how amazing America is.  The clean air, the soft beds, the heated houses, just… you name it, we seemed to have it.  That isn’t to say America is perfect, but it has been nice to be home.

 

Well, on to what happened this week.  Monday was probably the longest meeting I have ever been to.  For about six and a half hours we sat around and listen to reports.  The reports themselves, and even the commentary was just fine.  It just went on much, much too long.

On Tuesday I finished packing up for heading home.  After that I went to class and had my writing final.  It was actually crazy hard.  I was not expecting that.  Well, after class I went and took care of moving out of my apartment.  Utilities cost more than I had been expecting, but I guess that is how the cookie crumbles.

For dinner I went out with my roommate, Trevor, Drew, and the Shurillas to get steak.  It was good food, and especially fun conversation.  Couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last night.  After that we headed back to the Shurillas’ place, and ate some really good chocolate covered chocolate wafers.  They did make my tummy smile.

 

Wednesday was the big trip home.  In the morning I got breakfast with Dayu, and then I headed out to the airport.  I had good conversation with the driver.  At the airport everything went smoothly until I got to security.  There I had to take apart my carry on because there were tools in it.  Apparently without thinking, I had put my bike tools inside my carry on.  I should have just let them throw away the whole thing, but instead listening to them I tried to see if I could get it on my checked bag.  Well that was already too late, so I just had to throw it away and then re-go through check-in.

The flight to Beijing was actually pretty nice, we even were served a meal.  Certainly nicer than most American domestic flights.  The next problem I hit was going through security again.  This time there was another one of my bike tools that was also unacceptable.  Gosh, I wish I had just thrown away the whole set when I had a chance…

The flight home went faster then I expected, but unforunately while Air China might have nice domestic flights, their international flights suck.  We only had two small meals, and there wasn’t even power on the plane!  It made the flight a lot more annoying then it needed to be.  I was so hungry…

Well, I made it to SFO, and everything was going pretty well.  I got back my checked bags and the first thing I did was put the rest of my bike tools in it.  Customs was fine, and then I got onto the next plane.  This time I was stopped so they could checkout the PS3 in my baggage.  You never know about those rouge PS3s…

While waiting for the next flight I met a really nice women who bought me a shake to watch her laptop.  It was perfect since I was starving, but also feeling to poor to buy airport food.  I was able to find power and internet in the terminal so it was pretty good.

Eventually I boarded the plane and we got to SLC without much problem.  After I got off I went to visit my dad.  It was good to see that he was doing better after his surgery.  Next I went home, ate some Mexican food, and then went to bed.  Wow, I knew that American beds are soft, but I forgot just how stop.  I nearly rolled off the bed when I first crawled in as it actually gave under me and let me roll, something I was not used to in China.

 

Thursday was my return to school.  Not until I was actually back at school did it feel weird to be in America.  I have to admit seeing BYU again was crazy.  The first thing I did was head into my office.  Apparently me computer form last year was still mine, and one the others gave me there pair of 24” monitors, so once again I am back in computer heaven.  It blows my mind just how nice it is to use 2 24” monitors.  I am starting to wonder how I did without them in China.

Class was crazy hard, not because of the material, but rather because it was all I could do not to fall asleep.  I was so tired thanks to jet lag.  I have never had it so bad before.  Class with Dr. Honey is even more crazy then I thought it would be.  That class is going to be interesting.

As I was preparing to get on the bus, I came to find out that the buss apparently had already left.  I am going to get a car rather quickly, the bus system in Utah is so backwards.  I wish Nanjing’s busses would come to Utah, and then maybe I could get places in reasonable amounts of time…

Friday was more of the same.  I spent most of the morning in my lab, and got all of my stuff set up.  In the afternoon I had classes.  I think I am going to be busy this semester, it seems like I have picked professors that like busy work.

 

Saturday was a day feel with pretty much only homework.  Hopefully with the holiday on Monday I will be all caught up before school starts again. 

 

So that is where I am at.  I am back in America and loving it.  The only annoying things about being home was the sheer immodesty of girls.  Man, it really blew my mind seeing what passes as acceptable attire in this country.  Luckily I was able to get to Utah pretty quickly, and things are better here, especially in Utah Valley.  Otherwise I can’t say that anything else isn’t much better then Nanjing.

I will be happy to finish my internship, but glad that I could break up my time in China.  China is a great place, but nothing quite compares with living in the US.