Sunday, May 31, 2009

Curse of the Sunglasses

I cannot explain how frustrated I am with sunglasses! I love sunglasses. I wear them everywhere pretty much any time it is not dark. They cut down on glare and headaches and they just look cool. Well, shortly after I returned home from my mission, I was cursed with a horrible curse.

Something I'd always wanted was a nice pair of sunglasses. When I got home from my mission and started working, I finally decided it was time to splurge. Now, I do appreciate a pair of Oakleys or Rayban sunglasses, but there's no way I'm going to pay $200 for sunglasses--especially not with my curse! Anyways, I went down to the mall and stopped by a bunch of shops looking for the perfect glasses. I decided on the Dragon brand Cage stye. They were sweet! So I bought them and couldn't have been happier.

Around this time, I'd met my sweetheart Shauna. Come to think of it, she must've fallen for me because of those glasses! Haha. Well, I took Shauna to the movies in Vegas on one of our weekends together. Obviously you can't watch a movie with sunglasses on. Well, I guess you could, but... ya. So, I had taken off my sunglasses and put them on her purse which she then put next to her on the arm rest (still attached to her arm for security). After the movie, we got up to leave and I went to retrieve my glasses--and they weren't there! We searched everywhere. A nice theater worker even came with his flashlight and helped us search, but to no avail. It finally occurred to us that the guys behind us must have swiped them through the gap in the chairs right off Shauna's purse! And that, I believe, is when my curse started.

I haven't been able to keep a pair of sunglasses more than a few weeks since! The next pair I had got taken after I forgot them in a lecture hall at BYU. Countless pairs since have broken, both on their own prematurely or by my doing (sitting on them in my car, crunching them in my pocket helping people move large things, sending them to their early deaths in the hands of a curious baby, etc). Why is this on my mind, you ask? Well, four weeks ago, I went to Ross and bought two pairs of sunglasses. I have at least learned to not buy the expensive ones since they're just going to be destroyed or otherwise rended useless to me. On Friday, while house hunting, I reached up to take the glasses off and one of the blasted arms broke off right in the middle! Grrrr... That's when it donned it me: I'm cursed!

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Telephone Gambit

Well, I just finished my second leisure book since graduating (one on a list of many; the first was The Thief--thanks, Pyles!). It's called The Telephone Gambit, by Seth Shulman (2008). I picked it up on a run to the Provo Library where I stumbled across it in the electronics non-fiction section. It's a quick read and very interesting, more of a detective's journal than a research paper, so I highly recommend it, especially if you are like me and watch shows like Modern Marvel on History channel or How It's Made on Discovery. The history and controversy about the telephone, a device we all take for granted, is very interesting and well-presented in this book.

I'll spare you the review and just cut to the chase--Shulman shows evidence that it is highly likely and probable that Alexander Graham Bell infringed on Elisha Gray's claim to inventing the telephone! I never knew this, but apparently Bell was suspected of stealing the idea pretty much from the time he "invented" it and there are hundreds of legal cases about it; however, no one could prove it, and thus, Bell is remembered as the inventor of the telephone. That could also be due to the capitalist society we live in and certain "financial" steps that were taken to keep Bell in the textbooks, all by a small company you may have heard of, American Telephone & Telegraph, which is the direct descendant of Bell Telepone Company. Anyways, the key piece of evidence is Bell's lab notebook and a little, benign sketch. His notebook was kept secret in the Bell family until 1976, when it was donated to the Library of Congress, yet it has still remained largely unused and uncited. It is also all available on the Library's website. Shulman stumbles across the sketch in question almost by accident, but he is able to make the subtle yet alarming connection immediately.

That's all I'm going to say. I hope I intrigued you enough to at least read into it.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Facebook

Hey, just wanted to let you all know that we are on Facebook now! It was bound to happen... Hope to see you all there!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Finish Line

*NOTE: I can't get blogger to upload my photos, so I'll try again later.

Well, I guess it's official. Last week, I received my final grades at BYU and I passed all of my classes. In fact, out of all my classes, my lowest grade was one 'C'. The rest were A's and B's. Definitely not bad (especially for me!). Now I know that I'm done.

During and after graduation, I was actually pretty anxious about my grades. I kept worrying about my finals and all the "what ifs" that went through my head. What if I don't pass a class? What if I somehow missed a GE credit? What if.... I've even been having dreams the last few nights about suddenly remembering a final I hadn't taken yet that was due by 5pm. Haha. I just couldn't believe it was real, that I was actually graduating.

Family
I think the best part about graduation weekend was having my family all stay at our apartment. My brother, Jared, Lanita, his girlfriend, my sister, Kim, and my mom all fit in our little living room (slash dining room slash kitchen) for one night. It was so fun! Plus, Shauna's dad got to come from California and he and her grandparents and brother all came to the commencement and then joined us and my family after for Hawaiian haystacks at our place! We had a great time with all the stories and the laughs, we played some games... It was just great. It didn't even matter to me that I was graduating, I just loved having all of the family here with us.

Commencement
The commencement was just surreal. I got dropped off at the ASB and quickly disappeared into the sea of blue caps and gowns in the parking lot. As I got to my line, I noticed Stephen and Alicia were there! That was a great surprise! So I got to chill with them. Soon after I got there, the color guard marched by with the dignitaries closely behind, and the processional started. As we were walking, I kept struggling with my white stole because of the wind. Just as we got to the top of the pedestrian walkway, I glanced up to see the BYU TV video camera coming right at me and right at that moment, a gust of wind blew my stole off, and as I was messing with that my cap blew off just as the camera crew was walking right by me! Haha. I really hope that I was on live TV at that moment. I should've been recording it at home...

I loved the talks at commencement. Pres. Uchtdorf's especially made an impact on me with his three things to do after graduating: Use your time wisely, continue to learn, and always seek the Spirit of the Lord.

Convocation and Reflection
Friday, April 24, was the day of my college's convocation. I would say that during this time, getting to see some familiar faces and listening to the speakers addressing their talks directly to us, the engineers--that is when it all became real to me. I knew I was graduating, I knew it wasn't fake. I knew as I looked on the stand and saw some of my professors that I would probably never see them again, I knew that soon I would be walking away from BYU. And I was sad! Somehow, inspite of the testing center, the homework and exams, the frivalous GE's, and the long walks up hundreds of stairs every day, somehow I was sad. I am going to miss it. I'll miss the opportunity to begin secular classes about science and engineering with a prayer. I'll miss the clean (more or less) atmosphere. I'll miss the enlightening classes about my religion, about the Bible and about the Book of Mormon and the book of Doctrine and Covenants, etc. In short, I'll miss BYU. How could four years go by so fast!

That's enough for now.