pumpkin carving

The deer hunt over the weekend didn't go as planned but it was exciting nonetheless. We didn't see any more bucks but did see quite a few deer. Friday night we hunted up Mill Canyon where we saw the buck on Monday but didn't see any deer there. We did see some grouse and I got one to bring home. I realized that I like to hunt grouse just about as much as I like to hunt deer. I'm still trying to convince Sara to try it whenever I cook it.

Sara went down to Kaysville and chillaxed with her sister and threw a baby shower for one of her friends. Seems like it went well. They were worried that the mom-to-be wouldn't make it to the baby shower but she did although it sounds like she may have had it the next day.

While I was in L-town mom and dad mentioned they had a ton more pumpkins than they needed so they sent me home with a couple which we carved Monday night which brings me to the next item of interest: Sara was at home on Monday night so we go to have FHE for once. She was forced to quit on Thursday from her job so she has every night free. But that means getting back to the grindstone of looking for another job. I got a raise last week but unfortunately it just isn't enough to cover all the bills while I'm not working full-time.

Also, around the same time the reverse went out in my car. I took it to Honda to have them look at it and they glanced at it ( really, that's all they did they didn't touch anything) and said it would cost 720.00 to look at the transmission. And for that useless information they charged us 50 bucks. How nice. So we took it to another placed called one-way transmissions and he glanced at it for free and will take the transmission apart for 600. Much more reasonable. But in the meantime we are down one car. Good timing though because Sara isn't using her car. I got a good vibe from the transmission mechanic (despite the fact that he used the back of a paper towel to write down my information) but I'm concerned with the company name/output. One-Way Transmissions? The car already goes one way! I made sure to specify that I would like the car to go both ways - not just reverse or forward. Hopefully I made that sufficiently clear to him. More news to follow on that possible adventure.

Deer hunt

The deer hunt was a blast this weekend! It was so fun to get up in the mountains and away from school and work for a couple days. I don't think we could've asked for much better weather. The roads weren't slick and it got nice and warm by mid morning. Of course it's always bitter cold at 6 when we got up but that's to be expected on most days in October. Me, Keith, and Steven saw 2 bucks but didn't take any shots. I couldn't tell what they were in my scope and plus if I can't tell they are bucks from that far away I probably would have a hard time hitting one. I saw one deer about 10 minutes after we started brushing that I could've nabbed but it was just a doe. Mom's party was a lot of fun too. We liked seeing everybody just as much as Mom did. The basketball game was extremely intense. I was so beat by night's end. Then we had to head back so I could get up early to do my homework at the house. I was kindof worried that I may fall asleep on the way home but we ended up talking the whole way home. We have been around eachother the whole weekend but haven't had much time together to just talk.

Next morning I did homework til church at 1 then we went to Kaysville after church to see Sara's sister Katie who is in town from Chicago. We haven't seen her since the wedding so it was nice to have a more relaxed atmosphere. We played clue until someone cheated and then it became not so fun. grrr. We came back around 10:30 then it was back to homework til 2:45 when I gave up. I worked on it before, after, and sometimes during classes and finally got it done 4 minutes before it was due. What a pain. I also got the results of my tests back from last week. On the Monday morning class I did the best in the class on the test. I have no clue how - maybe the teacher liked the line made as a result of the test getting pulled out of my hand. I didn't get 100 on it but the teacher is one of those cool ones where he thinks every test will have at least 100%. So, he took my grade and added points to it so that I got the 100 and everyone else got boosted up the same number of points. I don't know what I really got on the test but the 100 sure makes me feel good. The Thursday test, though, was a bear! I have refrained from speaking about it all week to spare others from a possible slough of angry words directed at the professor. Want to know what the class average was? 50.7 %. And the teacher doesn't even care. He thinks that his teaching is flawless and if the class average is really low it's because he just got a stupid batch of kids - so in other words - no curve. I got a 65 on the test and was happy with that. I guessed on 13 of the 20 questions. Total guesses! All I can say is I must be a good guesser. Word is, there are a lot of mechanical engineering students who lose their scholarships each year as a result of this class. I have lost mine before but appealed the loss and got it back. I had a few B's that they didn't like but apparently they don't have forgiveness for D's. Sara also did pretty good on her chemistry test. Probably better than I did when I had to suffer through that class.

Me and Dad also went hunting Monday night up Mill Canyon. We saw lots of deer and at just before dark we saw 3 deer. One of which was a 2x3 buck. I had it in my scope just as it went over the ridge and looked back at me. I fired a shot and the deer jumped about a foot in the air but then I never saw it again. Man I really needed Frank there to help me shoot him. We have mad skills in that area as evident by my first buck up 6 mile. It only took me 17 shots to down that deer and it would've been more if Frank wasn't shooting too. It was so much fun to shoot at one though. It would've been a nice deer too. Dang.

Happy Winter

Yesterday morning when we headed to class at 7:30 we were greeted by the unpleasant sight of snow. It sounds like we didn't get near as much as Mom and Dad did, but there was probably an inch of snow on the ground. Lucky for us, it did melt by noon but it was enough to motivate our landlord to finally turn on the heat and fix one of the holes in the roof of our patio. We were thinking we would need more food storage so we went out and got 5 pounds of cheese, a tub of butter, and 25 pounds of cookie dough. Okay that's not exactly true.... The weather is supposed to be nicer this weekend for the deer hunt though. Oh man, we are so ready for the weekend. We spent the whole last weekend pretty much cooped up in the house doing homework or work. We finished about 1:00 AM Sunday night which made getting up to snow at 7:30 6 hours later even worse. We got out once on Saturday night to go see Eagle Eye and eat at Pier 49 pizza then it was back to homework. By the way, I moderately recommend Eagle Eye (only moderately because I previously highly recommended Batman). But really it's a good one. Pier 49 was a little disappointing. I expected the food to be so delicious that I would be blown away but alas that didn't happen. We ate it all anyway.

Test #1 for me this week was bad news bears. For starters the test was at 7:30 - bad any day. The test had 60 questions to be done in 50 minutes. At 40 minutes the dude said we had 10 minutes left and I was on # 30. Then 5 minutes later no one had handed in their test yet so he said " Okay 5 minutes left - you better start guessing". That would have been a good idea if the test wasn't short answer. To me, a guess is where you take a shot in the dark and have a 50/50 or a 25% chance of getting it right by circling a random T, F, A, B, C, or D. This guy was such a goon too that when the time was up and only 3 people had handed in their test he had his little grunt TA's go and RIP the tests out of people's hands. So, the last problem I was working on has the start of a sentence then half a word then a long squiggly line to the end of the page (created as a direct result of the ripping). How lame. I can't say that I hold a special place in my heart for that teacher or the TA's.

But I can't stop to gripe about that because I have a test tomorrow and then a big kahuna test on Thursday. Then it's the weekend but I can't think about that much because I have a buttload of homework due on Monday. I guess the teachers up here think that a fall break means a vacation for them and slave labor for you. Sara has a big test on Monday.

An interesting Formula

First of all, don't be scared by this picture - there is a reason. My hair is getting pretty long. In class I'm constantly pulling my 'wings' back behind my ears like a girl with long hair. Now that it's fall and the weather changes from hot hot to cold cold my hair is also changing shape. In the morning when I go to class it's cold cold and the hair freezes to my head but then during the day since I am only in one building my hair slowly freaks out like you see here. This isn't that bad actually. So I have been trying to think of how to describe this phenomenon. The only way I can think of to describe it is that it's like super mario where you get a mushroom and get bigger. By days end I feel like someone has mounted a fluffy mushroom on my head as shown. I guess I probably ought to cut my hair eh?

This is also a fairly sad picture as well. I have been using eraser A on the left for 5 years. It started out looking like eraser B on the right. Now A is so small that when I erase I am really using my fingers more than the eraser. I have calluses on my fingertips. So, the time has come to retire eraser A. He has served me well so here is a poem dedicated to eraser A.

Eraser A
What a sad day
We cannot play
Let's go to the bay
Hey
I just may
Eraser A
The end

Dead week

It's been some time since I last posted. We are still alive - just barely. School is working us over. We spend almost all our time between school or work or homework. We live for the weekends. And then they are over too soon. Or we end up just sleeping through them (see Frank & Amy's blog). The big news around here is that Sara went to the instacare the other day. She cut her wrist really deep on a piece of glass and had to get stitches. It is healing really well and she will get them out tomorrow. I wasn't here when it happened so I didn't see it. Sara had also lost her phone so she couldn't call me. She gets them out tomorrow and has a new phone now. My classes are killing me. Aside from the time we got to spend with Frank and Amy for conference, I was trying to figure out a design problem for one of my classes. I never figured it out. I ended up just giving up and turning what I had in hoping to get some partial credit. This class is the advanced version of a class I took last Fall and I did really well in it and I enjoyed the material. Now I am just hoping to get a C out of the class. I can continue on in my degree with a D. I'd lose my scholarship either way. Very stressful.

A month or so ago I had a couple minutes and fixed our dishwasher. The supports for the door are weak or just broken so it hangs down low like this.

So I got some 100 lb test wire and rigged it as shown. I have to admit I'm pretty impressed with my work. The problem now is that when you shut the door the wires stick out. But there are no sharp edges that will cut you, just the coiled wire. We figure it was worth it.

And I realized that we don't have a picture on the blog of one of the selling points of this apartment -- the toilet! Or as I like to call it 'The Throne'. I don't think any explanation outside this picture is necessary.

You feel like a little kid again because you feet dangle when you're on it.

Other than that , I did end up going hunting last weekend with our cousin Andrew but we didn't see anything. I might go this Friday but I'm not sure. It's hard for me to do homework on Fridays (for the full day anyway). I'm just so burnt out by then that all I want to do is sleep or do anything else but homework. This week is 'dead week' in school. Next week I have a test in all my classes and I would bet it's the same for Sara. Then...... Deer Huntin'