Christmas fun

The last couple weeks have been fun and great being out of school. My new job has been busy and I enjoy what I'm doing so far. They have me converting a Mill so it will run by computer (CNC). I got the motors installed on the leadscrews that lift the head that has the drill bit on it but I'm having a hard time figuring out the software to run the motors. I like the people I work with and so far it's been a good venture for me.

At the end of last week I got "called up" to work in Rock Springs for Exterran. Sara had work off so she came too. We lived the high life for a couple days. The weather wasn't too bad getting there but was horrible coming back. Anyway, in rock Springs we were allotted so much money for food and the hotel. Our hotel had a hot tub and swimming pool which we've missed sorely ever since Sara moved out of Oakridge apartments in logan. Then we ate out at Applebees and gorged ourselves. I actually got to do some design work for exterran the next day so it was sad to leave (I won't be going up there next semester). But I definitely won't miss the bad weather. The usual 3 1/2 hour drive took 5 hours because we averaged about 45 mph the whole way. A good trade off for not ending up in the snowbank, though. Finally made it to Kaysville and had the same feeling as getting off the airplane after our cruise -- just good to get on solid ground and not be moving.

When we arrived in Kaysville we endured an hour and a half of intense anticipation for the event of the year -- Neil Diamond in concert! We took the trains to Salt Lake and had to wait in the cold for 30-40 minutes because the train was late. Finally we got the the energy solutions arena and Neil sang his old heart out and we all enjoyed it. I had a pretty bad cold and so the noise was less than desirable for me but Sara thoroughly enjoyed it and she even got a shirt with Neil's 25 year old face on it. I thought there was a snake under her seat one time because she got up and scrame (= screamed) really loud. But it was just Neil's aroura overpowering her with "Forever in Blue Jeans". Good old Neil.

We came back the next day and the next 3 days dragged on until we headed back to Kaysville for Christmas. Christmas was a blast. Sara got a cd, cd holder, ipod, and other music accessories from me and her parents and I got a new backpack. Then today I bought some songs off the internet I've been wanting for a while. Sara played Knights of Catan with Danny and Jenn and myself and she layed a whoopin' on us all!

After a terrible ride home on I-15 we got home to a new 15 inches of snow which we had to shovel off our driveway before we could pull in. I've spent most of today attempting to clear off the rest of the snow and ice from the driveway and sidewalks. It's good to get back home but it also wasn't fun to leave the fam.

Big Changes, Jimmy 5

Winter is upon us. There's no use throwing temper tantrums about it anymore. I've enjoyed having warm weather as long as we have. We had one day of snow but it didn't last long. Today we have probably 6 inches which all came last night. If I had to choose a way for winter to come it would be just like this, though. I hate when it's just bitter cold, icy, and wet. I wish it would just snow instead of that. So I guess I got my wish. We have had pretty nice weather for all of fall semester. Which brings me to another point of great excitement: school is out til January! We made it through finals at last.

This next semester will bring lots of change to our home. Well actually it starts Monday. I applied for a second job here in Logan doing drafting and mechanical/electrical engineering type work. The company is called evsource and they make all the parts you'd need to make your car run on battery power. They're not mass producers though and the cars they've made so far are for small trips ie to and from work if you live in Logan. They run for like half an hour on an 8 hour charge so it's not a replacement for your car more of a commute car that doesn't need gas. Anyway, I emailed the guy Monday and Tuesday, interviewed Wednesday, and on Friday he offered me the job! I'm committed to work 15-20 hours a week and I'm really excited for the job. It will be hard to work both this job and cadanswer in the school year but this job is only a 2 month project. It could be more but it's not a guarantee at this point. I can't believe how everything just fell into place so quickly. It will be really nice to work in Logan and not go to Big Piney or Rock Springs all the time. I already had things in place to not go up to those 2 places next semester because I have to take a class Tuesday and Thursdays so I can't take a day off to go up there. But that means less work for me so this job came at just the right time. My current drafting job (Cadanswer) is really slow right now. I've just been doing sales calls because there is nothing else to do. And there is no drafting work in the future til mid-January. Well that's probably enough about that, let it suffice that I'm really excited and we are really blessed that everything came together like it did.

Also, next semester Sara will be taking off from school to work full time so we can pay off some bills and get more caught up with our finances. She may or may not return to school next fall. We will figure that out when it gets closer to the time. It's a big sacrifice for Sara and I'm glad I have a wife who is willing to do that to put me through school.

In the drafting class I took this semester we had a final project to draft this robot in 3d and make it work in the CAD program SolidEdge. When I got the thing drawn in CAD it looked pretty good but when it actually runs it is pretty skwirly. (However you spell that I'm not even gonna try.)So I'm posting both movies - one made in SolidEdge and the other of the robot in action.

He mostly walks in circles on a level surface. He can run on battery or solar power. I once thought I'd set him free on main street and just let him walk to salt lake or something. He could just walk when it's day and sleep at night wherever he is when the sun goes down. That may not be so bad as long as he doesn't spend the night on a crosswalk. But anyway that plan won't work because he just goes in circles. And plus, he can't take terrain changes very well. He just bellys up when he sees a little rug in our kitchen. But we are taking a liking to him and have decided to name him Jimmy 5 in honor of his great-great-great-great-great grandfather Jonny 5 from the movie Short Circuit. Oh and by the way our camera doesn't record sound so there is nothing wrong with your computer.

Mini honeymoon, weekend adventures

Well finals week is almost over and we are making it through. Last weekend we wanted to do something together that was extremely cheap (free would be nice) and fun. So after much deliberation we went to Willard Bay to see the lights. On the way there we figured we'd need some hot cocoa so we stopped in at the flying J in Brigham city only to be disappointed - no hot cocoa machine in sight. Then we googled 7-11 and finally found it only to discover another disappointment - Hot Cocoa Machine out of order. As a last resort we went to the Chevron and were pleasantly surprised. They had a hot cocoa maker and it was delicious. Maybe even better than 7-11 though not as delicious as QT in Georgia. I learned a very valuable lesson - the saying "Oh thank heaven for Seven Eleven" is no longer true. And I'm going to have to eliminate that phrase from my vocabulary. Eventually we got on the freeway and headed to willard bay and then missed it. Turned around got there and discovered it wasnt' free. They wanted 9 bucks! 9 bucks! and I bet they didn't even have free hot cocoa. We were enraged so we turned around and departed from thence. Then on the way home we thought it would be fun to rent WALL-E from redbox for a buck. But when we got into the canyon we hit a wall of red taillights

from a head on collision that just happened. Bored, we took some pictures. So our adventure was delayed even longer. We finally got home and watched Wall-e. Kind of a hum-ho movie. There's no talking til halfway through the movie and then the plot isn't very enthralling. I'm glad we only spent a buck.

Saturday, however, was a delightful adventure. The manufacturing company in Rock Springs invited us down for free steak and fun with them. The food was delicious and afterwards they gave us a set of heavy duty aluminum LED lights. They are small but really cool. Then the plant manager asked if we had a hotel for the night. We didn't and he offered to pay for a hotel for us. We took advantage of the offer and stayed in the Super 8. So that was our mini honeymoon because we won't be going there for a week like we thought. On the way there we saw the huge windmills.

I was telling Sara how the last time I went up I saw a truck carrying one of the arms for the windmills and just as I said it a truck came by with the huge arm. Total we saw 4 of them. Man they are big.

Christmas 2008

Well it looks like the Christmas season has arrived yet again. We decorated the house yesterday with the few decorations we have. We are very grateful for the decorations Dani gave to us before moving out to Denver. That's pretty much all we had. Over the break Sara's parents let us use their fake tree. I once swore I would never have a fake tree but alas it sits in our living room. It was weird setting it up and not smelling pine (or getting pine sap all over your hands). But the tree worked wonderfully. At first it wasn't very sturdy. I thought about flinging more scrunchies on the ceiling and then tying a rope onto the scrunchies then onto the tree to make it more secure -- but I had doubts about the integrity of the rope. So the we found this 'spare part' that we discovered is not so spare and we put that on the stand and the tree became really sturdy. It's a little short so we put it on this big present to make it taller (and so we could fit more loot under there).

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We also had some white lights left over so we tacked it to the wall with thumbtacks and it looks pretty shnazzy. I also found a power outlet timer so we hooked both the cords up to that so we don't even have to worry about turning lights on and off. So, around here Christmas starts at 6:45 AM and ends at 11:00 PM. (Anytime between then is St. Patrick's day as far as I'm concerned.)

Sara has an extremely nasty cold. She is down for the count! She tosses and turns all night and coughs and sniffles all day. Our cold medicine drugs are useless against it. Hopefully it will go away before finals. Plus -she is not the only one who ends up losing sleep.

Our dishwasher has been having problems. Namely the dishes are not getting cleaned. It's really old and crappy to begin with so I figured it was about to bite the dust but then I got looking closer at the water-shooter at the bottom and discovered pieces of glass..... glass!, plastic, and candy wrappers in the holes in the shooter. So I got to work and tried to pull them out with pliers, tweezers, fingers but nothing worked so I resorted to breaking the glass into powder and then I would turn it on and blast it out. (The real problem is I couldn't get the shooter to come off the thing it's mounted to.) At the last minute I had my good buddy Jon come over and look at it. He looked at it for 2 seconds, turned this, lifted that, and vuala! the shooter came off and we got the glass out like a dream. And this is what came out.

I pulled the big piece of glass out from underneath the shooter but everything else came out of the actual shooter-arm. It seems to work considerably better now. We had some problems with our glasses breaking in there but had no idea what it was doing to the dishwasher. At least we got it out now.

And it looks like we won't be having a second honeymoon in rock springs. The company I do drafting work for out there hasn't got word on whether they got their bid for the new project. Even if they did get it by say next week they wouldn't have enough time to get the drawings setup so I could draw them before I go back to school. Too bad so sad.

Our pets, interesting details

Ah. Finally I update the blog eh? School is nearing a grueling end. We only have one more week and then finals til the semester's end and the beginning of our 2nd honeymoon in Rock Springs. I have done slightly better on my tests than the last ones. Hopefully enough to keep my GPA up so my scholarship is still in effect. Sara's job is not turning out as amazing as we had hoped. She is always scheduled for 20 hours a week but rarely is able to get more than 8 or 9. She goes to work on time and everything but then a few hours into the shift they send everyone home. So to make up for it, I've been trying to work extra hours whenever I can. We're lucky to be in a position where that is possible. Last weekend Sara saw twilight with some friends and I stayed here to do homework with a short break in between for a ping pong tournament. Sara enjoyed Twilight, homework was awesome as usual for me, but the ping pong was terrible. I got beat so severely by a kid that it looked as though I had never played ping pong in my life. Then on Saturday I went fishing on Bear Lake with my friend Kade. We borrowed Uncle Bob's boat in Fish Haven and had a blast. No fish though. On our trip up to get the boat we saw a huge flock of grouse. I can't hunt them in Idaho but it was enough to inspire me to take time off tomorrow to go hunting at temple flat. Thanksgiving will be a nice break for us and a good time to relax and forget about school before we get worked over by finals week.

And here are some random pictures that I took and/or edited of some of our more mundane experiences. We have discovered that we have a lot of creatures lurking around our house. You may remember the ducks I spotted back in July or something. Now we have 2 pheasants, a cat, and a few squirrels too.




Once upon a time we were chilling in the living room. Sara was immersed in Twilight, I was sitting on the couch when I found a scrunchee. Being fececious I thought I would fling the scrunchee up in the air so it would land on the pillow by Sara's head. Well that didn't work because the scrunchee got so high up in the air that it got scared and hung onto the ceiling instead as shown in this photo. Some may argue that I was in fact aiming to land the scrunchee on Sara's head but as the picture shows if the scrunchee had followed its desired and expected parabolic trajectory then it would land 4 inches away from her head. Sometimes you just can't count on physics. The scrunchees are still hanging there too.

And lastly when it rains here the roof and gutter system isn't so hot so we have setup a system to catch most of the water. We call it "The 3 bucket system" Unique huh? They range in size from an ice cream bucket to a dish detergent bucket to a 5 gallon bucket. I'm still considering using the grill. Enjoy!

down with the sickness

Monday this week I got some sickness that has been working me over all week. Monday afternoon and Tuesday I only went to the classes I absolutely had to and the rest of the week I've been weak or achy. I still have it but it's not half as bad as it was. We also registered for classes for Spring semester. Last semester I worked my schedule to have every thursday off so I could go to Wyoming to do on-site work but I have to take a class before I can continue in my major and it's only offered 10:30 on Tuesday and Thursday. If it was at 7:30 I could do both but not 10:30. And that's the only class I have on Tuesday and Thursday. I may have to retake a couple classes too. We had a test in one of my classes and when I left the test I was feeling pretty good about it but then I got the worst score I ever have in that class. I had the same experience with my last math test too but I think I will probably pass that one. Which brings up another problem. If my grades aren't so good I lose my scholarship and have to fork out an extra $700 a semester. Sweet. Work has been really slow this week for me. The architectural firm didn't call me back on Tuesday as they supposedly "promised". I wil try one more time then give up on them. I finally got some work to do today. The only reason I did okay last week was because I got work from when I went on-site. So I'm not sure what's going to happen next semester when I don't have that work to fall back on. We will get a bonus over Christmas break. If one of the on-site companies I work at gets a bid for a new project they are planning to use us for their drafting work and that will happen over the break. We will pretty much live in Rock Springs for 2 weeks. One week before and one after Christmas. Sara will work 1 or 2 days Monday -Tuesday, then come up with me the rest of the week. But, again, that's all dependent on whether this company gets the contract. I will still try to work full time over the break but there's never a guarantee that 40 hrs will be a possibility.

The Adventures of Fred and Sara

A lot has happened since the last update. Mostly positive. We got the Honda back from the transmission place and to our joy it goes in reverse..... and forward! It wasn't half as expensive as it would've been if the dealer had done it and I think we got a good deal. My work became extremeley busy over the past 2 weeks -- so much that I ened up having enough overtime that my paycheck coming this week will be the equivalent to how much we would get if we were both working. So it's like we're not even missing a beat with our income(s). Definitely a blessing of paying tithing. I also made a sales call this week to an architectural firm based out of Logan and I think we have a really good chance of getting the job. It would be so nice to not have to always go to Wyoming to do drafting work. And, having more customers decreases the likelihood of company "slow time". It will still occur, though. If this firm decides to use us for their drafting work then I will get a lovely commission check which makes it well worth all the time I spend soliciting to companies. Today Sara got an interview with a call center that does surveys out of North Logan and got hired starting Tuesday. I think this job will be a lot better for her personality. Payday loan companies make their employees into a different animal. You either have to be really agressive (or mean) or quit. Whereas asking someone to take a survey is a friendly conversation. She also won't have commission hanging over her head. And from initial appearance it seems as though she sets her own schedule. She has to work 4-10 but she can pick 2 of the 3 or 4 days she works (reason: if you work 3 days a week one of the days has to be Saturday -- not so if you work 4 days). She never has to work Sundays either

Tomorrow we are going to the Augustana concert at Weber as soon as I get out of my test at 3:30. We figured we ought to do something fun together while Sara isn't working. Woo hoo!