the flu

Oh man we are so stinkin sick. Sara just went to instacare and she has the flu. So that means she can't work til Monday and has to stay home and try to live. I'm pretty sure I have it too so I'm foregoing work for today at least. I also discovered that we do have a fire extinguisher. Guess where it was? right by the oven. Sara made sure to point that out as soon as she read the last post.

spring break

This week is spring break for us (me). If what I've heard is right a lot of other schools like Weber and BYU are taking next week off but we are stuck with this week. Monday was great to wake up to a foot of snow. I initially woke up because a snowplow went by but I had no idea it would be so bad! I went out and shoveled our driveway and then went to work and by the time I came back we had 2 or 3 more inches. I wish the snow would've come more at snow time rather than at spring time.

Oh and speaking of time.... I really hate daylight savings. It always messes me up. Last October we went to church an hour early. This Sunday we went an hour late. It was so odd too because we got all ready and were thinking man this is great we have so much time left. Usually we are rushing to get to church so we just chillaxed and listened to Q92 for a while. At least we tried. Sunday night I also got a cold and on Tuesday Sara was blessed with it only hers is like ten times worse.

It's been really nice to take a break from school (kindof). I may not be going to campus everyday but I have been trying to study for the FE that I'm taking in April. In the meantime I'm learning how much I've forgotten since my mission. My teachers also gave me plenty of awesome homework. One even gave us a huge project which is just what I wanted to do over the break.

Since our last post about growing lemon-limes I have been thinking to myself "Self, What other unconventional things can I create with conventional items?" So today I brought home a piece of plexiglass from work and put it in the oven. The goal was to get the plexiglass to mold to this form I had made for work. Which reminds me I wasn't cooking just plexiglass I was also cooking about 3 feet worth of a 2 x 6 (wood) and a layer of sheet metal with a few shop towels stapled to that. The plexiglass didn't form quite right, turns out it couldn't do the radius I thought it could. But it was fun anyway. It also helped me learn that we do not have a fire extinguisher anywhere in the house. I was a little worried cooking plastic and all that water just may not put out the fire but I had no need to worry. There was no fire and it didn't even make any funky smells.

penguin diner, sprite

For family home evening tonight Sara introduced me to a wonderful new internet game. I have had a recent splurge of internet games starting with hangman on Frank's blog which led to word whomp which led to text twist which led to avalanche. Now we have found penguin diner. In the game you are a waitress and you have to seat, take orders, bus tables, etc. in order to win the game. Quite addicting. http://www.2dplay.com/penguin-diner/penguin-diner-play.htm

Check it out.

Also, for the sprite-drinkers who read this, remember the old sprite logo with a lemon-lime?

Ever wonder where lemon-limes grow? Well we found out today. They grow in your fridge! We have had this old lemon in the bottom drawer of our fridge and let it ripen? there for 6 or so months until now it has become a lemon-lime!. Cool huh? I had to hold it with gloves because I just pulled it out of the "rich" soil it was in. I haven't done it yet (and may not have the time to do it, but I'd like to taste the juice to see what real sprite tastes like straight off the vine.

Sara's new haircut

Sara got a new haircut a and despite my insistent offerings of my own hands cutting her hair, she decided to have someone in Kaysville do it. Her haircut looks good and I must admit it is slightly better than my wal-mart clippers could do. She says its a little shorter than she wanted it but likes how fast it is. By the way sorry about the picture quality we lost our digital camera so we are using this handy dandy webcam on my computer.

And not to be outdone, I also made a change to my appearance through the use of a common pair of lineman's pliers. I was tightening a nut on this baseplate I've been making and slipped and gripped the end of my thumb really hard. I'm surprised it didn't just cut my thumb open but it did leave a nice juicy blood blister which I'm including as a source of your own personal enjoyment or mental pain if you've ever had a delicious blister like this one. The first day I had it I considered naming it because it was so huge. I was thinking something on the lines of "Mario". And in posting this picture and text I'm going to make a prophecy with no intentions of discourageing anyone from posting about it, but that someone will have had a bigger better blood blister to top this one. Kind of like when you try to tell a group you had 2 wisdom teeth pulled. It is a guarantee that someone will cut you off midsentence and say " Oh that's nothin' I had 4 pulled out".

Last night we went to see Brian Regan our favorite comedian. He actually came to Logan. We bought tickets the first hour they were available in Logan but we still were on row L in the theater. Man it was a great show I was dying from laughin so stinking much. Actually I think my little wisdom tooth story up there was entirely plagiarized from him but that doesn't make it any less true. I was a little worried in going to his show that he would tell the same jokes I already know but he didn't he had a lot of things he was testing and then at the end he told some of his classics. One is this evil kenievieleveileviell posting from youtube. Hope you enjoy that. Good show. I 'd definitely go again and it was worth the money for tickets.

Valentines, President's day

Last Friday we went to our ward's Valentine's ball. They gave us free food and then had dancing afterwards. The food was good and we stayed after for a little dancing but then decided we didn't feel like dancing to what they were playing. It's hard to explain, the music was just goofy. If you've ever tried to dance to something like freebird you know what I'm talking about.

On Saturday we went to the Olive Garden and used the gift card Becky gave us for Christmas. (Thanks Becky).We both got their new shrimp and Ravioli which was delicious! I can usually pack down the food there but I think good shrimp fills you up. When we go to sizzler I can eat a ton of the baked shrimp and it's good too but I think when there's not much juices in it you can eat more. Anyway, I highly recommend that deliciousness.

Our Presidential celebration consisted of sweet, sweet homework and then movie and ice cream at night. We watched madagascar 2 which is such a funny show! The first one was pretty funny in itself but this second one has more penguin antics and is hilarious!

I also got some new pants finally. Now I have no excuse for having holes so big my whole leg slips out of my jeans when I walk. Of course being the packrat that I am I will still use them at work until I catch them on something sharp, hot, or otherwise dangerous resulting in severe injury to myself as I fall on this object. Then I will throw them (that pair only) away because hey, who wants bloody pants?

Lean mean green milling machine, fortune cookie

I finally got around to getting a picture of the mill. Enjoy. Also, I found this old fortune cookie we've been hanging onto for a while. So long in fact that I wrote "when?" on it. Not saying that's why we were blessed with the money but a funny coincidence.

Money from Heaven?

This week has been nice for both of us. Sara is enjoying her job at Convergys. She finishes up training this week and then next week she officially starts. Luckily that training has all been paid too. I finally got the mill going right at work to make the parts I was supposed to. There was some backlash in the screws and so I had to tighten a pulley on it to make it work. That pulley was a bear to get tightened just right but it was worth it. Then I made 8 resistors for my boss and he was pleased. I did it all in an hour too. We have lost our camera so it may be quite a while before I post any pictures of the lean mean green milling machine. It's a lot of fun to work with.

I had a test this week in my Material Science class and it seemed to go well. He threw in one trick question on it but I think I'll get some partial credit for it. I'm worried about the tests coming up this week in Numerical Methods and Thermo. The teacher for numerical isn't so much concerned about whether you know how to use an equation as he is that you know how to derive it. I think deriving an equation is something mathematicians should do and no one else. (What else are they doing anyway?) My test in Thermo is given by a good teacher but the material is just hard.

Last night we got a wonderful surprise in the mail- a check for $2000.00! I guess that since we applied for financial aid and I am in engineering with a GPA above 3 that I qualified for the SMART grant. I had no idea what that was. SMART means Science & Mathematics Access to Retain Talent. Basically it is for people who have or want talent in a set of majors but don't have access (money) to keep it. Since all my fees were paid 2 months ago the 2000 is ours to use. We finally got to free up our credit card that I had to use at one-way transmissions. It also means I can afford to take the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam this April. I would have been able to afford it without the 2 grand (the fee is 135.00) but it's nice to not have to scrimp so I can register for it. And finally, it means I can get some new pants. I consider that money straight from Heaven.

Speaking of heavenly things, I think it is a daily miracle that I'm not swamped with homework now. This week I did work for CADanswer and EVsource and somehow had time to do all my homework. It seems like when I don't have time to do homework either something happens (due dates change) or I just understand the material and can get it done faster.