A Gingerbread Tribute to Assassinated US Presidents

So, I had to do a creativity project for my history of creativity class. This is what I came up with. Angel really made most of it and had a large part in my idea. So, most of the credit belongs to her.

Overview


Honest Abe in the balcony with his wife (notice the flying buttresses)

It's a pretty sweet how-to

So, I did it. I actually did something I said I would. There is a screencast (a video of my screen with me talking) showing how to set up google reader so you don't have to manually check blogs for new posts (or any site with an RSS feed for that matter). Check it out here.

google reader

So, I'm planning on making a little screencast video thing when I get time to show how to set up google reader on igoogle. When I do I'll let you know. If you're feeling adventurous you can try to figure it out on your own. igoogle, google reader gadget. It's not too hard.

www.hectorscout.com

Sorry, last post today. I recently bought a web domain. It's www.hectorscout.com. I'm hosting it on my own webserver since I recently got a public ip. I'm also going to be hosting and developing a web site www.sutekistuff.com for my buddy Joe Harding and his business partner Ryan Blanscett's side ties business. So, you should go check those out... they're not that cool yet.

Another Jazz Game, Same Jacket

So, we went to Salt Lake, again. And we saw a Jazz game, again. And we met the president of the United States....Again. OK, maybe not that last part but I like Forest Gump. Anyway, we did get to go to another Jazz game. This time it was because Angel's sister Wendy and her husband Lee went in on season tickets with some other couples and this was one of the games they had four tickets for. It was the home season opener. They played the Rockets and even though they lost (Tracy McGrady scored like 48 points or something) it was still a fun, entertaining game. And this time I had advanced notice so I could get stuff done and didn't have to bring my laptop in to do homework during the game. The seats were better too. Good times.


These are phone pictures so they aren't quite as good but I think that's Yao Ming at the top of the key there. We saw a jazz dancer chick walk past him at one point and she came up to the waist on his shorts. It was humorous.

Kitty Kat Friend

This is Angel with our little kitty cat friend that shows up every so often in our backyard. He's super friendly and Angel likes him because he's still small. She claims she only likes 'em when they're small. I think if we got one small she would still at least kind of like him when he got bigger.

Quick expanation

Ok, so the quick explanation is that the pictures are what we did last weekend. We went through Employee Canyon in Zion's National Park in southern Utah. It was a fairly long hike on a non-existent trail followed by six rappels between 100-200 feet. I loaded the pictures while I was at work since we didn't have fast enough internet at home to upload those pictures. The plan was to write a much more detailed explanation of them later at home. However, due to spending the weekend doing that and sadistic professors (mostly just one of them) I haven't had anytime. We got internet installed yesterday though so that's good. Ok,I need to go work on moving in still. Oh yeah, Angel got some free tickets from the parents of one of her kids since they all love her so, here are a couple of pictures from the Jazz game this week.

expanation later

I'll explain later

Rad Racing

So, the other day I was just minding my own business at work when in walk a guy and a girl. Of course, my first thought was great a couple of jerk probably want to rent a computer (because I have good customer service skills). Then I noticed that something was different about this guy. He was wearing this:



Needless to say, I was stunned. Obviously, I got him the best computer and monitor we had, I needed to know where he got it. My first thought was that he must have made it himself, paint roller and stencil style just like the movie. I must admit I was a little disappointed to find that he had just purchased it. Actually his sister bought it for him. Turns out you can get your very own or only $15.95 + 4.95 s/h at www.radtshirts.com. Not a bad price. Although I haven't convinced myself yet. It's quite a bit cheaper than buying the movie these days. Anyway, the world is a better place with them in the world. And if you don't know the significance, shame on you (neither did the girl with the guy wearing the shirt).

Seven things

I've been meaning to write one of these things for Angel and myself but am just now getting time, kind of. So, here we go.



1. Everybody seems to do first date stuff here. Angel claims we never had a first date. She's pretty right. However, if we did have one it would be the time that Angel came and picked me up from the airport when I was coming back from Denver after a trip there about a month or so after getting home from the mission. She picked me up because I told her I'd buy her a frostie if she did. So, that was the first thing we did. We bought frosties and ate them at the top of the now non-existant crossroads plaza. I'm not going to go through the whole day but it included eating Blimpies in the lobby of the Marriott, shopping for wedding gifts for some one(we bought a Holmes fan and Trivial Pursuit), watching skaters in Park City, buying Slurpees in Park City, watching Master and Command in Rick and Pam's basement, and ended with a smooch or two.

2. I proposed to Angel in the Art Museum at the University of Utah. I knew she would say yes since we had set a date and scheduled the temple 3 or 4 months earlier. One of the things that originally caught my attention with Angel was when I overheard her tell someone else that she was interested in art history. I always knew I wanted a wife who was into art. I'm pretty sure she was inspired to say that right then. We both like to go check out the art museums though we don't do it nearly as often as we would like.

3. Angel and I have never spent a night apart since we've been married.

4. Angel will begin her professional career as an elementary teacher this year teaching fourth grade. I still have this and next year of school before I start my career as a computer programmer nerd guy. We figure we have a pretty good setup in this. Angel will go and make a difference in people lives and make the world a better place, and I'll.....make money.

5. Angel and I live (temporarily, until the beginning of October) in BYU family student housing. We are abnormalities here. We don't have kids and Angel isn't pregnant. I haven't seen anyone else in this situation in the vicinity. We also go somewhat out of our way not to know anyone. This is partly because we're only here for about two months and partly because all the people here are wierdo BYU students. (I'm pretty positive they're all scared away by my beard and assume Angel is the BYU student. They probably think I'm keeping her here against her will.)

6. Angel and I both speak Chinese. No we don't really speak it at home (except praying. For some reason I can only pray in Chinese) and we don't play on teaching our kids anything except funny stuff. However, we do use it to make fun of people in public in front of them and just generally send messages to each other that we don't want other to know about. Unlike spanish we can be quite confident that no one else understands what we're saying because if they did they would either by chinese or a return missionary from our mission.

7. Angel and I eat burgers, pizza, sandwiches, and pasta. We've never gone out for chinese food except for mission reunion type stuff. Chinese food is no good. American Chinese food is way better than the authentic stuff but still, why would you get that when there are so many other better options.

So, that's a few things about us. If you want to know more then too bad. Here's some bonus information for you. We aren't one of those couples that always hangs out with other couple and plays board games and stuff. We haven't gotten sick of each other yet and don't see that happening anytime soon so we just enjoy each others company as much as we can.

Welcome Angel to the club!

Despite being a lifelong Utahan Angel drank her first caffeine free dr. pepper today (although she did make me pour it in a glass so it wasn't in a gold can). In celebration of this momentous occasion I have decided to change this from my blog into our blog. One of the reasons you haven't seen many personal pictures on this blog has been that our camera broke a little while ago. So, after a really long time I finally bought one. It came last Friday I think. Why then don't you see any pictures here? It doesn't turn on. That is a less than desirable trait in a digital camera. Since we spent the week moving and doing tons of other stuff I haven't had time to get it figured out yet. Moral of the story, we now have two broken digital cameras. When I get a working one I'll try to post some pictures of our new temporary home in BYU family student housing. Anyone who knows us knows we're extra super excited about it. I'll go ahead and throw in a classic picture of us for you. If you don't recognize this one then we're sorry for not sending you a Christmas card. We would have if they were free.

Sharks are cool

It is common knowledge that Angel is already the best teacher this side of the equator (and the other side too). But, just to prove the point more in case there was any doubt I submit this for your consideration:

Angel will be teaching at Saratoga Springs. Their mascot is a shark. So, Angel drew up a cool little shark mascot guy. We're still working on a name for him. We don't know if they already have a mascot with a name or not. If they do we're quite certain he isn't as cool as this shark. Anyway, she's been making up a bunch of these pictures to illustrate different prefixes. Ya, basically she's awesome. I almost wish I could go through 4th grade again just to have her as a teacher. I think I could do pretty well this time too. OK, really I would fail because I had a crush on the teacher and I couldn't stop staring at her. I'm convinced that will be the only reason any of her boys won't do well. It could be a serious problem.

summer fun

This is a little update for all of you out there who have been dieing to know how I'll be spending my summer months (I realize people have been losing sleep over it and checking this blog many times a day looking for an update. I'm sorry about that.). Actually, one of the reasons I'm writing this post is to practice one of my summer goals. As many of you are aware, I'm a computer science major. As such, I'm a bit of a nerd. Not nearly as much as most cs majors but that's not saying much. Anyway, I've decided to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout this summer. As far as I know it's pretty much the nerdiest thing you can do. Here's a picture of the layout.



It's supposed to be more efficient and easier on your fingers than the traditional Qwerty layout designed to slow down the typist and avoid hitting letters together on the typewriter. Basically, I'm learning to type all over again and I need practice. Anyway, all of the above post was written quite a while ago. I was at work and then needed to actually do some work. so now, I'm sitting in the car on my way to Disneyland. I just set up Dvorak on the lappy so I can continue the goal. This is a little more challenging since the letters are traditional on the keyboard on this one. Anyway again, back to the update. This summer I will continue my work at my current job of almost two years. That's working for the office of information technology at BYU over the computer rental program, electronic surplus, and the computer kiosks, and billed printing on campus. That's about 28 hours a week so I'm supplementing that that with a second job working for a company that buys a lot of our surplus stuff and sells it, among other things. I'm helping them do general warehousing and I'll also be helping them in an almost consultant type role. I'll help them make their process more efficient and write some programs to track their inventory and some other things. I'm also working on making a website for my buddy Joe Harding's side business of selling ties. That should be fun.

So I guess I should stay fairly busy this summer. Angel is taking her final classes this summer at UVSC/UVU/UVHS. Next year Angel will start her career as the best elementary teacher ever. She'll be teaching 4th grade in Saratoga Springs as an intern. I'm not kidding, she really will be pretty much the best teacher that ever was. She has been doing a permanent sub job at an elementary school by our house working with autistic kids and has loved it. She’s amazing.
This Post is actually lots of posts all in one. We’ve now made it through a couple of wonderful days at Disneyland and one day at the beach. We’re sitting on a plane and being glad we decided to fly back instead of driving. That was a good decision. I would report on the trip but I don’t really feel like it right now. So maybe instead I’ll just end this painfully long post. The end.

Kelsey is my hero!

Kelsey's new blog has inpired me to put off my homework (creating a web application to manage printer supply orders across campus) and add a post to my much neglected blog. If you'll notice, I have also added a link to her blog off to the left of your screen. Feel free to nagivate there before reading the rest of this if you want to. I'll understand. She's a lot more interesting than I am. I think she also puts stuff on her blog. I don't do that much. Her pictures are actually from things in her life too. Mine tend to be random stuff I pull off the internet after searching for all of 30 seconds. Hold on, let me go find one.
Alright, there you go. I didn't even get that one off the byu home page like all the other ones, I googled it. Those are the efforts I'm willing to go to for this blog, pretty much none.
Anyway, Kelsey is my hero. She does things and gets through things that are pretty impressive. I don't always envy her position but I do think she is one of the strongest most able, competent, smart, creative, and all around wonderful people I've ever known. I do envy a lot of the traits and qualities she displays. The only other person that come to mind we most of these same traits is our mother (my other hero). Kelsey doesn't always do things the easy way but she does try to pursue what she wants. I think she's doing just fine and I love her.