It's been an interesting year so far. I a lot has happened, so I'll try to hit on the most exciting and the highest points. As far as school goes, I decided to take classes during the summer to graduate sooner. I'm enrolled in four classes now and the semester only has about 5 weeks left. I'm taking my senior project right now. I'm working on writing an AI (artificial Intelligence) agent to play mario on the computer. I've set myself some fairly high standards. Mario has to win 90% of the time after training on a level 2,000 times. I just finished getting everything to work and he does indeed win the level often. 98.75% of the time, actually. It's pretty entertaining to watch. I'll post some youtube videos on it sometime and include them here.
Last semester I took an OpenGL graphics class. For my final project in that class I built a catapult game. It was pretty cool. Here is a video of what it looks like right now. I want to port it to Mac and then to the iPhone/iPod. We'll see how that goes.
I started dating Kalysta late last year and we just recently got engaged. She's amazing and I can't wait to spend forever with her. We just took engagement pictures this weekend. After my sister gets them edited and such, I'll post them on here.
Currently, I'm looking for a job. I need an internship to officially graduate. I can't really graduate until december though. Either way, I need to find an internship. The sooner the better. That's it for now.
Where Do I Even Start?
I Hate Chainsaws
Halloween this year was awesome. I haven't had this much fun on Halloween for a long time. Having a date for Halloween makes it that much better. I've been trying to figure out what really scares me during this Halloween season. I went to the haunted mill and nothing there really scared me. Startled, yes, but not scared. Well, maybe the guy with red eyes in the red dot room... bu we'll excuse that for now. Going to the straw maze tonight was terrifying. There's nothing more terrifying than running from a man with a chainsaw and coming to a dead end. It was awesome. It was probably the scariest hour of my life. Another key scary moment was a werewolf thing on stilts that was at least 8.5 feet tall. It was awesome. Being chased by him was also terrifying.
After that, we came back to my place and then we watched The Messengers. Wendy wasn't really a fan of scary movies, but she was a good sport about it and I think she had a good time anyways. I was scared much more by the maze personally. After the movie we just sat and talked for almost an hour. It was fun.
I also bought a new wok today, since I burned my last one. This time, bought a real carbonized steel one. I'm done with that Teflon junk. I researched a lot more about woks before I bough this one. Woks are intended to cook on one setting: high. They should be able to endure high heat. This is why Teflon is an awful material for a wok. It burns, peels and get's destroyed. So, this time I bought the proper wok. This means that I have to season the wok and take care of it. This basically means burning oil into the pan. The oil is absorbed, making the carbon steel wok a natural non-stick surface.
I seasoned it today and I tested it by frying an egg. It worked magically, just like on my mission. I fried in egg in about 30 seconds, and it didn't stick at all. It's amazing. More fried rice, more often. It will be awesome. One of the best parts is that I can now use a metal spatula with the wok. Yay!!!
Everything Is Funny at 4:00 A.M.
Been a long time since I've written anything. I've just been really super busy. My internship at the church was good. I learned a lot, mostly about what I don't know. Anyways, after my internship I moved back to Rexburg to continue my education. This semester has been a rough one. It's already past midterms. I am taking 16 credits, but they are all really difficult classes. I always have a ton of homework to do. Somehow I find ways to relax and just take a break.
In one of my classes, we just turned in an SRS document. It's basically a huge paper that defines the needs of a program that is going to be developed. It's super technical and just ugly. It was an entire class project, but 3 people including myself finalized the document last night during an all nighter. I went to bed 5:30. That one is over now, but I have to do a similar paper called an SDD document that is a design of the SRS. It's just as technical and ugly as the SRS, but with more places to make mistakes. We'll see what happens. I'm just glad the SRS is over.
The only things I have left to do this weekend is finish my take home math test and hopefully go on a date. The second one will be fun though.
Today's Theme Song: Chocolate ~ Snow Patrol
Patriotism
It's been a while since I wrote in here. I went to the Secondhand Serenade concert with Kindy a few weeks ago. It was pretty good. We shot the moon was there, and that was awesome. I didn't know they were going to be there.
Lately, I've been listening to the news at work and just to become more informed. It's been making me angry and frustrated, mostly, but it's good. I'm glad that I'm more aware. Anyways, because of this I've been feeling much more patriotic these last few weeks. Tonight, my roommate and I decided to watch Braveheart. It was awesome. I haven't seen it for a long time and it's an amazing movie. Wish there were someone as passionate and honest as William Wallace in modern politics.
Right after that, We decided to watch The Patriot. Also an awesome movie. I still think every American should be forced to watch this movie at least once. I don't know if I can stomach it, but I almost feel like watching United 93 again too. It's another movie that moves me to have patriotic feelings.
Well, at any rate, I'm going to focus on the movie now.
Today's theme song: The Battle of Stirling ~ James Horner
Concert Extravaganza
It's been a good while since I last wrote in here. I've just been busying partying my nights away that I haven't had a chance to write in here lately. I've been having a good time at work. I'm basically working on just the MP3 project now. I am still technically involved in the the OKAPI project, but I don't really feel like I contribute to that one. It's all about organizing the build and it's just getting pretty complicated and I am tired of doing research just to keep up with everyone. The MP3 project is going really good though. I finally have the program working as a fully functional GUI now. You actually have a window with menus and you choose files with open and save type commands. It's awesome. Now I just have to figure out how to embed pictures into the MP3 files and I have to make a spreadsheet editor view inside the application so I don't have to open Excel to modify MP3 files.
Saturday was really fun. I woke up really early and went paintballing. We went to this speedball field down in Provo. It was fast and not the type of game I'm used to playing in paintball. I got butchered pretty good at the beginning, but near the end I was starting to figure things out and I was actually getting some kills instead of just being fodder. I slid behind a barrier at one point and tore my pants. I wasn't too concerned about it. The pants had shrunk in the wash and looked stupid on me anyways. After we quit playing my knee started to sting. I finally inspected it and realized that not only had my pants torn, but my knee was all torn up too. It was a bloody, dirty mess. I had to wait til I got home to clean it, and I did the best I could scrubbing it painfully in the shower, but by Sunday night it was pretty obvious that my knee was infected with something.
After paintball, I went to the Jack's Mannequin and The Fray concert with Seeca. Jack's Mannequin was awesome, as I expected. I was only upset that they didn't get to play for very long. The Fray was the headliner, so they got most of the playing time. The Fray was okay, but I just think a lot of their songs sound the same... The opening band, Meese, was awesome. I bought their CD and I've been listening to it a lot.
Anyways, I didn't go to work today, Instead, I spent the morning getting my leg looked at by a doctor. That took a while. Then, I drove down to Orem to get my car fixed. So now I'm car-less and my roommate is going to take me to work. I'm not really sure how I'm getting home from work yet... I don't really want to walk... but I can ride the trax til the library for free, so that will take it down to 11 blocks... We'll see what happens. After the garage, I went with Seeca to a friends house and we played games and watched a movie. It was pretty fun. Anyways, I better get to bed. I'm tired.
Today's Theme Song: Captain Hampton And The Midget Pirates ~ The Aquabats
Reunion
Today was pretty fun. I went back up to Rexburg in the morning and visited my friends Amy and Beth. I played soccer with Amy in the morning and after getting something to eat I went over to Beth's place. She was hungry, so then we went to eat again, but I didn't get anything. At the restaurant, I ran into a good friend of mine in high school, Julie Lot. It's been a long time since I've seen her. Her and her husband moved out to Pennsylvania while he's in medical school. They were just back visiting for the fourth of July. It was a total freak accident that we were both in Rexburg at the same time.
After that, I went over to Beth's house and watched a movie, The Lazarus Project. It was really weird, but really good. I really liked it. It seems like forever since I'd seen Beth. Oh yeah, Amy said she'd take Mandy's dress that I found in my closet last night down with her to Arizona so Mandy could get it from her. I want to get my cologne back from her though. I probably spent the same amount of money on the cologne as she did on the dress.
After Beth's, I headed home and just talked a lot with my parents, catching up with them. I watched the events of a soccer game online. I had a nickle riding on Real Salt Lake, and they failed. It came down to a 1-1 draw. I was able to get another dime, so now I have 15 cents, and I put it all down on the Cubs tomorrow. I think they should beat the Brewers. They won the last game against them, 2-1. After dinner we played outburst and watched the three amigos. We didn't start the movie til about midnight and everyone fell asleep during it. I am just writing in here really quick before I go to sleep, But as soon as my head hits that pillow, I'll be out.
Today's Theme Song: Tears Don't Fall ~ Bullet For My Valentine.
Long Nights: Road Trip Race
The last few days have been crazy. After sleeping in until noon the other day, I decided to go into work early and make up some lost time. But since I had slept so late the day before I wasn't tired at all. I decided I was just going to stay up all night rather than try to get some sleep. I needed to reset my internal clock, I guess. It worked pretty good. I fell asleep at work once for about 10 minutes in the morning, but after that I was fine.
After work, I went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. The Oquirrh temple was pretty. It reminded me a lot of the Draper temple. The open house was better than Draper's though. There weren't nearly as many people so I could breathe and it wasn't stiflingly hot, but it was still the same format. Walk around in a huge line with no guide or explanation. I wish they'd have a person in each room or something just to talk about it while you were in there, like Rexburg. That was an awesome open house.
After that, we barely got back to Salt Lake City before Seeca's car died. The battery was all corroded around the connectors, so we walked to smiths and bought some baking soda and a toothbrush. We also acquired a cup of water from Taco Bell and were able to clean the connectors. Someone eventually tried to jump us, but it was no use. The battery was shot. My roommate gave us a ride back to our apartment. I drove my car back to Seeca's so she could get all her stuff out of it... In total, I went 38 hours without sleep. It worked though. I felt good this morning.
Today was weird. I went to work and got a few things done. Not a whole lot since I didn't see my mentor until around 1:00 and he gave me some things to work on. After work, I packed my things and Kindy came to get me. Once she got to my house, I was told that I would be driving. That was fine by me. I prefer to be the driver. I get bored easily if I'm not the one driving. I'm pretty sure it upset Mandy a few times on our trips to Provo. Anyways, Kindy brought two of her friends home for the fourth, so we were pretty crowded in the little saturn. We stopped to eat at subway, and I finally got a free foot long sub for spending so much money.
Kindy told me some news about my mom that I wasn't told since I went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. My mom has super high blood pressure and diabetes. No one told me before hand. She has to avoid physical activity basically all together. It's pretty scary stuff. She's also had some strokes, the doctor said, and that could explains some things. I've been worried about her depression or whatever it was for a while, but I never expected something quite this serious. I'm really going to enjoy the time I get to spend with my family this weekend. They're the most valuable thing I've got. The only people who've stuck with me no matter what, and it'll probably always be that way.
Today's Theme Song: Last Name ~ Dierks Bentley