tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-134682032024-03-07T20:55:00.035-07:00The Big DigitalRandom thoughts from the fairly ordinary life of a 30-something medical informaticistjhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.comBlogger649125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-35563109393073716882017-12-22T11:25:00.002-07:002018-12-21T13:09:06.278-07:00My 2017 Christmas Card
Merry Christmas!
Well, it's Christmas time again, and time again to write up a little summary of my year. One constant of 2017 was that work was busy from start to finish, and that's why I'm only getting around to writing this on the 22nd. The nice thing about doing it digitally is that I don't have to worry about getting anything to a printer and then to the post office. Then jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-27855218718578902002016-12-21T14:31:00.000-07:002016-12-21T14:31:00.291-07:00My 2016 Christmas Card
Merry Christmas!
Once again, we've made another loop around the sun, and I'm back here at my desk working on a recap of the year that was. In this case, the year that was 2016. As always I find myself a little surprised in looking back at what I did and didn't accomplish this year.
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jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-64366642313777871392015-12-22T13:40:00.000-07:002015-12-22T13:41:57.193-07:00My 2015 Christmas Card
Merry Christmas!
As has been my tradition these last several years, I wanted to put together a bit of a digital Christmas card detailing some of the happenings of the past year. Obviously I don't use this blog for much of anything besides this these days, but it still seems like a reasonable way to write up my year for you all to peruse.
It feels like this year started off sort of jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-37103487617204066202014-12-22T20:21:00.000-07:002014-12-22T20:21:00.845-07:00My 2014 Christmas Card
Merry Christmas!
and hello again to anyone out there who only hears about my life through this blog. Anyone checking this site for news about me obviously knows that this is my first, and very likely only blog post for the year 2014. In part I blame that on my life being a little busier this year, both professionally and residentially (see last year's notes on our HOA situation).
In any jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-19698295701504549882013-12-24T18:43:00.004-07:002013-12-24T18:43:43.957-07:00My 2013 Christmas Card
Merry Christmas!
I'm putting this post together at pretty much the last possible minute to have any hope of getting it out by Christmas. Typically I'd like to have gotten this finished a week or more ago, but this year my December was anything but typical, and I got quite a bit behind on a variety of things. More on that in a bit. But if this is less thorough than it was last year, I jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-61465144673373081672013-12-21T09:00:00.000-07:002013-12-21T09:00:01.984-07:00Utah Football 2013Once again this year, my parents and I had season tickets to the University of Utah's football games. Perhaps not the most successful season ever, but it's always fun to go enjoy some football. Ben got a job working with the athletics department this year, so he was always there filming the games from the south endzone, and Natalie came to a few games this year, too, so there was a jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-79165913913240445822013-12-19T22:07:00.003-07:002013-12-19T22:07:57.566-07:00One last trip to Hawaiiat least for the foreseeable future.
George and Kimi moved their family to Utah (Mountain Green) in October when his time in the Air Force was done, so we wanted to get back to the islands one last time while we still had a free place to stay, so we made plans to go in early August. Ben came back from his mission there in June, and hoped to be able to come with us, but ended up getting a jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-75236175454080301652013-12-19T14:23:00.000-07:002013-12-19T14:23:37.082-07:00Surprise bump in blog hitsSeveral weeks ago I noticed that I was suddenly getting a lot more hits on my blog, directed to this page, where I talk about eating Pop-Tarts as a kid, with butter on them. Occasionally people have stopped by and a couple commented. But in the last few months I'm getting 30 or 40 hits a day on that page. Finally today I did a Google search and found that an episode of Family Guy had jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-72594852703103080372013-11-15T09:00:00.000-07:002013-11-15T09:00:11.165-07:00The PCC at The UCCCIn July, I heard from my friend Amy that a group from the Polynesian Cultural Center (located in Laie, HI) was going to be in Salt Lake and putting on a couple shows at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center, located in West Valley. And that tickets were only about $10! Going to the night show at the PCC costs around $50, I believe, and this ended up being nearly the same show, minus some of jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-38268548418097817562013-11-14T13:16:00.002-07:002013-11-14T13:16:47.658-07:00Upper Muley Twist Canyon Hike - Capitol ReefIn June, I took a quick trip down to Utah's least popular National Park: Capitol Reef! I'd never been before, and some friends were going down to do a hike and to check the park off their list.
We left Salt Lake after work on Friday and got down to the park pretty late. The hike we were doing was actually about 30 miles away from the main part of the park on dirt roads. We got jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-81808555249406548622013-11-13T15:16:00.001-07:002013-11-13T15:16:13.267-07:00Picking up Elder Tripp at the AirportSitting at the dealership, waiting for them to tell me that my battery needs to be replaced even though its good enough to start my car anytime except when I've been sitting in it (with it turned off) for at least 10 minutes.... Anyway, figured this was as good a time as any to do a little blogging.
Ben got home from serving a 2 year mission to the Honolulu Hawaii mission in June, and we jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-10300185434221332172013-09-13T09:00:00.000-06:002013-09-13T09:00:00.332-06:00Family Trip to St. GeorgeIn May, Natalie, Mom, Dad, and I took a little weekend road trip down to St. George. We wanted to go to Zion National Park and do some hiking. In looking for other fun things we might do down there that weekend, we discovered that Brian Regan would also be performing at Tuacahn. So that was fortuitous.
We drove down Thursday night after work, stopping in Nephi for dinner at jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-68313101448912217142013-09-12T14:12:00.001-06:002013-09-12T18:09:37.782-06:00Springtime in ArizonaHey remember when I used to update this blog frequently regularly semi-regulary sometimes? :) Well, today I'm not sure what work-related thing I should be working on and I wanted to take a stab at just posting some stuff I've done in the last few months.
First up:
I visited Julie back in April for a weekend, and we had a good time hanging out and eating at On the Border, and playing cornhole jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-91608827321989960082013-05-20T10:00:00.000-06:002013-05-20T11:30:42.521-06:00Moab Easter Jeep SafariThe weekend before Easter, I drove down to Moab with a couple friends to meet up with some other friends who'd been down there all week for the annual Jeep Safari. My friends Kelly and Jason (aka "Chops") go down nearly every year, and I'd always wanted to go down and check it out. This year it finally worked out to go.
We got down there late Thursday night and set up a tent by jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-915387515433958752013-05-17T11:17:00.001-06:002013-05-17T11:17:49.533-06:00Fun Times at Uncle Jake's While George and fam were in town, I also was able to convince them to come over to my new place one night for pizza and root beer floats and playing Kinect games on the XBox. The kids all got prizes from the prize box (gotta make sure they want to come back, right?), and had some fun playing.
We mostly did Kinect Adventures, but toward the end we tried Kinect Party and that was probably jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-5549474705121626012013-05-16T14:54:00.000-06:002013-05-16T14:54:26.326-06:00March Madness! (Yes, I realize it's nearly June)I realize I've been slacking here on the blog, but I have been posting stuff in other places (Facebook, Flickr, Instagram), so if you're missing me, those are good places to check. :) In any case, I did finally decide that I should put some stuff here, if for no other reason than that it's a better permanent record than Facebook.
Back in March, we went to see some first round NCAA jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-75758571717620913372013-03-14T09:39:00.000-06:002013-03-14T09:39:09.037-06:00Some photos from the last few monthsSo apparently I'm in a blogging slump. Was surprised to see how long it's been since I last posted anything. Part of it is all the different places where stuff gets posted/shared (Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc), and part of it has just been getting photos up to Flickr so I can share them here.
So here's a quick recap of things that have happened in the last couple months jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-7916283101272782212013-01-15T11:48:00.000-07:002013-01-15T11:48:01.105-07:00Heart-warming music on a cold night
Friday night, in the midst of a chilly snowpacked weekend, I picked up my friend Valery and we headed downtown to see an acoustic show from the band Augustana. I'd (briefly) seen them in concert many years ago at the U as part of a show with several other bands, and there were some issues with the sound and on the whole they didn't get much of a chance to put on a decent show.
This timejhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-33556851451967467872013-01-13T15:50:00.001-07:002013-01-13T15:50:56.733-07:00Just some stuff I took pictures of this weekMy sister-in-law has started doing a Friday blog where she talks about 5 things from her family's week, and I thought I'd see if I could do something similar, though perhaps not on Fridays. In any case, it was good motivation this week to get out the new camera I got for Christmas and take some pictures with it. Here are things that happened this past week:
1) Couches
The jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-18090243999627935052012-12-21T10:28:00.001-07:002012-12-21T10:28:43.035-07:00My 2012 Christmas Card
(Yes, that's my very first Christmas tree and all 4 of my ornaments)
Merry Christmas!
Once again it's time for me to put up some pictures and talk about the year that was 2012. I was surprised to find out that this is the 7th such blog post I've made. Seems like a lot for some reason. Has it really been that long since I lived at Turnberry? But I'm sure it's at least as much fun jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-38297677373238793772012-12-11T16:22:00.001-07:002012-12-11T16:22:24.987-07:00August of Awesomeness: Hawaii Day 7Our very last day in Hawaii turned out to be one of my favorite of the trip. Pretty much the only thing we had on our agenda was Waimea. Waimea Valley and Waimea Bay. So once we were ready for the day we headed up north, making a brief stop a Kualoa Beach Park to take some photos of Chinaman's Hat.
Chinaman's Hat (Kualoa Beach)
From there it was on up to Waimea. There was a brief jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-9758861877445474622012-12-10T11:56:00.000-07:002012-12-10T11:56:12.894-07:00August of Awesomeness: Hawaii Day 6, Part 2After we were finished up with the skydiving portion of our day, we still had plenty of time for doing stuff up around the north end of the island.
We made a quick stop at the Dole plantation, and stayed just long enough for anyone who wanted to get a Dole whip.
Whip it good!
From there, we headed up around the North Shore and over to Fumi's shrimp truck near Kahuku for lunch. A freak jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-47745988155292410492012-12-07T07:56:00.000-07:002012-12-07T07:56:17.032-07:00August of Awesomeness: Hawaii Day 6, Part 1The big event for Day 6 (Monday) was that Liz, Brandon, and Cara were going skydiving. Why not me? I guess I felt like I would probably not enjoy it all that much, and would probably make myself sick with nervousness and in the end my favorite part would be when I was back on the ground, and I'd only be doing it to prove I could do it, when really there's not really any skill involved, justjhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-75710541146842009692012-11-30T14:54:00.001-07:002012-11-30T14:55:50.496-07:00August of Awesomeness: Hawaii Day 5Our fifth day in Hawaii was Sunday, and, at least compared to the other days of our trip, it was a day of rest. We were relatively lazy until church time, and had dinner with George's family after church.
And then we did a somewhat traditional Hawaiian Sunday drive. At least I've done it once before. We drove up to the Pali Lookout and then over to Punchbowl, and then up around jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13468203.post-27955904904256101912012-11-27T09:53:00.000-07:002012-11-27T09:53:35.974-07:00August of Awesomeness: Hawaii Day 4Our 4th day in Hawaii was Saturday, and the big things we had planned for the day were: Pearl Harbor, the swap meet, and babysitting kids while George and Kimi went out for their anniversary.
We had reserved Pearl Harbor tickets (to go out to the USS Arizona memorial) online (for $1, I think) but still had to pick them up an hour before the scheduled tour time, which was ok, because there jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13828036362454812901noreply@blogger.com1