Adam Sandler's a Light Weight

50 First Dates! Ha! Small potatoes! :)

Last night, I went on a (mostly) blind date with a girl who was, assuming my records are accurate, the 100th girl that I've been out with. I don't bring this up to brag. In fact, you'd think that after 100 different girls I would have either a) found someone by now, or b) given up. :) There's a demotivator poster that says "Quitters Never Win, Winners Never Quit, but those who Never Win and Never Quit are Idiots". Clearly I fall into the last category. :) But somehow I have managed to keep enjoying dating and meeting girls that I am sufficiently interested in to keep taking out on dates.

An old roommate once said that he'd heard from a bishop that a good goal was to date 100 different girls before you get married because then you'd have a good idea of what you like and what you don't like. I thought that was an interesting (and astronomically high) goal to have, so it's never been a goal of mine to reach 100, but it is what inspired me to think back on how many girls I'd been out with up to that point (that's where any likely inaccuracy in my records would stem from) and start keeping track going forward.

Lastly, before I sign off, I just want to emphasize that I am not in dating for the numbers. That while there are 100 girls I can count that I've been on dates with, not once have I asked someone out just for the statistical glory of it. My keeping track of it is really just a form of journal keeping and self-evaluation. Just wanted to make that clear.

My 2009 Christmas Card

Well, believe it or not, Christmas time has rolled around again. The older I get the faster each year seems to go. And yet, when I look back at what all has gone on in the last year, it's clear that there was still plenty of time for things to happen. If this is your first time coming to check out one of my Christmas cards, I guess I'll say, by way of explanation, that I try to give a thorough recap of the year that has passed with a few photos and a lot of links to other blog posts and photos for those of you who want to read or see more about a specific thing. If it gets a bit long-winded along the way, I apologize, and won't be offended if you just scroll past the text and look at the photos. :) (Note: clicking on any of the photos will take you to my Flickr.com account, where, with a free membership you can see any of the pictures at full-size.)

One of the things I did plenty of this year was travel. In fact, at one point in the summer, when I did most of my traveling, I felt like had maybe over-vacationed. Maybe I was just compensating for not doing much vacationing in the last few years due to that whole finishing-my-PhD thing that I had going on. In any case, I have so many vacations to talk about this year that I thought I'd intersperse them through the rest of my yearly recap.

But first, I guess I better talk about how I was able to afford my vacations. Last year at this time, I had just accepted a position as a Medical Informaticist with Intermountain Healthcare, here in Salt Lake. I started January 5th, so I'm coming up soon on my year mark. It's been a really enjoyable experience so far. I've been working a lot on setting up a tool to let our doctors fill out death certificates electronically. When I first started it was just at a theoretical stage and now, a year later, we have a lot of progress to show and are hoping to have that up and running for a pilot test early next year. My boss and co-workers have been very enjoyable to work with and that's made the whole experience that much better. Definitely happy with my decision. Most days I work from my shared office in the basement of LDS Hospital. Random fact: the photo at the top of this Christmas card was taken just outside of the hospital near my office.

**************** Vacation Time! ********************

The first real vacation I went on this year wasn't even until the 4th of July weekend (I had to accumulate some time off before I could take some, you know?). My good friend Jon (who you might remember from last year's Spring Break trip to NYC), now goes to school at Univ. of Washington in Seattle, a place I had never been. So for the 4th of July weekend, I took a quick trip up there and enjoyed some of the fun that Seattle has to offer:


The Space Needle


Pike's Market


The Fremont Troll


Fireworks at Gasworks Park over Lake Union

More Seattle photos.

Day 1
Days 2 & 3

************************************

Even though I started working full-time in January, I still had some loose ends to tie up with my degree. In a meeting with my committee, just before the holidays last year, I got some direction as to what writing they would like me to do to get final approval on the text of my dissertation. After taking a few weeks to settle into my new job, I got back to the task of writing in February. In order to avoid some of the distractions of working at home, I found a sufficiently boring spot at the local library where I was able to to buckle down for a few nights a week and was able to get the last bits of writing finished and approved by my committee. Definitely a huge relief to get that taken care of. Then after a few, relatively painless rounds of formatting corrections with the Thesis Editor, I got everything ready and printed in time to officially graduate in Spring of 2009.

My family and a good friend (Eric Harris) joined me at Kingsbury Hall for the School of Medicine's commencement ceremonies. I know some people don't really care for graduation ceremonies, and to be honest, I have to agree that they are rather boring. However, I have always felt that commencement serves as a good moment of closure on a round of schooling. This time around was extra fun because I got to wear some fancy robes that weren't just plain black and got "hooded" as well.


Before


After

More graduation photos

**************** Vacation Time! ********************

After kicking off July with my trip to Seattle, I followed up with a 10 day period later in the month in which I went on 3 separate vacations. I dubbed it my "Week o' Vacationing 2009". The first trip of the week was a weekend jaunt down to St. George in an SUV full of friends for some extra-warm weather and to see "Footloose" at the Tuacahn outdoor theater.


Swimming at Sand Hollow


Visiting the St. George temple


Waiting for the Show at Tuacahn

More St. George photos

Day 1 in St. George
Day 2
Day 3

************************************

Around the same time that I was finishing up my writing I also went to see a doctor about some persistent discomfort I'd been having in my side. In the end that was determined to be some pain originating from the muscles between my ribs, but along the way, I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. That diagnosis led to my making some changes in my diet (basically reducing the carbohydrates that I eat) and starting to exercise more regularly. As a result, my blood sugar levels are back within the high end of normal. As an added benefit, I've also lost around 40 pounds in the last 9 months. Dealing with diabetes continues to be a constant in my life, but it's not something that I worry about a lot right now and served as a good impetus to make some healthy changes.

**************** Vacation Time! ********************

The 2nd vacation of my Week o' Vacationing was a family vacation in Park City. George and his family came up from Texas and we got to spend a few fun days together with them at a nice condo that my parents rented in Park City near the Olympic Park. We had fun times doing Park City stuff (Olympic Park, Alpine Slide, Outlet Malls, etc) and just being together. Definitely a fun few days. Fun to get to play with the nieces and nephew, too. Ben and I were even in charge of dinner one of the days and I feel like we did a pretty great job of putting together kabobs on the grill. (Kabobs: 2009's food of the year).


Playing with Austin and Elise


Being silly with Lucy


Kabob Night

More Park City photos

Day 1 in Park City
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4

************************************

Also at the end of March (March was clearly a crazy month), I moved from the place I'd been living in for the last couple years into a very nice house that a friend of mine from my ward had just purchased. By the end of my time at my previous place, I was getting worn out of being in charge of finding new roommates all the time and dealing with management who didn't really like us living there, so moving into a place where someone else was in charge of everything has been a nice change of pace. People keep telling me that now is a great time to be in the market for a place of my own, and I've started saving money toward that end, but given how nice the place I live in now is, and how much I enjoy my roommates, I really don't feel like I need to be in any big rush. I guess it's potentially something that could happen in the next year. Check back next year, I guess. :)

**************** Vacation Time! ********************

The 3rd and final portion of my Week o' Vacationing was a quick camping trip up to Yellowstone National Park. My first time ever going there, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did we manage to avoid any seriously bad weather (far from typical for my camping experiences), I got to see lots of cool stuff in a short span. Geysers, waterfalls, bison, elk, spectacular canyons... and had a great time with some great friends. Definitely would recommend Yellowstone to others. So many of the sites were very accessible. The roads take you very close to some beautiful sites, and then it's just a short walk from the parking lot to see them. I know some people like the feeling of being alone in nature, or of being some place that very few people have been. I was perfectly fine seeing this stuff with 400 other people, if it meant I only had to do a 10 minute hike. :)


Old Faithful


Part of a big herd of bison that crossed the road in front of us


Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River
More Yellowstone photos

Day 1 in Yellowstone
Day 2
Day 3

************************************

Yet another thing that happened in March was that I started shopping for a new car to replace my (not so) trusty 1996 Nissan Sentra. After doing a fair amount of research, I decided that what I probably wanted to get was a new Nissan Altima. After a variety of test drives and dealership visits, I was finally able to settle on a new 2008 Altima that I drove off the lot with only 180 miles. It's been really nice to have a car that I've haven't had to worry about breaking down and that has all of its parts working. So much so that I've enjoyed putting over 10,000 miles on it in the last 9 months. :) I'm finally driving a car that was built in the decade I'm driving it in, although I guess, depending on how you count the decades that might be coming to end in a few weeks.

**************** Vacation Time! ********************

In the middle of August, I embarked on a week-long adventure: a 5-day cruise to the Bahamas with my roommates and other good friends from my ward. We took a red-eye flight to Miami (that I was able to sleep through better than most) and departed from there for points southeastward. Our stops were Grand Turk (in Turks and Caicos), Half Moon Cay (an amazing private island owned by Carnival cruise lines), and Nassau (capital of the Bahamas). In addition to mostly beautiful weather and spectacularly delicious dinners, some of the highlights included swimming in gorgeous blue water, swimming with and feeding sting rays, a catamaran ride to a reef for snorkeling, and winning a collection of ship-shaped trivia trophies.


Group photo at Half Moon Cay


Sailing on the Catamaran


Some of my trivia winnings

(Many) more photos from our cruise

Day 1 of the cruise
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6 & 7

************************************

In September of this year, I (as usual) had a birthday. I turned 31 this year, and had a fun evening of dinner and bowling with some good friends. It's a little weird to think about being in my 30s, but to be honest I mostly still feel about the same as always. I do feel good about being done with school and having a job that is satisfying and that pays well. I really can't complain about where my life has taken me so far. I feel blessed to have most of my family nearby and to have made so many great friends. When I returned to Salt Lake in 2000 after completing my mission to Argentina, I only really had 1 or 2 friends in Salt Lake. Now, I can honestly count hundreds of people as good friends, and most places I go I run into people I know.


Birthday Bowling at Bonwood

**************** Vacation Time! (Kind of) ********************

In what was my last trip of the year, I went to San Francisco in November to attend the Fall Symposium of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). I didn't attend last fall as I was in the midst of wrapping up my dissertation and didn't have any funding for travel, so it was nice to catch up with some good friends who've moved on to other locations, or even friends who are still here in Salt Lake, but that I don't see much these days.

I managed to find a little time to take a cable car down to the wharf one morning, and then went to Wicked one evening. Aside from that it was mostly a business trip.


Looking out the front of the cable car at Alcatraz


Me at Wicked

More photos from San Francisco

More about my trip

************************************

Now, obviously traveling wasn't the only fun I had this year. Some of the other fun things I enjoyed were:

• Being a first-time Utah Football season ticket holder. Not the amazing season we had last year, but still a good one, and very fun. They went undefeated at home, so I can at least say that they won every time I was in attendance.
• Concerts. Two concerts stand out in my memory as having been especially fun: Girl Talk & Lupe Fiasco at the U's Grand Kerfuffle, and They Might Be Giant's Flood Anniversary show.
• Photography. I wouldn't say I do a lot of photography for photography's sake, but I did get out a couple times this year to take pictures of stuff that I thought turned out nicely:
  
  
  a spot in Murray where a bunch of Snow Shacks were stored for the winter
  
  
  some shots of fall color that I took in Big Cottonwood Canyon
  

It's become a personal tradition to give a report on my dating life each year in my Christmas post, and this year is no different. I am somewhat pleased to report that, as of this writing, I've been on 22 dates this year with 16 different girls. That's up a tad from last year (20), and the year before (16). I wish that I could say that the increased dating has resulted in my actually entering into some kind of serious dating relationship with any of these girls, but sadly I cannot. I did try to do better this year at going on more than a single date with girls, and 10 of these dates were not first dates, so I guess I made some improvement there. Suffice it to say that I continue "en la lucha, che" as the Argentines are fond of saying.

As I bring this Christmas letter to an end, I just want to comment on how truly blessed I feel. I'd be remiss to not acknowledge the hand of the Lord in my life.

I have so many wonderful people in my life that fill it with joy and fun, that even when I have minor setbacks they aren't even enough to make me feel down about things. To be finished with school (quite possibly forever), and in a job that I enjoy is a big relief and reassurance of the Lord's guidance throughout my life. Being diagnosed with Type II diabetes was a pretty big downer this year, but I'm grateful that I was able to have it diagnosed almost as a fluke, without having to go to the Emergency Room in some kind of diabetic shock or something.

Though I'd prefer to have my own family by now, I'm grateful that I've been able to make so many great friends here in Salt Lake, and hopefully I've been able to make their lives better with my presence, the way that they've done for me. A friend reminded me the other day that if I'd been married years ago, I probably wouldn't know her or most of the people I associate with now. And while I'm sure that I would know other people instead, I feel really good about how things have worked out so far and the opportunities I've had in place of having my own family.

In any case, I've probably already gone on way too long. I'll leave you with a collage of some more fun photos from the year gone by.



Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Thirty-One? More like Thirty-FUN!

Yes, it's true, I am now 31 years old. Being in my 30s is no longer a novelty and I can't really claim to be in my late 20's anymore (20-11, anyone?). To celebrate my birthday, we had dinner at Lone Star Taqueria and then headed to Bonwood for the best economically priced bowling around. Who else has replay camera that let you re-watch all your amazing shots? And their 3 game special is unbeatable ($8 for 3 games + shoes, I think). Most of us only bowled one game though. With 5 people per lane that seemed to take up plenty of time to make me feel like I'd been bowling.


Taco Town! (Not really)


Woo!


Bonwood


I bowled a 147. I'll take it.

A few days later, I also had some good friends out to my parents' house for Sunday dinner, which was a rare, but very nice occurrence (not my going home for dinner, but bringing friends with me).

In trying to do some self-assessment on this, the anniversay of my birth, I went over the past year and tried to see what all I'd done. The older I get the faster time seems to fly by, so it was nice to look back and see that actually a year does take quite a long time. I don't want to steal any thunder from my annual Christmas Card in a few months, but here's a brief list of thingss I've done in the last 12 months:

• Successfully defended my dissertation, completed my dissertation manuscript, and graduated with my PhD
• Found a job that I enjoy that pays me an honest wage
• Purchased a brand new car
• Traveled to Boston, Seattle, Yellowstone, the Bahamas, and other parts more local.
• Been diagnosed with Diabetes, changed my eating and exercise habits, and lost 30 pounds
• Moved in with some cool guys in a very nice place

In hindsight, that seems like plenty for one year, right? :)

Just for funsies, here's a photo from this year's party and one from last year's birthday party:


31


30

Looking ahead to my next year, I'd like to keep up my improved healthy lifestyle, get my car paid off, maybe start looking at purchasing my own place to live (people keep telling me that it's a great time to be buying), do some more traveling, and keep looking for Mrs. J.

Just arrived in my inbox...

Congratulations on your graduation from the University of Utah. The following degree has been posted to your academic record:


Doctor of Philosophy

Biomedical Informatics


Your diploma has been mailed.

I guess that makes it official.

Utah man sir, will be til I die! Ki-yi!

Just picked up the final printed/bound copies of my dissertation. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this means I'm all done. And by all done, I mean ALL done. All DONE. ALL DONE. After approximately 10 years of being a student at the University, I think I may have finally finished up with that.

I was up at the U last month for a concert and my friend asked me how long I'd been familiar with the U campus. I really had to think about that, because it's been a part of my life for so long -- well before I ever was a student there. When I was a kid my dad would take us to the Natural History museum to look at the dinosaur bones on a Saturday or a day we were out of school. A little later, we took some youth education courses there at the Museum, including one that my saintly mother had to lie about my age to get me into.

Anyway, aside from those classes (I remember taking one on animal intelligence, but don't remember if we went to others), I also remembering going to Utah football games as a very young child, and my dad making us walk what seemed like miles and miles (he parked at the old Armory on Guardsman Way), and then feeling like the games lasted for hours and hours. What I mostly remember was that we had candy, and eating too much of it. When I was a little older we went to a Utah football game for my birthday one year. I continued going to Utah football and basketball games off and on as I was growing up, and we always watched the teams on TV.

When I was in 7th grade, I participated in something called Utah Talent Search where they let middle school kids take the ACT, and I won a scholarship to a summer youth education program called the Youth Academy of Excellence, (nerd camp basically) at the University of Utah. My parents bought me a bus pass and for two weeks I would ride UTA in from Grantsville to downtown Salt Lake and then transfer up to the U. Our group would meet in the Union building and we often take field trips off campus or to labs on campus to learn about interesting stuff. I usually got to the Union a little before things were going to get started, and loved to watch college kids play NBA Jam and try to see what codes they used to unlock secret players or other upgrades. One time I even saw two guys open up a weird mode where they were driving polygon tanks and shooting at stuff. But I digress. I participated in the Youth Academy of Excellence the next summer as well, and I have to say I miss some of the fountains that used to be on campus. When I was up there today, I noticed that the fountain between Student Services and the Union, which hasn't had water in it for years is now gone. There also used to be one over by the old business loop, where the Museum of Fine Arts is located now.

As I moved on to high school, I think most of my interaction with the U surrounded coming to sporting events. I remember one year my friend's dad had a tailgate permit and we used to come up before the games in their van and eat KFC in the parking lot. One game it the weather was terrible, and I'm not ashamed to admit we stayed in the van listening to the game on the radio rather than go out and sit in the rain. Obviously I outgrew those days. :)

As I neared high school graduation, I received lots of mail from lots of colleges all over the country. Not sure how they find out about you, but somehow they do. I went to USU for Engineering State the summer after my Junior year and had a lot of fun at that, and went back the following December to test for their uber-top scholarships (didn't get one). My brother was already a student up there and I thought that might be a fun place to go. I even went on a recruiting weekend at BYU. The U never invited me up for anything as far as I can recall, but when it came to apply for admissions I only sent apps to Utah and USU. I was accepted at both with a marginally better scholarship offer from the U. I'm not 100% sure how I ended up deciding to go there, but I do recall my dad suggesting that quality of school might matter more in the long run than just having lots of fun.

Anyhow, I ended up choosing the U, and also getting into a summer high school research program where I "got to" live in the old dorms during the week. I had a room in Van Cott Hall and let's just say generations of student will forever underappreciate the quality of the new dorms/Olympic Village. I spend the summer working in a genetics lab up in the Eccles Human Genetics building, where among other things, I fed fruit flies and harvest larvae. Something about the experience led me to decide that I didn't want to be a geneticist. Which left me in a bit of a quandry about what I ought to study in my time at the U.

That fall I got an apartment with a couple of my high school friends who were also going to be going to the U (I think there were only 3 of 4 of us from my graduating class who came to Salt Lake, most college-bound folks went to USU, BYU, SUU, or elsewhere), and for about a month we were just chillin' in our super cheap bachelor pad (we were paying $500/month split 4 ways). I had a variety of one-time payment scholarships, so I didn't have to work that year and just got used to the college life of homework and tests and what not. I met one of my best friends, Shawn, in my biology and calculus class (taught by KG himself, Ken Golden) and we've been great friends since then. He just lived down the hill from campus and often after classes we'd hop in my silver shuttle (1987 Toyota Mini-van) and cruise down to his place, which was infinitely nicer than mine, and then he'd kick my butt at SFII. My high school friend roommates got into a fair amount of booze and a little bit of drugs, so I was glad to have an LDS friend to relate to. Two of the four moved out at the end of the first quarter and we found random roommates by posting openings up on campus.

I was a biology major for just one quarter (this was the last year the U was on quarters) and then decided Computer Science was the life for me. Unfortunately because we were now 1 quarter into a 3 quarter year and when I got back from my mission the U would be on semesters, I couldn't really get started on coursework for my pre-reqs, other than finishing up my Calc series and taking a bunch of generals, along with an Intro CS course, taught by one of my all time favorite CS profs, JZ (Joe Zachary). The Runnin' Utes advanced to the national title game that spring, nearly winning the title.

In the spring, I got my mission call to Argentina, and enjoyed what would be the last Mayfest (what with the changing of the schedule), where Everclear came and played on the Union lawn for free, and other bands were jamming all week long. In June, I headed back home to G-ville for a couple weeks and then hit the road for two years of awesome missionary life.

Upon returning to the U, School kept me busy as I finished pre-reqs and got into the CS program. I got a job as a receptionist at the College of Pharmacy, one of my all-time favorite jobs. If only $8.00 an hour were enough to live on. :) I worked there full-time in the summer and then part-time when school was back in, including walking up there from parking down at the old dorms during the Olympics when everything up by the village was fenced in. Every day, I would watch inspectors check cars with more access than mine for explosives while I walked past with my backpack unmolested. After two summers of working there, I applied for and got a job as a Teaching Assistant in the CS program and did that for the next year and a half or so. I worked a summer job as an intern for the LDS Church doing software development and testing in the Temple Department and made some great friends there, even some who were big (but rational) BYU fans.

I still found time to see my fair share of basketball, football, and volleyball games, and still remember the first pep rally that Urban Meyer came to and had his coming out party at. In my previous years I'd never seen a coach reach out to the student body like that and his enthusiasm and confidence that something special could happen at the U were contagious. His motto of "Why not us? Why not now?" set the tone for two amazing years, spanning my last year of undergrad and my first year of grad school.

That last summer before my last semester, I started thinking that maybe grad school was something I ought to do, since people kept asking me what I was going to do with my CS degree and I didn't really know other than "be a programmer". I just wasn't sold on doing more in-depth CS stuff. Another friend of mine was telling me about this Medical Informatics thing that was like a go-between for programmers and doctors and I ended up applying for that program and getting accepted. Now, my friend Jon just started his PhD in chemistry and he spend all spring flying out to visit various programs and getting wined and dined and recruited. I didn't even know if there were other schools that had a program called Medical Informatics and whether or not the U's progras was even a good one. Turns out it's perhaps the oldest or 2nd oldest program in the country. So, I guess I could have done a better job researching my options, but I really didn't even know what I was going to be studying to be honest, much less what kind of research I would be doing to get my degree. My initial plan was just to get a Master's degree (what would I do with a PhD?) but the department made me a funding offer that I couldn't refuse that was tied to my getting a PhD. So that's how I ended up doing 5 more years of school at the U.

During my time as a grad student, I spent a lot of time off-campus, working on my research project with Intermountain Healthcare. However, I also enjoyed being a member of the Muss, and seeing the Utah football team go to, and win, 2 BCS bowl games -- twice in my 5 years, can you believe it? I enjoyed going to see Yellowcard, Mos Def, Shiny Toy Guns, Girl Talk, and Lupe Fiasco live in concert, at free or low-low prices, on the Union lawn.

Long story short, I now have a great job working for Intermountain Healthcare, one of the worldwide leaders in Informatics and Electronic Medical Records, and I'll be getting hooded this weekend, bringing an end of sorts to my time at the U. However, as you can tell from this essay, I think it's pretty clear that the U will always have a special place in my heart and I'd be very surprised if I don't still make a habit of heading up to campus on a fairly regular basis, if for nothing else, to watch the football team kick some butt. Now if I could only find season tickets for less than $300/seat.

My 2008 Christmas Card

First off, Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that this holiday season finds you well, even with the tough economic times we're facing. Hopefully you can find joy this holiday season in things that money can't buy.

I'm going to try to sum up my past year and looking back it seems like it's been a pretty full year. Definitely the #1 focus of this year has been completing my PhD research and writing my dissertation. I successfully defended my dissertation back toward the end of October, but haven't quite managed to get my committee to explain everything they want me to finish up in my final edits yet, so I'm not completely done. But getting close. Which feels good. Just not as good as being completely done would feel. Or so I imagine. In any case, it's definitely been an exercise in patience throughout the entire grad school process, and it's rewarding to be reaching the end.

Along with completing my research and the bulk of my writing, I also was able to get my first paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) which was both exciting and rewarding. You should be able to view the abstract here even if you aren't a subscriber.

I'm also currently in the process of lining up a job for when I finish. I have a generous offer on the table here in Salt Lake and recently traveled to Boston for an interview with another great applied informatics group. Hopefully I'll have made a decision on that by the end of the year. UPDATE: Since the time I was drafting this, I came to a decision and decided to sign with Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, and will be starting in January.

Speaking of my recent trip to Boston, I also did a fair amount of traveling this year, most of it school/work related. However, my first, and probably funnest trip of the year was back in March when my good friend Jon and I headed to New York City for Spring Break. We have another good friend, Randall, who lives and works out there, and he and his wife were gracious enough to not only let us crash at their place in Queens, but also drive us to and from the airport, show us around town and just be amazing hosts all around. Thanks, Randall and Traci! Definitely a fun trip.








You can read more about the trip in these blog posts:

Trip to NYC - Day 1
Trip to NYC - Day 2
Trip to NYC - Day 3
Trip to NYC - Day 4
Trip to NYC - Day 5
Trip to NYC - Day 6


and the Flickr photo set of the trip is here.

In late April, I had my first school/work-related trip, a brief trip to Madison, Wisconsin for a job interview out there.


Wisconsin state capitol building

A few more photos are here.

Also in the Spring, I went fly fishing for the first time, out to the Green River with my dad and older brother, and even managed to catch a fish on a flyrod. To be honest, there weren't a lot of fish caught by anyone, so I was happy to at least catch one.



While my brother and his family were in town we also had a "vacation" to Salt Lake City, that involved staying at a hotel, going to the aviary, and playing laser tag. It's always fun to get everyone together.

Then in late June, I went to Las Vegas with a group of friends, just for the weekend. I'm not a huge Vegas nut, but as long as I'm only there for a couple days, I can usually find a few things to do that I find entertaining.



I wrote about the trip here, and there are some photos here.

In early July, I made another quick trip, this time to Washington, D.C. for the annual NLM training conference, my 5th and final time participating in that conference, as my NLM grant ended in August. To be honest, it really didn't feel like a vacation. I was mainly focused on making revisions to some papers I was working on at the time, and I really didn't take much time to do any sight-seeing. I did get the chance to have dinner one night in Alexandria with my old roommate Chris, so that was nice.

After D.C., I was able to take a break from traveling and work on finishing up my writing. However, as I didn't finish up my degree by the end of summer semester I had to enroll for Fall Semester, the one bright side of which was being able to get student football tickets for another great season of Utah football. This year's team went undefeated and will be playing in the Sugar Bowl on January 2nd. This year's home schedule featured amazing last minute victories over Oregon State and TCU, and then a less stressful win over BYU to cap the season. My friend Jon, who started grad school at Washington in Seattle flew home to go to the BYU game and we had fun storming the field after the big win. Here's a blog about the game.



Interestingly enough, my first year in graduate school was the year Utah went undefeated and then played in the Fiesta Bowl. Nice bookends for my grad school years at the U. In another interesting coincidence, my first year at the U for my bachelor's degree was the year that the Men's Basketball team lost in the national championship. I've definitely been lucky to see some great years of sports at the U.

And as previously mentioned, I did just recently return from a trip to Boston for another job interview.



Some blog posts about that trip are here:

Trip to Boston - Day 1
Trip to Boston - Day 2
Trip to Boston - Day 3
Trip to Boston - Day 4

and there are some photos here.

I'm still single, and still attending the same singles ward here in Salt Lake. We always seem to have a large number of fun activities going on, and fun people are always moving in (yay!) and out (boo!) of the ward. In February, our Elders Quorum was split and I was called to serve as one of the two new Elders Quorum presidents. It definitely hasn't been as stressful as the first time I served in this calling, but sometimes I wonder whether that is a good or a bad thing. I'm sure there is more that I could be doing, but hopefully I'm doing an alright job of things. I definitely feel blessed with good counselors in my presidency, even though I've just replaced my 2nd counselor for the 2nd time as they keep getting married on me.


This was from an EQ Shooting Activity we had this past summer.

Speaking of marriage, I'm of course not married, but still en la lucha ("in the struggle") as we used to say in Argentina. As far as I can tell from my records, it looks like I've been on 20 dates so far this year, up from 16 last year (an increase of 25%), and 14 the year before. In case anyone is interested in that sort of thing.

I guess it also bears mentioning that I turned 30 this past September. I don't really feel all that different, but I guess with finishing up school and getting close to taking a career-type position, I am starting to feel a little more grown up.


Picture from my birthday party

One of the highlights of my birthday was this video from my niece, Lucy, wishing me a Happy Birthday:



It doesn't get much cuter than that does it? :)

Looking back at the year that was, it definitely seems to have been full of fun, adventure, and accomplishment. I feel blessed to have had multiple great job options at a time when many people I know are struggling. I am so grateful for the many blessings in my life including my wonderful, loving family, and the very many friends that I've been blessed with. The older I get the more I think about the people in my life, and the less I think about the stuff. Once again, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Big Digital Hits The Big 3-0

So...today is my 30th birthday. And it seems like it should be a time for reflection, not that I don't do plenty of that already. Seriously though, how often is it that a person has a 30th birthday? Not very often. Birthdays marking the decades of one's life are pretty big milestones on the journey of life. 10 years ago, I was in the MTC, still about a month away from leaving for Argentina. I didn't even have my first webmail address yet. 20 years ago, I don't really recall where I was, but I was in 4th grade. 30 years ago, well I don't remember much of that.

Definitely this 3rd decade seems to have gone by the quickest, but in retrospect, I still managed to accomplish quite a bit. I finished one degree (Computer Science) and nearly completed another (Biomedical Informatics). I've managed to stay out of debt and even save up a bit of money. I own two computers (and gave away a third). I've made lots and lots of friends. And considering that when I returned to Salt Lake following the mission I knew at most a handful of people. I feel lucky to have been blessed with all the great friends that I've made along the way. For all my work with computers, I definitely still think that people are what make life enjoyable.

I am, of course, still single, a fact of which I am very much aware, and with which I sometimes I think am getting a little too comfortable. I certainly don't spend all my free time scheming of ways to find me a wife. But I do think about it, and I do try to be out there looking, dating, you know, doing the thing that we single people do. Seeing my brother's family, I definitely can see that there is a lot of great things that I'm missing out on. I don't feel like I've had moments where there was someone I could have married and I turned my back on that, so I don't generally feel too guilty about not being married. I just haven't found someone I wanted to marry who wanted to marry me back. Still looking. Hopefully ten years from now I'm not having this same discussion with myself.

In the next ten years, I do also hope to get a job with benefits. I guess I've had things like health insurance during my last four years as a full-time graduate student, but I definitely wouldn't call that a job. Working regular work hours five days a week might be a pretty big shock to my eternal student workdays that are pretty flexible, so long as I get done what needs getting done. But I'm sure there are benefits to the old 9-to-5 grind. Not having to scour the internet for new roommates every couple month would be one of those. I also have a dream of some day driving a car that was built in the same decade in which I'm driving it. Yes I know, my dreams are lofty, but they say that you should aim for the stars.

Anyway, at this milestone in my life, I guess I feel pretty okay about things. My life is far from perfect, but at least I have an idea of where its headed and I feel pretty good about the direction.

Three Years of The Big Digital

Hard to believe, but I've been blogging for 3 years now. 2 years ago I celebrated the one year anniversary of the blog, but last year, the day came and went without notice. If you want some stats, here you go:

Since I started blogging, I've published 302 posts (303 counting this one). I didn't have any kind of visitor tracking for the first 8 months or so, but in the 28 months since I started tracking there have been 41,613 visits to the site, and 61,186 page views. Early this year, I peaked with 4,722 visits to the site in the month of April.

Nearly all of the visits come from referrals from Google Images searches, especially for McDonalds characters, but also for album cover art for Garth Brook's The Hits, Counting Crows' August and Everything After, and Mana's Suenos Liquidos. There are also a few people who I'll call regulars, even though I don't know who they are. I just see their locations show up repeatedly in the visit log. I sometimes wonder if they are people I know or not, but mostly I just think of them as their location and usual time of the day, as in, "oh, there's Franklin Covey's daily visit."

As far as I can tell from Google Reader there are 9 people besides myself who subscribe to the feed of my blog in Google Reader. I just changed the blog template yesterday for the very first time in 3 years, and the only change was to make it fill up the width of the screen which I've wanted to do for some time, but wasn't sure how to do and keep the same color scheme.

As far as the blog goes after 3 years, I would have to say that I enjoy blogging. Having some structure helps me do it more regularly, so I tend to pick things that I want to write about and then do recurring weekly features about those things. I've cycled through a few lists and lately have settled in pretty good to blogging on Mondays about my weekend, and then on Wednesday finding a video to share, and then just whatever else comes to mind. Its nice for me to have somewhere to just type up my thoughts, and since people comment pretty rarely, it mostly just feels like I'm typing them for myself, which is fine. Its always kind of exciting when someone does comment though, so feel free to post a comment. I promise its really easy, and you don't have to set up an account or anything.

In the time I've been blogging, I've finished 3 years of graduate school, and really hope to be graduating in the next 3 months or so, and find a job, and I'll also be turning 30 in the next few months as well, so I may have to change the description of the blog soon. (Can I count 30 as part of the late 20s? I've been counting everything else as mid-20s) I've been on numerous dates, and even briefly seen the relationship threat level meter teeter around orange for a week or two. :) I've had lots of great experiences in my singles ward, serving in two EQ presidencies, and a year as our ward executive secretary. I've lived in 3 different apartments. I've acquired two new nieces, and seen lots of people I know pick up blogging, although some are more faithful than others. And while I've always been a pretty terrible journal writer, and while most of my blog posts aren't really of that nature either, I at least am glad to have some collected thoughts about the trips I've been on, and other random things that I've experienced.

I think the saddest thing about the blog is that I can no longer find the watch style that the blog was named after. I've been making do with an Armitron that I picked up at Walmart that is functional, but not nearly as enjoyable as the original Big Digital.

My 2007 Christmas Card

Merry Christmas!



Pretty much along the same lines as last year, I'm slacking off on the physical Christmas card front, and giving you this cheaper, electronic version.

As I look back at the year that was 2007, I guess what probably stands out is all the traveling I did. I don't really consider myself a big travel nut, but this year I traveled to San Antonio, Palo Alto, Germany/Austria, and Chicago. Four places I'd never been, and in the case of Germany/Austria, a place I'd never really considered visiting. The trip to San Antonio was a family vacation to visit my brother and his family who live there, and the rest were all for school. If you want to read more about my trips, and/or see the pictures I took on my new digital camera, which I love, you can check out some of these links:

San Antonio (Pictures only)

Palo Alto (Pictures only)

Germany/Austria
Days 1 & 2 - Exploring Munich
Day 3 - Mass Transit Extravaganza
Day 4 - Stop looking at me, schwan
Day 5 - Austria, eh? Throw another shrimp on the barby!
Day 6- The depths of Hall
Day 7 - I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!
Day 8 - Monday Night Football
Day 9 - In with the Innsbruck Crowd
Days 10 & 11 - The Voyage Home
(Pictures only)

Chicago
Chicago Travelogue, Pt. 1
Chicago Travelogue, Pt. 2
Chicago Travelogue, Pt. 3
Chicago Travelogue, Pt. 4
(Pictures only)

Here's a small sample of what you might find:











When I wasn't busy gallivanting around America and Europe, I spent most of my daytime hours working on my dissertation research. Getting my research project off the ground end up taking much longer than I had anticipated, but alerts are finally going out to doctors, although not quite as often as I'd like. Additionally, I passed my qualifying exams back in the spring, and its nice to have that step out of the way. I also presented a poster at our annual NLM training conference that was at Stanford University this summer. I also was on a panel at the AMIA Fall Symposium. (Luckily the number of people who attended doesn't have to go in my CV.)



Its my goal to finish by the end of the coming summer, although given my inability to guess how long things would take me so far, that might or might not happen. At the very least, much of what I'm doing now is entirely up to me, and other than one small fix, hopefully I won't be waiting on other people. I've got a lot of writing to do in the coming months and hopefully that will go well. Certainly I would hope to have graduated by this time next year, which seems doable, but at the same time seems like it would still be quite the achievement.

Aside from school, I was released from being the executive secretary for my student ward in May, and was given what seems like a pretty cushy job as the ward communications co-chair, at least in comparison to the busy jobs I had before. Pretty much, I run the ward website, and make sure that people get their pictures taken, and that we have a sacrament program on Sundays. I've got a small, but efficient committee which makes things pretty nice.

Also this year, I moved to a new apartment in February just a few blocks away from my last one. The guys I live with here are nice and relatively clean, and in the brief moments that we're here at the same time we have good times.

(Picture not taken in February)

And yes, I continue to be single. I've managed to go on 16 dates so far this year, which is a 15% increase over last year, for those of you keeping score at home (mom, dad, I'm looking in your direction). Not as many as I'd like, still, but a lot of times I just don't get excited about dating for dating's sake. If there's someone I'd like to get to know better, or that I'd like to spend time with, then yes, I'm all for that. So, yes, I do look at the numbers, but try not to put too much stock into them.

In the meantime, I still had time for plenty of random fun this past year.


I went snowshoeing for the first time.


Back in the spring I won our ward Guitar Hero tournament, and then retired effective immediately so I could go out on top. (Not really, but I haven't played much since then.)


I did a fair amount of bowling.




I went to a couple Salt Lake Bees baseball games, and tried out the "Fireworks" preset on my camera.


I once again had tickets in the Muss, and only missed one Utah home game. Beating UCLA 44-6 was of course the highlight of the season.


Halloween was fun.

I have to say that looking back it was a pretty great year, and I have no reason to believe that next year won't be just as great. At times I've wondered if I'm on the right path, and then I have to realize that if I weren't where I am now, I would have missed out on a lot of experiences, and especially on meeting so many great people that I'm lucky to know. I hope that this Christmas finds you all doing well.