I am a Utah Man sir and I live across the green

Still working on finishing up the final bit of writing that my committee has asked for, but in the meantime, I did find time to enjoy the Utah football victory over BYU on Saturday. My good friend Jon, of Spring Break trip to NYC fame, flew down from Seattle with the primary purpose of being in attendance at the game, and thankfully the Utes did not disappoint.


Our game day experience started at the Muss (that's the Utah student fan club) tailgate, where we ate chicken wraps and marveled at Ute fandom.


I even got my picture taken with retired long-time Utah play-by-play man Bill Marcroft.


There was a superfan contest judged by no others than Crazy Lady and Jared from Subway (wearing a Utah jersey). From what we could tell it looks like Jared might not be eating at Subway as much any more. Working on a bit of gut. I'm just saying.


After the tailgate we headed down to the stadium with plenty of time to watch some pre-game warmups.


Just across the aisle from our seats there was a group of about 20 BYU fans (in the Utah student section mind you). They certainly took a lot of abuse throughout the game, but were wise enough (or maybe just really patient) to avoid starting any physical violence, because things might have gotten really bad then.


Watching warm-ups


Marching Band - Script "Utah"


It was also Senior Night so they had all of the Seniors come out individually. The timing of this was all screwed up, with the PA guy saying their names waaaaay after they had run out and was usually 3 or 4 people behind. It's too bad, we had some great Seniors who deserved better if you ask me. Oh, well. Oh, this picture is of P/K Louie Sakoda who at one point a few years ago was, IMO, the best player on our team.


Now, BYU has a tradition of doing a polynesian war dance called the Haka before their games. As they were lining up to begin said dance, some Utah players took issue with them war dancing on our field, and wandered over to exchange some words.


Before long most of the team had joined them.


And after some posturing, BYU decided maybe it wasn't the right time to being Haka-ing.

Then the game finally got under way, and I really didn't do a good job of taking pictures during the game. For one, I was sitting too high to get decent pictures, and for two, I was too busy watching the game. Here are a couple decent shots:


Louie kicking a PAT. I especially like the way the focus was on the hands near me.


Shot looking behind us at the Muss. Actually during a quarter break while some kid was down there shagging punts for cash.


Driving for another TD


Here's Brent Casteel Tip-toeing down the sideline for six


I took this video just hoping to get a shot of the Muss doing their "3rd Down Jump", but it also ended up being a play where DE Paul Kruger made a sweet interception of Max Hall. However, at that point, I stopped filming because I was so excited to watch the game.

Utah went on to win the game in convincing fashion, which meant that we had finished our regular season 12-0 and are pretty much a sure lock to go to a BCS bowl game. And as my personal rule is that if the Utes ever go undefeated and qualify for a BCS game then I have to go out on the field, we made our way down toward the field and prepared to make the 10 foot jump down from the student section.


A quick video of the immediate aftermath of the game.




We decided to stop and get pictures showing the crowd on the field


At first, we were just down there, looking for anyone we knew or anything going on.


Eventually we figured out that there was a truck over on the far side where they were going to award the conference championship trophy. So we headed over there and watched as Coach Whittingham, Brian Johnson, and Paul Kruger accepted the trophy.




Good times


We eventually made our way off the field, which was kind of slow moving. Along the way, we passed DB Sean "The Legend" Smith who was up in the front row of the student section signing autographs and taking pictures with people and just having a good time.

Anyway, it was a really fun game, although perhaps not as euphoric as the first time we went undefeated and qualified for a BCS bowl. Definitely this team had more ups and downs in their undefeated season than the 2004 team, which certainly led to its share of heart attack finishes over both Oregon State and TCU. I'm excited to see what bowl we end up going to and considering making travel plans to join them. Guess we'll see.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #19: Resigns vs. Re-signs

Saw this headline today, "New Mexico coach Long resigns after 4-8 season", and at first was thinking that he had re-signed -- signed a new contract. But after a second glance, I'm sure that it means that he resigned -- quit, and actually reading the article confirmed that. I just thought it was interesting that those two words are so close and have such opposite meanings.

FSS Sin Numero

Today at the Big Digital we're breaking out the old FSS tag. This last weekend was fairly eventful. Thursday night I already discussed (see previous post) and the excitement that was Utah's comeback victory over TCU. Friday night I went to the Jazz game with a large group (~38) from my ward. I had a good time driving to and from the game with some girls from my ward. Apparently the Oklahoma City Thunder were not a hot ticket. We got ours for $7 each and they weren't even the very back row or even in the corner. We were behind the basket, but up very high. The Jazz won without really being tested and it was Jerry Sloan's 1000th victory as head coach of the Jazz.

After the game some of us ended up at one of the guys' house and watched "The Man Who Knew Too Little". I fought off falling asleep until just minutes before the end of the movie.

Saturday I slept in a bit, and then worked on a few things (paying bills, preparing a Priesthood lesson). The evening wasn't as eventful as Friday, but I did end up stopping by a friend's birthday party for the pizza and cake portion, skipping the bowling portion that concluded the festivities, and opting instead to meet up with some other friends and check out an indoor soccer game, which was not all that exciting, but did conclude with an exciting last second penalty kick finish.

Sunday I taught EQ, had a home teaching visit, went to a dinner group, and finally to ward prayer, after which I headed home because I wasn't feeling so hot, and also had an early dentist appointment this morning -- got a post put into the root canal to support the permanent filling that went on top of it. So far I'm cautiously optimistic about my dental future.

Another ridiculous Utah victory

Last night I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the Utah-TCU game, where two top-ranked teams met with conference championship and BCS-bowl implications. After a defense slugfest where TCU missed two short FGs in the 4th quarter, Utah had one last drive to finally score a touchdown and win the game. Very similar to the ridiculous finish against Oregon State a month ago (also a Thursday night game, coincidentally). At least this time we were only down by 4, instead of 8, so I guess this comeback was more probable, although still very unlikely given our anemic offense up to that point. Anyway, a great game and lots of fun to come out on top of close ones like that. Here are some highlights from around the Internet, courtesy of other people.

An update to the tooth situation

Went in yesterday and got a root canal, and spent the rest of the day in bed, watching TV shows online. If you would have asked me last night I would have said that the procedure was a total failure, based on the pain I was having last night. I was downing pain pills every couple hours just to keep my sanity.

Luckily when I got up this morning, things were feeling better. Maybe better than before the root canal, which, of course, is a pretty low bar. So far things are going okay today. Not sure I'm ready to eat some solid food, but last night I wasn't even up to the task of eating soup.

So...things are marginally better and trending upward. Let's hope.

The Big Digital Has a Toothache

So for about the last year or so I've been having pain in one of my molars and my dentist and his team of assistants have been unsuccessful in fixing it, to the point that for a long time I just gave up on it, and avoided eating chips or at least chewing them on that side of my mouth.

Anyway, about a month ago I had a regular check-up, and the assistant suggested that probably I needed to get a crown on that tooth to fix the problems, so I reluctantly agreed, thinking that if I could get it fixed and be able to eat normally again that would be worth whatever trouble it would be to get it fixed. The first step was getting a temporary crown put on, and then waiting 3 weeks for the permanent crown to be ready. With the temporary crown on, the problems I'd been having continued, but I wasn't surprised because the temporary was modeled after the original tooth. Anyway, I got used to taking Ibuprofen a couple times a day.

Finally, it was time to get my permanent crown on, and that day went pretty well, and the dental team assured me that it might be sore for a day or two, but that it ought to start feeling pretty good soon. This was about 4 days before my defense. I was still noticing some pain in a couple spots and maybe some problems with my bite that were affecting the tooth behind the crown. But as I had my defense coming up, I put that on the back burner for a couple days, and as you may know went on to successfully defend.

The next day I called and scheduled an appointment to get my crown adjusted. Unfortunately it would be over a week until I could get in have that done, but I figured I could tough it out. A couple days later, I was still having a lot of problems, so I called again just to see if there was any way I could get in earlier. Turns out they had had someone cancel that day and I was able to go right in and get my crown looked at.

After checking my bite and making some adjustment, things felt better and I was optimistic that the problem might have been fixed. I ate lunch that day (this was last Thursday) and didn't have any problems. Then that afternoon I just happened to bump my tongue against that tooth and noticed that it was pretty tender and sensitive. I thought maybe it was due to the drilling that had been done on it, and hoped that it would get better as the day wore on. Sadly that was not the case. The tenderness of that tooth continued throughout the day, so much that I called my dentist that night to see if he could look at my tooth again on Friday. Turns out Fridays are dentists days off, but he said he'd be willing to come in after a training that he had in the morning.

Friday morning I woke up at 3:30 am, because of the pain in my tooth, and after taking some Ibuprofen was finally able to get back to sleep for a couple hours. Then I woke up and sat in semi-pain for most of the day waiting to hear back from dentist around 3, when he'd told me that his training would be ending. 3:00 came and went, no call. Finally at 4, I tried to call him. No luck. Finally at 5:30, he called me, and let me know that bad news -- that he had gotten severely ill and was home in bed.

We talked a little about my pain and he said it might be an infection of some kind, or it might be an abscess. Either way he phoned in a prescription for Codeine and Amoxycillin which I went and picked up. I should mention at this point that I hadn't been able to eat solid food since Thursday at lunch, and I was now being told that the earliest I'd be able to get in to see him would be Monday morning. Let's just say at this point I'm tired of eating soup and Instant Breakfast.

Anyway, just called to find out when I could get in, and after trying to push me off to tomorrow morning, I was able to get an appointment for 2:30 this afternoon. Sadly, it sounds like I may be getting a root canal on this tooth that I just paid a lot of money to get a crown on. I hope this is the last time I have to deal with this tooth, and maybe this dentist as well.

Watch This Wednesday #47: Back from Hiatus

I know I've been blogging quite a bit less lately, but maybe now that I've successfully defended my dissertation I might be able to get back into a more regular cycle of posting. Anyway, the big news in online video this week is MTV making a huge archive of music videos available (20,000+) at www.mtvmusic.com. Hard to just choose one of those videos for today, but for now I'll give you this classic video from Oasis, which will always be one of my favorite songs, and maybe the only Oasis song that I really even like: Wonderwall.

Oasis |MTV Music

Dissertation....Defended!

This morning I successfully defended my PhD dissertation! It feels really good to have it over and done with. Obviously you expect to pass it, but when your fate is in the hands of other people, you never know for sure how things are going to turn out.

Basically, now all I have left to do is address a final list of revisions to my manuscript that my committee has promised to give me, and then get the final manuscript formatted properly, and then I'll be completely finished!

Quick Update, Pt. 2

Still working on that defense presentation. I've got a set of powerpoint slides put together and have been running through them, giving my presentation to the wall in front of me. I've been through the whole thing 3 full times now (at over 40 minutes per attempt), and tomorrow I'll be heading up to school to run through it at least 2 more times -- once in the conference room where my defense will be, and once more for a professor whose opinion I respect and who won't be able to attend my actual defense due to scheduling conflicts.

Suffice it to say that giving 40 minutes presentations to a wall is a daunting task and it's taking quite a bit out of me to give them. It's good practice, though. I've made several changes to my slides as a result, and have also realized that it's important to breathe sometimes, or else I get light-headed. The hard part is trying to fit 3 years of research into just 40 minutes.

Anyway, aside from defense prep, I got my permanent crown put in today and can only hope that things will be looking up from here dentally. Its been a rough 12 months for 3 of my teeth and I'm hoping that this finally gets the problem solved.

I'm also still looking for a career, hoping to hear back on the position I interviewed a couple weeks ago, but haven't really worried about pushing for an answer from them as I've had other things on my mind (see paragraphs 1 & 2).

And finally, I did manage to find 2 new roommates to take the place of the one who already moved out and the one who is going to move out. Big changes taking place here, but it doesn't really feel like it yet. Also the one who moved in today apparently doesn't have a checkbook (sounds a little fishy), and paid me in straight cash (homey) for the end of this month and next month's rent, so let's just say somewhere in my house right now there is a very large stack of bills that I plan to take to the bank tomorrow morning. So hopefully by the time you are reading this I've already deposited them. Either that or I'm pulling a Pac-man Jones and makin' it rain.

Quick Update

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. Got a lot on my plate with preparing for my defense on the 27th, looking for a job, looking for 1-2 roommates, and I guess just life in general. Doing pretty good most days, though. Sorry I haven't had more to say.

Watch This Wednesday #46: Band Montage!

This week's video is all the rage in Internet land, so you may have already seen it. Its "Take On Me" by Ah-ha, but with words describing what's going on in the video. There is a tad of mild cursing (very minor tad), so if you're bothered by that, feel free to skip it.

Highlights from last night's ridiculous Utah-Oregon State game

Sorry for no video this Wednesday, maybe this will make up for it. I'm still hoarse this morning from screaming so much at the end of last night's game. Utah was down 8 points with 2 minutes to play, and from there on out were amazing in scoring a TD, 2 pt. conversion, getting the ball back and getting a last second FG to win without needing overtime. Versus.com has an embeddable video player, but it doesn't work like you'd want it to or expect it to. It seems to always go to the most recent video, rather than the one you select. Anyway, there are about 8 highlights from last night's game that you can check out.

Old Book, New Book #11: The Gypsy Morph -> The Best of H.P. Lovecraft

Finished up The Gypsy Morph about a week ago. Yes, it was good. No, it was not the best Shannara book ever. I enjoyed it, but would probably never read the series again. I do like how Terry Brooks has tried to bring the Knight of the Word trilogy together with the Shannara world, I just haven't enjoyed his more recent stuff as much as his older stuff.



As for the new book, I put a request on this H.P. Lovecraft book on the library website back at the start of the summer, and despite just being the second person waiting for it took until now for me to get it. Kind of weird for a book that was published (in this edition) in 1983. Anyway, it was so long ago now that I don't remember the exact reason that I wanted to read it at the time. Its a collection of short horror stories from someone who wrote around the turn of the 20th century. I've finished the first couple and I'm definitely interested. I haven't got to any of the Cthulhu stories yet, which is what I think Lovecraft is most known for. In fact I saw a trailer for some Cthulhu story a month or two ago. Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes.

Watch This Wednesday #45: Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

The Office is back for Season 5, starting tomorrow. I'm interested to see how this season shakes out. So far I've thought that Season 2 has been the best, and since then the episodes have suffered from plots that were a little too ridiculous (Michael driving his car into the lake on the advice of the navigation system) or were too much about relationship drama.

I've always felt like the strongest aspect of the show is Jim's interplay with Dwight. When Jim moved to the Hartford branch, this aspect suffered to the point that they started having Jim interact with Dwight over the phone or via fax. From Dwight. From the future. Anyway, someone put together a nice compilation of Jim and Dwight interactions that I'm sharing today. Far from a complete compendium, its definitely a good start, featuring the Conflict Resolution scene with a large list of pranks, and culminating with Jim dressing as Dwight.

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.

Watch This Wednesday #44: I got a hot date tonight. A date. Dinner with friends...

Some more Simpsons goodness courtesy of Hulu:



Perhaps the most humorous use of a lie detector ever. And yes, I've seen Meet the Parents. Not even close.

Old Book, New Book #10: Brave New World -> The Gypsy Morph

Finished Brave New World the other day...I have to say that I was definitely impressed by how prescient some of the aspects of the (dystopian?) future depicted therein. Obviously we aren't yet to the point of embryonic conditioning and relegating people even before birth to specific roles within society, but I could definitely see a lot of points that related to our current world. Things like the push to make everyone a consumer, and a densensitization toward all things immoral. Also there was a moment when Bernard and Lenina were in a helicopter looking at the ocean, alone with their thoughts, and Lenina could hardly stand the silence and lack of external stimulation. I would guess that few people (myself included) take much time to meditate, and feel much more comfortable with something else going on, be it television, music, or for the younger generation, a constant stream of text messages. Not sure this book will find its way into my all-time favorites, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Anyway, I've moved on to the final installment of the latest Terry Brooks trilogy, The Gypsy Morph. Once again, very pleased with the Salt Lake County Library network's hold request system. I added this before the book was even published, and eventually I worked my way to the top of the list, at which point I got an email and just had to drive over to my local branch to pick it up. Kind of like Netflix for books, except that I have to drive a few blocks, and that its totally free.

The Big Digital goes on the defensive

Sorry for no video yesterday. But I did finally find a date on which to defend my dissertation which works for all five of my committee members, and even my department chair, after some schedule wrangling on the part of her admin. Mark your calendars for October 27, 2008. It could quite possibly be a really big day in my life. (Let's hope so.)

FSS: Fun & Stress Edition

This past weekend was pretty full. Friday night started out slow, but did include a viewing of Hellboy and a moment where someone yelled "Psst" at me, but I thought it was the surround sound, which then resulted in that someone climbing in through the window.

Saturday I went boating with my ward up at Jordanelle and had fun riding a tube. Then I came back to Salt Lake and went to the Utah-UNLV football game. It was kind of stressful for a half, and then Utah came out in the 2nd half and put things out of reach early.

Also on Saturday, I found out that my newest roommate is going to be moving out at the end of the month, leading to some stressing about what's going to happen next, given that at one point our apartment manager had said that if that happened, we'd either have to move out or just pay the full rent with less than a full house. I talked with her about things today and she was much more positive about our chances of being allowed to find someone to move in to replace him. Guess we'll see what the big boss has to say when he gets back on Thursday.

Sunday was a typical full slate of meetings, but also I got a new 2nd counselor to replace the one who is getting married this coming Saturday. I'm excited about the new guy, and will definitely miss the old one.

So Long, Rong Jon Silver

Today my good friend Jon is leaving for Seattle to go get his PhD in Chemistry. I've known him for just about two years and I would say we've been good friends for about a year and a half of that time. Even though he's a little younger than I am, I feel like I really found a kindred spirit in Jon. We don't see eye to eye on certain things (music from the 90s, for example), but somehow that hasn't seemed to matter. Jon is that rare friend who can call you on crap that you probably shouldn't be doing (wasting time at work, hanging out with girls who are only going to break your heart, etc.).



Things that will remind me of Jon:

• The word "emo"


• Our trip to NYC


• Whitecastle


• Coheed & Cambria


• Motion City Soundtrack


• Huzzah!


• Rock Band/Guitar Hero


• "Throw your diamonds in the sky if you feel the vibe!"


• All the Murray people that I now know through Jon


• Stomp the Yard


• and of course..."Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm

So long, Jonny-Cakes. I'm gonna miss you.

Watch This Wednesday #43: I'm Wearing Boots of Escaping!

This week's video comes to you from Comedy Central's website. Its an older clip from Reno 911 in which two guys have been playing some live action Dungeons & Dragons. Featuring Patton Oswald. I'm pretty sure Geo told me to check this out one time, so kudos to him.



P.S. I totally got this ready this morning thinking that tomorrow was Wednesday, but as I looked at the calendar I realized that today is actually Wednesday. Not sure why this week has been so confusing for me. Its not like I've never had a Monday off before.

FSS: September is Here

September is my favorite month for many reasons: Cooler, fall temperatures. Football season (Go Utes!). My birthday (Big 3-0 coming up!). Back when I had classes, September was a month when school was still exciting and not just full of homework.

This past weekend, I went to my little brother's football game (at least until it got seriously out of hand), watched Utah beat Michigan, hung out with my good friend Jon several times in preparation for his moving to Seattle this week, played a couple hours of indoor volleyball, played some Rock Band (got a flawless 100% playing lead guitar on "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" on Hard), bought a new pillow, and finally found some slides that I could live with to replace my old holey ones, and found a new counselor to replace the one who is getting married on the 13th.

Old Book, New Book #10: Brave New World

So, I cruised the The Tommyknockers fairly quickly. Kind of interesting, not too scary. Check one more off the Stephen King list for me. :) Makes me wonder...how many Stephen King books have I read in my lifetime. Hang on while I go check that out...here's the ones I've read (in the order they were published)

Carrie
Salem's Lot
The Shining
The Stand
Firestarter
Danse Macabre
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
Different Seasons
Christine
Cycle of the Werewolf
The Talisman
Thinner
The Bachman Books
It
The Eyes of the Dragon
Misery
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
The Tommyknockers
The Dark Half
Four Past Midnight
Needful Things
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Insomnia
The Green Mile
The Regulators
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
Storm of the Century
Hearts in Atlantis
On Writing
Dreamcatcher
Black House
From a Buick 8
Everything's Eventual
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

Wow, that's 37 Stephen King books I've read (including a few written as Richard Bachman). And yet I don't own any of them. Thank goodness for the public library. Still, by far my favorites are the The Dark Tower ones, and then probably It, as a close second. Part of it is the way that his books kind of tie together in a lot of ways and form his own fictional universe of sorts, and the way that characters from one will show up in others.

Anyway, moving on. Since neither of the holds I've got in had come in yet to my local library, I tried to find something I wanted to read that was on the shelves. After a while, I decided on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I've always heard of it, never read it. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Watch This Wednesday #42: Never ever jam today

Today's video clip is pretty random. Its from a live-action tv version of Alice in Wonderland that I remember watching when I was a kid. For some reason this song about jam has been stuck in my head all those years.

Watch This Wednesday #41: I Got Soul, but I'm not a Soldier

Been watching a fair amount of the Olympics, and happen to love this Nike commercial featuring my all-time favorite Killers song (All These Things That I've Done) thats been playing occasionally.

The Big Digital Gets an Article Accepted for Publication

I realize that I'm probably blogging more now that its "on the back seat" (I think I combined "taken a backseat" with "on the back burner"). But I figure this is as a good a way as any to let people know that I just got an email letting me know, finally, after three rounds of revisions, that my first paper has been accepted for publication in one of the top Informatics journals, JAMIA. Its a pretty short article (under 2000 words), but its satisfying to accomplish.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the title is, "Evaluating the Accuracy of Existing EMR Data as Predictors of Follow-up Providers". Not sure if that will give you a better idea of what I do or not.

The Big Digital Gets a New Driver's License

With my current license expiring next month on my birthday, I finally bit the bullet and ventured out to the DMV this morning to apply for renewal. Last time I was up for renewal I was able to do so online, so it has been quite a while since last I visited the DMV. About 8 years to be exact. And remembering the unpleasantness of the Rose Park DMV, I decided to check out the Sandy "Express" DMV office, which happens to be closing its doors forever after tomorrow. Given my long absence from the DMV, I was still rocking the old school green laminated plastic license that Utah has long since abandoned. In fact, I think there was a whole generation of licenses that I missed altogether.

It took me a little bit of time to find it, but I did and made sure to grab a number as soon as I walked through the door. Lucky number 14. Sadly, they were only around number 84 or so when I got my 14. I was bright enough to bring my book with me to read while I stood (there weren't enough chairs for everyone waiting) and waited. I was maybe there for an hour or so (I wonder what makes this office "Express") before my turn came up, or maybe it wasn't that long, but just seemed long. While I waited, I saw one lady get denied because of failing the eye test (twice), and another lady get sent home to get her social security card because she wanted to change her name following a marriage.

Anyway, at last my turn arrived, and though tense, I managed to pass the eye test with flying colors. The lady administering it asked me if I was wearing contacts to which I honestly replied "no", but had I been wearing them and lied, I don't know how she would have known I was lying. Maybe its not important. I also feel like my photo turned out alright, although right now I just have a rough version on the temporary paper license. Anyway, hopefully its a good long time before I have to go back there.

Blogging on the back seat

If any of you follow this blog closely, you might have noticed that I haven't written about my last two weekends. I just haven't been really motivated to talk about them. Maybe I need to just make the posts shorter. I'll admit that a big reason why I haven't blogged so much lately is that all day I sit and think about writing that I have to do for my dissertation and that makes the mere idea of writing not that exciting sometimes. Even when its for fun.

So I'm not saying I'm not going to keep on blogging, but I'm taking a break from some of the regularly scheduled stuff.

Old Book, New Book #9: The Tommyknockers

So "No Country for Old Men" was definitely a page turner. Fairly violent and depressing, but it kept me interested until the end. Not sure I'd recommend it. I enjoyed reading obviously, or I wouldn't have read it so quickly. I guess I'd say read "The Road" first and then if you liked that one, try this one.

Next up: "The Tommyknockers" by Stephen King, for no particular reason except that I figured I should grab a second book in case the other went by fast, which it did. There was a time that I read a lot of Stephen King books, to the point that there are only a (slowly growing) handful that I haven't read, and this is one of those. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Old Book, New Book #8: No Country for Old Men

I finished "Get Shorty" about a week ago, and it was certainly a nice change from slogging through "Godel, Escher, Bach". Not to say I loved it, but it was just nice to read a novel instead of a textbook, at least for a while. As the first thing I've read by Elmore Leonard, I was kind of underwhelmed, seeing as how several of his books have been made into movies. Could be that "Get Shorty" was made into a movie, because it was a book about the movie business, and if there's one thing Hollywood loves, its itself.

Anyway, as I was done with "Get Shorty" and the books I've got holds out on haven't come in yet, I picked up another Cormac McCarthy book while I was at the library. "No Country for Old Men" was the basis for this last year's Best Picture winning Oscar, and as I just "The Road" and found it enjoyable, when I saw it on the shelf, I decided to give it a shot.

On another OBNB-related note, I noticed that I started tracking the books I was reading on the sidebar hear about a year ago, and I read 17 books in the last year. Not sure if that's a lot or not, but it was interesting to look back and see what all I'd read and to once again realize how long a year is.

Watch This Wednesday #40: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Brainchild of Joss Whedon, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" is a web-only three-act musical production thats currently available on Hulu.com. It features Neil Patrick Harris as "Dr. Horrible" who is trying to earn his way into the Evil League of Evil, led by super-villain "Bad Horse", and Nathan Fillion (from "Firefox") as "Captain Hammer", a self-centered hero. Obviously its got some comedic elements.

The show features some great counterpoint songs, and I've embedded the beginning of act two that has one of these songs. The girl singing is "Penny", a girl that Dr. Horrible has a crush on, that Captain Hammer has just started dating and helping with a project to help the homeless.

Also, if you mouse of the bottom of the video panel you'll see a pop-up menu that include a button marked "CC". Go there and you can turn on closed captioning, allowing you to "Sing-Along".



The full feature is available on Hulu, and I recommend it with the caveat that there are a few lines of PG-13 rated dialogue.

Watch This Wednesday #39: I'm seeing double here! Four Krusties!

I realize that I've kind of been on a Simpsons/Seinfeld kick lately, but there are just so many great moments. This week's clip comes as Homer and Krusty have to perform a two-man tiny bicycle loop in order to appease the mob.

FSS 12: Late again!

This makes two weeks in a row that I've been late in getting this out. Maybe its the fact that all day long I stare at my computer and try to figure out what to write in my last paper, and it makes me not want to write recreationally so much.

Anyway, I'll keep this brief, but suffice it to say that this last week I did plenty of bowling. Two games on Friday, and three on Saturday. My lowest score was a 92, and my high was 146. The highlight of Friday was filming myself bowling a strike (while holding the camera in my other hand). Kind of like the Blair Witch of bowling. Its on Facebook, but since it wasn't on my camera I haven't been able to get it anywhere bloggable.

Also Friday night, I had a great time playing a game called "Buzz Word" with some friends. I think the fun of it just comes from the group and the different personalities involved. Lets just say some people were crying because they were laughing so hard.

Aside from bowling on Saturday, I didn't do all that much, aside from trying to find some sandals to replace the ones I have now, one of which has a have a hole in the bottom. I was, sadly, unsuccessful in my quest. Instead I bought a pair of basketball shorts, and some new swim trunks. Maybe I'll just have to make it through the end of the summer with my old sandals.

First cup sizes, then everything else...

Went to the newly opened "Five Guys" Hamburger Joint today for lunch. I'd been years ago in DC, but didn't remember much aside from liking it. Anyway, I ordered a regular bacon cheeseburger (as opposed to the "Little Bacon Cheeseburger"). Turns out a "regular" is a double quarter-pounder. And the "little" version is JUST a quarter-pounder. You live, you learn.

The Big Digital Plays Ward Softball

I went to our ward men's softball game last night hoping to just be supportive and watch, but dreading that we'd be short a few guys, given that today is a holiday and there were any number of other things also going on last night. Unfortunately, we were short guys, and I got roped into playing. Any guess where I played? That's right, as Brian Regan puts it, "I played out in right field, cuz I stunk". :) And my main goal was to make it through the hour without embarrassing myself. I think I somewhat achieved that.

I got up to bat 5 times, and managed to reach first base only once. I struck out the first two times I was up. The first because I hit two fouls. The second because I couldn't help but swing at a ball coming at my face. The next two times I was up, I grounded out to the pitcher. And in my final at bat, I once again grounded it to the pitcher, but the first baseman was unable to handle the throw. I'm not real good with baseball statistics (feel free to correct me here CJ), but I think that gives me a batting average of .000. Luckily my on base percentage is a healthy .200.

Now, thankfully, fielding went much better for me. As the right fielder, I didn't see a lot of action. In fact, in the (I think) seven innings we played, only two balls came to right. One was a grounder that I fielded and threw to 2nd base. The other was a fly ball that came pretty much right to me that I was able to catch for an out! I don't know if they do a fielding percentage stat, but if they did I think I was at 1.000.

Anyway, aside from my own struggles at the plate, we did manage to win the game in fairly dramatic fashion. In what we thought was the top of the last inning, we fell one run short (10-11) of tying the game. Then, because it was the last game of the night, and because guys on both teams were interested in continuing to play, they decided to give us an extra inning. We held them to 2 runs (10-13) in the bottom of the penultimate inning, and then put together an impressive last ups, scoring 10 runs to go up 20-13. I even managed to get on base, and over to 2nd before someone hit a grounder right to the 3rd baseman, ending my exciting time on the basepaths.

We held them scoreless in their last at bat and went home winners with an impressive looking 20-13 victory. Hopefully next week we can round up some real players and I can't go back to be an active supporter.

Watch This Wednesday #38: Pennypacker, Varnsen, Vandelay

For some reason I've always loved this scene from Seinfeld where Kramer, Jerry, and George each go to an apartment thats for sale for non-purchasing reasons. They each use the aliases that they've used previously in the series.

FSS 11: A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Sorry I didn't get around to this yesterday, what with being all manly and all.

This last weekend was a pretty fun one. Friday night I met up with some friends in anticipation of our 11:00 showing of The Dark Knight. Prior to heading to the theater, we got take out from Italian Village, and then played Mario Kart on the Wii. Good times.

The movie itself definitely lived up to the "Dark" in the title, and was a very impressive film. Heath Ledger was great as the Joker, as were pretty much all of the actors in the main roles. Definitely not for kids, but otherwise worth checking out.

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Saturday, having been out pretty late watching the movie the night before, I managed to sleep in until 11:00. After that I was fairly lazy, but did manage to clean up my room a bit, wash some dishes, and sew a button on a pair of shorts that I'd been meaning to get around to for a couple weeks.

Saturday night I headed to a birthday party for a good friend who I don't see quite so much these days. I had a good time catching up with some people I hadn't seen in a while, and also enjoyed rocking out with some good old Rock Band.

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Sunday morning, I had to get up early for a 7:30 training meeting, and that happened to be the moment that my battery decided it was dead (leading to yesterday's post). Luckily, I was able to get a hold of another guy who was going and he was kind enough to stop by and pick me up. The rest of the day consisted of me bumming rides to whatever was going on (church, home teaching, ward prayer, movie night).

I'm a man!

One of my favorite Seinfeld moments is in an episode where Elaine goes to a bar mitzvah for a friend's son, or something like that. As you may or may not know, a bar mitzvah is a ceremony for 13 year old Jewish boys that marks the day that they come of age. At this bar mitzvah, the 13 year old kid, grabs Elaine and plants a kiss on her and yells out "I'm a man!".

I really love that, and I love to yell "I'm a man!" whenever I've done something particularly manly. :) Today, I had one of those moments. Yesterday (Sunday) morning, my car wouldn't start, so I had to hitch a ride pretty much everywhere I went. At one point, with my home teacher's assistance, we jump started it. However, after running for 15 minutes or so, I turned it off and then tried to start it back up again and it wouldn't start. Which led me to believe it was probably a dead battery, that wouldn't hold a charge any more.

I talked with my dad on the phone and he suggested I do an experiment in which I would jump start the car, then remove the battery cable from the positive terminal. If the car kept running, that would indicate that the alternator was fine, and the problem was probably the battery. If removing the cable killed the engine, that would mean it was the alternator that was having trouble. My mom just happened to be coming into town this morning, so she was gracious enough to stop by and provide a car with a good battery to jump start my car.

In preparation for the experiment, I had to loosen the connection on the positive terminal, so that once the car was running I could remove it. The bolt I had to loosen was pretty tricky to get at, but eventually I was able to loosen it up. We jump started the car, and then I braced myself in the fear that somehow I'd manage to electrocute myself while removing this cable. Thankfully that didn't happen (and probably isn't possible, but I just don't know enough about these things). The car kept running, so we felt safe in our diagnosis that the battery was the problem.

Getting the battery out of the car turned out to be a tad bit trickier than I had hoped, but in the end it came out. After a quick jaunt to the nearby parts store (My battery headquarters, no less, per their advertising), I was the proud possessor of a brand new battery. Another 10 minutes putting it back in and attempting to re-tighten all the things I'd loosened, and voila! my car was back up and running under its own power.

I'm a man!

Google search terms that may have led you to this blog

As culled from Google Analytics:

1. mcdonalds characters -- by far my most popular post.
2. 11 kfc -- not sure what people want at KFC that has an 11 in it.
3. big digital *name removed* -- hey some loyal customers
4. discontinued foods -- who knew there was such an interest
5. mcdonald's characters -- not just the regulars, but the ones that that McDonalds actually possesses.
6. discontinued mcdonalds food -- a perfect storm of search terms
7. *name removed* -- hey you found me. Of course I am all five of the top Google results
8. milk keeps going bad -- sorry I don't have any answers for these people
9. old mcdonalds characters -- I hope they weren't looking for the animals from the song
10. 11.kfc -- for those who like their 11 kfc with more punctuation

Other interesting search terms outside the top 10:

19. poptarts with butter - is there any other way, really?
25. "spaghetti bowl" pelicans - although if they had the same experience I did, I'm surprised they didn't leave me a comment
49. arbys magic trick toys directions -- I'm not even sure which post this search would take you to.

Old Book, New Book #7: Get Shorty

So, I finally finished "Godel, Escher, Bach" this week. It was quite the journey, working to finish a book that never quite managed to capture my imagination and get me excited enough to power through it. Part of that was probably due to the large amount of information that it was spewing out and asking me to process at once, especially since I took so long reading it that some of the related topics in the book that built on each other were no longer fresh in my mind when I got to parts of the book that referred to them.

The book did have some very interested discussion of symbols, words for example, and their meaning, and the idea of Tangle Hierarchies, wherein the distinct levels of a system are no longer so distinct. For example, DNA provides the symbols (code) by which all proteins in a cell (and the larger organism) are put together. However, DNA is one of these proteins. Kind of a chicken and egg situation. There were lots of other parts I enjoyed, like the Diagonal method for proving that you can't make a complete list of irrational numbers.

Anyway, given that I'd finally finished GEB, I headed off to the library in search of something a little less weighty. I had a couple in mind, but one hasn't been published yet, and the other was not available, so I took to browsing. I ended up coming across the Elmore Leonard section, and as I've heard his name a bit lately, decided to grab "Get Shorty" as I knew it had been made into a movie. A movie I haven't seen, but at least it tells me that a certain number of people enjoyed it. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Watch This Wednesday #37: Steamed Hams

Following on the heels of last week's Simpson's clip, today I bring you a great exchange between Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers. Inspired by a conversation I had today with the Chip Chief.

FSS 10: Rolling on a River

Happy Monday to all you loyal FSS readers who've been patiently refreshing to see what this last weekend brought me.

Friday night we had a stake-wide luau activity. For the past month or so they've been sending our ward activities representatives to hype it up with the following three items: 1) catered food, 2) hula lessons, and 3) fire dancers. 1) The catered food consisted of a single half-cup scoop of rice, a half-cup scoop of pork, and a half-cup scoop of canned pineapple chunks, which I declined. 2) The Hula lessons were I think dispensed to a high counselor and his wife. 3) Thankfully the fire dancing actually happened was pretty cool. Anyway, mostly at those activities I just end up shooting the breeze with people I know who are now in other wards. I did find a little time for some grass volleyball as well.

After the luau, I stopped by a park where some friends were playing ultimate frisbee, and watched for ten minutes or so until they were finished. The plan from there was to watch a movie at the apartment of some of the girls who were there, and eventually I made it there (after stopping at a Wendy's to get some food to supplement the luau), but most of the those who were supposedly coming ended up trying to help a girl get into her truck where she'd unfortunately locked her keys.

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Saturday I slept in a bit and then got up and got ready to head down to Provo Canyon to go tubing on the Provo river. Its become pretty much an annual tradition, and for $10, its always been a fun couple of hours in a cold river on a hot day. This time was no different, and with Kirsten's help we managed to round up a group of about 15 people, 10 who met in Salt Lake to car pool down. I managed to avoid falling in at all, and only got real wet at the very end when I had to disembark in water over my waist to make it to the exit point.

After getting out of the river, we stopped for late lunch at an In-n-Out ripoff in American Fork called Chadders. Its a decent imitation, but not sure I care enough to make a specific trip for that purpose.

I made it home in time to get a brief nap in before my evening events started. At seven, I was meeting up with a few friends to go to a pool party out in Draper. It was at the house of a guy I know from a weekly volleyball night (which may not be on hiatus). It was in a gated community out in Draper at what looked to be a potentially fancy home. And my unofficial policy on such things is "When rich people invite me to their house for a party, I should go check it out, because I might see something I would never see otherwise." This house was no exception. Nice pool out back along with a lot of grass and a basketball court. Also, it was right down off the north end of point of the mountain, so there was a great view of a large number of paragliders and hanggliders cruising around above us while we swam.

Eventually, after I'd had my fill of swimming and feeling like Father Time, we made our exit and stopped by the house of another friend to finish out the night. We'd talked about watching a movie, but ended up playing a game called "Buzz Word" that I enjoyed, perhaps because I was really good at it. The host told me he wasn't going to invite me next time they played, unless I promised to be on his team.

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Sunday morning, we had our monthly ward "Fellowshipping" breakfast, which is always a welcome way for me to eat breakfast on a Sunday. Sometimes I have to get creative depending on whats available in my cupboard. After that I had a presidency meeting, and we made it through church without any major incidents. I napped in the early evening and then made it to ward prayer which was well attended and then went to movie night after that, watching the first half of Newsies and the second half of The Incredibles.

Old Book, Old Book #6: The Road

Don't worry, I haven't given up on good old GEB yet. I actually am down to the last 50 pages, but as I only read it when I'm eating alone (books make for great conversation around the table) or in random moments, it may still take me to the end of this week to finish it off for good. Anyway, this week I took a short trip to DC and wanted something to read on the plane, but didn't start planning for my trip until the night before which was a Sunday. Which meant the library was closed. So I splurged and actually purchased a book. I'd heard good things about "The Road" on the Slate Political Gabfest podcast a few months back and figured I'd check it out on my flight. It was written by Cormac McCarthy who also wrote "No Country for Old Men", which was turned into last year's Oscar winning best picture by the Coen brothers.

I have to say it was interesting. Set in a post-apocalyptic US, its the story of a man and his son (no names ever mentioned) walking on "The Road" and heading somewhere. The style of writing was also pretty interesting. No chapters. No quotation marks. Some of the dialogue sections were a little tricky to follow because it never says who said what usually. Or else it says "he", which doesn't clarify very well when you're reading about a man and a boy. Lots of hope and despair. Its a pretty tender book, and I suspect that if I had kids I'd relate even better. Not sure I'd label it as a personal favorite, but it was good, and I was able to knock it out between two four hour flights.

Watch This Wednesday #36: Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!

I'm not back from DC yet, but I recently figured out how to write posts in advance and schedule them to publish at a later date, so I set this up before I left.

More from Hulu.com. Its Troy McClure's award-winning performance as the human in "Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off!" Its the role he was born to play, baby!

FSS 9: Not exactly sure what the 'fin' is of this 'semana'

I'm in the midst of 7 days that I won't be going to my desk. Thursday I went to an old roommate's wedding which was super nice because all 6 of us old roommates were there. Friday was the holiday, followed by the regular weekend, and tomorrow I leave on a short 3-day trip to DC for a short conference.

So I guess today I'll just talk about my 4th of July weekend. Friday morning I got up and headed out to Grantsville to partake of the Grantsville parade that started at 11. My dad was riding in it as a member of the Grantsville City Council. Overall, I felt like the parade was a bit long, and that most of the "floats" were just people with trucks that had signs on them and they threw a little bit of candy. Tooele County Search & Rescue had at least 8 vehicles in the parade, which made me wonder a) how much gas money does it take to support that whole exhibit, and b) what happens if someone needs to be sought and/or rescued while the parade is going on. The highlights were probably the Tooele High marching band (Sorry GHS, but they were clearly superior) and a couple guys dressed as Napoleon Dynamite and his brother Kip, with Napoleon riding his bike, towing Kip behind him on rollerblades.

After the parade, we reconvened back at home for chicken and ribs off the grill, along with corn on the cob and other tasty goodies. I stayed out there until 6 or so, including a good game of "Ticket to Ride" with the special rules that my brother George taught us, which happen to be quite different from the actual rules, but still make for a good game.

After leaving Grantsville, I headed back to SLC for yet another BBQ, followed by fireworks at Murray Park. They were pretty good fireworks and it was fun hanging out with a lot of friends before and after.

Saturday was mostly taken up with errands and laziness. In the evening I went to a friend's parents' house where we played sand volleyball and then enjoyed the pool for a while when we were done.

I didn't take my camera with me at all this weekend, so you'll just have to imagine how everything was. Maybe I'll take some pictures in DC to share with you when I get back. TTFN.

Watch This Wednesday #35: You'll block it every time

In honor of the 4th of July, I bring you Rex Kwan Do's star-spangled pants:


"You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys?"

FSS 8: Stuff White People Really Like

This last weekend felt like a tribute to the red states. Which I feel good about, being that I am from one of those red states, myself. :)

Saturday morning we had an Elders Quorum activity in the which we drove out to the desert and shot lots of guns at stuff, so my Friday night was taken up mainly in making sure that everything was ready to go for Saturday morning. After driving about an hour west of Salt Lake, we pulled off the highway drove a short distance out into the hills to do some shooting. We started off with some trap shooting, shooting shotguns at clay pigeons.

After exhausting our supply of pigeons, we moved down to a different spot and tried out shooting rifles, handguns, and assault rifles. The assortment of weaponry on display was kind of amazing. Not being a gun owner myself, they really aren't on my radar. So I was a bit taken aback to see guys that I know pulling out handguns, AK-47s, and AR-15s. It was certainly an interesting experience to shoot all the different types of guns, although it might have been slightly more entertaining had we done a better job with targets. We brought some cheap soda cans to shoot at, but those were gone pretty quick and then it was kind of difficult to pick things to shoot at.

















After the shooting activity, I headed back to Salt Lake, making a brief stop by the Tripp ancestral mansion to say hello. In addition to including several hours of shooting, the day also featured a cheap Saturday night rodeo experience. The Riverton rodeo was only $6, so I headed out there with some friends. I was semi-surprised to find that Jerry Hurst, who taught at my high school was the rodeo clown for the evening. I remember being in Elementary School and him coming and doing some magic, so I knew that he was a rodeo clown, but I'd never actually seen him in action, since I never went to a rodeo until after leaving Grantsville behind.

Anyhow the rodeo was fun, albeit the talent level was maybe a tad low and at times the announcer didn't do a very good job of keeping on top of the action. Sometimes riders would come out of the shoots on horses while he was still talking about something else. Also there was no audible timer for the 8 second rides, at least not one that the audience could hear. But given the cost of admission it was tolerable.

With a full Saturday, Friday night and Sunday seemed fairly nondescript. Or maybe I just don't feel like typing anything more today. :)

10-Key vs. Telephone

Who was the person who decided that a ten key and a telephone should have their numbers in a different order? Strangely enough they actually share two rows in common, 4-5-6 on the 2nd row from the top, and 0 at the bottom. I only notice this when I start doing some 10-key work after a long time of not doing, and I sometimes go up instead of down or vice-versa. There's probably a discussion of this on the internet already. Just seems kind of strange.

The Big Digital Learns About the Opera

Apparently there's more to it than what I got from watching Looney Tunes on Saturday morning cartoons.

On Wednesday night, I attended a discussion group that meets monthly for the 2nd time, and this time the topic was the relevance of opera. (Last month's topic was the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty). In preparation for the discussion the guy who would be leading the discussion sought out a bunch of opera clips for us to watch on YouTube and picked a few articles about opera and classical music and their relevance/place in modern society.

Being pretty much a total opera n00b -- I went twice in high school as part of a "take kids to culture and hope it rubs off on them" thing -- and wanting to be able to participate in the discussion I read all the articles and watched all the clips twice, once before reading over his notes on each piece, and once after. And I have to say...there's still a lot about opera that I don't understand. I really don't have any kind of background in music theory and appreciation, so there was a lot that went over my head or just didn't register on my radar. Still, there were a few pieces I enjoyed and after two times through the list of clips I was starting to not be totally put off by opera.

The discussion was quite informative, in part because the guy leading the discussion happens to be a professional opera singer, but also because there were a lot of people at the discussion who knew a lot as well. At the end of the evening, he sang a short piece for us (while playing it on the piano to boot), and I have to say that it was definitely impressive. How a person can sing that loud without yelling is beyond me -- and I imagine he was toning it down a bit since we were just in his living room. I have to say I enjoyed the evening quite a bit, and armed with a newly acquired list of operas that he recommended for first-timers, I'd be a bit more inclined to see one. Not sure I'd go out of my way, but if someone invited me to one, I'd be less inclined to say no.

Spin Cycle

One of the most frustrating parts of my PhD research has also been one of the most rewarding, or vice-versa. A significant portion of my research deals with gathering and analyzing medical data. These data have the property of being initially simple, but generally much more complex as you start digging into them. You might start with a simple query trying to gather all the encounters for which an alert was triggered, which sounds fairly straightforward, but then you have to decide do you want the first overall encounter for each patient or do you want the first encounter of each specific type (inpatient vs. ED). And then you find some encounters where a patient went to the ED but was admitted directly to the hospital as part of the same encounter. And you develop a method (hack?) for classifying things the way you want. But then later you discover that for some reason, there are cases where the ED Report for the encounter was actually filed after the discharge summary, meaning your classification hack (method?) only works for most of the encounters.

Finding these subtle distinctions is not generally something that happens on the first pass through the data. Generally its something I find as I reach what I think should be the end of things. And yes, its rewarding to know that I really am starting to fully understand the data, but at the same time, when a subtle change only affects 1% of the encounters, but I still feel like it would be dishonest to not redo the analysis with that change included, it can be frustrating, because while the numbers change, the results almost always stay the same. I mean, really, I'm the only one who would know the difference, and when the results don't change, its almost not worth re-doing the analysis, just to adjust the numbers slightly to reflect reality. And really, given the limitations of the study these numbers really only approximate reality as it is.

I had one of these moments today. Recycling as we speak.

Watch This Wednesday #34: 30 Rock RPG

Sit back and enjoy as Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) does impersonations of Tracy Jordan's (Tracy Morgan) family, in attempt to help him work through some dog-fighting urges. If you haven't seen 30 Rock, I definitely recommend it. I think the entire 2nd season is still available on Hulu.com.

FSS 7: Bumper Cars

This past weekend started a tad bit early, with me taking off a little bit early on Friday to meet up with a girl who invited me to come to Lagoon with her (and two other guys) for her work Lagoon day. I'm not a huge Lagoon fan, but it was free and with fun people, so it was hard to pass up. Its been a couple summers since I last visited Lagoon, so there were a couple new rides for me to try out -- The Bat (such a waste of potential) and Wicked (Very fun, but super short). Given that I didn't have to pay anything to get in, I really didn't feel any pressure to ride a million rides and I felt like I had a pretty good time. One sad moment: finding out the old light-gun shooting gallery is gone. That was one of my favorite memories.

Saturday, I got up early to go do some early morning baptisms at the Salt Lake temple, and after our ward outing was over, I went back to bed until the afternoon. After running a few errands, I got down to the big business of the evening -- a demolition derby in Bluffdale. I've been to several derbies over the last couple years, usually in Tooele, but I figured I'd invite some friends to come to this one that was located within the valley. Turns out there was a lot of unmet demand for demolition derbies among my friends. We ended up with over 20 people who went with us. The derby itself was probably the least well-run of the ones I've been to, but still entertaining. The derby area was very small and lots of cars were getting stuck in the loose dirt. Despite that, we still had lots of fun, and there were even fireworks afterward. We finished off the night with some late night grub from the Cheesecake Factory. I can only stand to go there late at night when there aren't a million people waiting around for a table.















Sunday was its usual business with meetings in the morning and then church. After church I made a jaunt out to my parents' house to celebrate a belated Fathers Day and an early birthday for my dad as well. It was a short stay, but still nice to catch up and get some home-cooked dinner. I finished the night off with ward prayer and then a movie (X3: How is this movie so awful?) followed by a nice long chat with E. Harris.

More photos from the demolition derby here.

Watch This Wednesday #33: How Not to Make Bread

Words cannot describe. Enjoy.

FSS 6: Viva Las Vegas!

Sorry to be a day late with this, but I just had a lot of catching up to do yesterday after having spent Fri-Sun in Las Vegas. We took off Friday morning early, Jon, Ben, Ed, and myself in Jon's just-barely-purchased Mazda 6. We made great time, making it to St. George around 11:30 and stopping for lunch at Utah's very own In-N-Out, which was as good as always, except that like everywhere else right now, tomatoes were off the menu. (How is it possible that every tomato is unsafe? Do they all come from the same location? Whats the deal? If I can't have tomatoes on my sandwiches/hamburgers/etc, the terrorists may have already won.)



Anyway, we cruised the rest of the way to Vegas and were able to check in a little early into our room at the Luxor. After relaxing a bit, we hit the pool for an hour or so trying to beat the heat a bit. Later that afternoon we met up with 3 of the 5 girls who were coming as well and walked most of the length of the strip to get to the Venetian where Jon and Ashley were seeing the Blue Man Group. Since we all wanted to spend time with them, we walked up there with them and found a place for dinner -- The Grand Lux Cafe which is run by the same people as The Cheesecake Factory, and was pretty tasty. We had an Asian Nachos appetizer that was really good, and I had a Kentucky "Hot Brown" sandwich that was an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and gravy. Once again the lack of tomato was a downer.

After dinner, those of us who weren't going to show wandered around the indoor Venetian Canal while we waited for the other two girls to arrive. Once they got there, we started our trek back down the strip toward our hotels (The girls were staying at the MGM Grand). Along the way we enjoyed the fountains at Bellagio, probably my favorite thing in Las Vegas. We also wandered around inside the New York New York hotel/casino for a bit, looking for a mythical ice cream parlor that seems to have disappeared since the girls were there last.














Finally we ended up back at the MGM Grand and watched some TV in the girls' room for a while until they decided it was time for us to go home.

Saturday morning, we were pretty lazy, eventually ending up at the Luxor brunch buffet around 11:30 or so. Good food, but maybe a bit on the pricey side. After that, we wandered around the Luxor and Mandalay Bay, flirting with the notion of checking out the Shark Reef at Mandalay, but deciding against it. We took a tram over to Excalibur where the guys bought our tickets for the "Tournament of Kings" dinner theater show there for later that night. Then we walked over to New York New York because some people wanted to ride the rollercoaster there. I was still feeling pretty stuffed from buffet brunch and wasn't really in the mood to ride a rollercoaster, but was happy to tag along.

Before we made it to the ride, though, we stopped in the arcade and played a few games (Dragon's Lair, anyone?). Once we got to the rollercoaster, there wasn't enough group enthusiasm for it to convince anyone to actually pay the $15 it cost. At this point, Jon had a genius idea that we ought to go see a movie. And it was a great idea. We got to spend a couple hours out of the heat, and it only cost $7.50 at the matinee price. We saw the new Incredible Hulk movie, and I found it fairly enjoyable. No real complaints. And given that I fell asleep every time I tried to watch the first one, I guess thats an improvement.



After the movie, it was time for the guys and girls to part ways (they were going to see Phantom of the Opera) and we headed to Excalibur for our dinner show. At the show, each section of seats was assigned to a different "country" and its corresponding "king" to cheer for in the competitions. We were in the Ireland section and our king pretty much sucked at everything he did. He lost every single competition he competed at. At one point he did have a pretty cool hand-to-hand combat scene with another king, unleashing a sweet ninja kick. But then later the opposing king pulled off a sweet rope swing move that was just too much for Ireland to handle. Overall it was a fun show, and the food was decent (although the choice of drinks was just water, Pepsi, or Diet Pepsi), albeit a tad greasy for eating without utensils.







After the show, we went back to our room and chilled until the girls were done with their show, and then we drove over to the MGM and then they followed us over to downtown Vegas to the Fremont Street Experience, basically a four block section that has a huge LCD ceiling over it, and its lined with lots of cheap-looking casinos and reeks of cigar smoke. There was a cover band playing a lot of fun songs, and we saw some guys ride around in one of those motorcycle-sphere-of-death things. After seeing two of the on-the-hour shows on the LCD ceiling, we made our way back to our cars and headed back to the hotel. The girls wanted to watch a movie or something somewhere, so I suggested we do it at our room, because I just wanted to go to bed, which I did.






Sunday, we slept in again, and filled our daily quota for nourishment at the Bellagio's brunch buffet. A little better food than the Luxor (e.g. prime rib) but our server was pretty slow with the drinks, and the hour long wait to get in was kind of annoying.



Anyway, after that we drove over to MGM again to meet up with the girls one last time and say good-bye. Well for one of them to say good-bye to one of us (not me). And once that was done, we were ready to hit the road. We made good time getting back to Salt Lake, stopping for gas in St. George, and for a quick potty break in Nephi. I didn't even need to eat again until Monday morning.

More photos from the trip can be found here.

Watch This Wednesday #32: Alan and Jerome...Thats Us!

With the NBA Finals in full swing, it seems like an appropriate time to bust out these old school Fox Sports NBA commercials with two white guys shopped in. Good times.

I'm still gonna punish ya--Unn!--punish ya!


Knickerbocker Please!


Watch my Kobe Bryant, no-look-confusion-maker


Alan and Jerome...Thats Us!

FSS 5: A fairly low-key weekend

Hello again,

I'm cranking this post out while waiting for a query to finish running. Just trying to polish up some data for a meeting I have next Monday, quite possibly to get my committee to sign off on everything for the last part of my dissertation. I'd still need to write it of course, but at least I'd now for sure what they expect me to write.

Anyhow, this last weekend felt pretty low key. Friday night a friend from the ward invited us over to his parents' house to swim. In the process of inviting people to join in the fun, I got a counter-offer of a concert and movie from a girl that I'd met last week and was interested in getting to know better. Since I'd already invited a bunch of people to come swim, I would have felt bad not going to swim at all (plus swimming sounded fun), so I made a compromise and agreed to meet up with her and her friends for a late movie after they were done at the concert. So I went swimming and it was fun. We played beachball volleyball in the pool and there was a lot of fun people there. Then it was off to the movie. These girls had chosen to see "You Don't Mess with the Zohan", which from the previews I expected to be pretty silly but maybe funny nonetheless. Sadly, it was pretty silly, and at times funny nonetheless, but mostly the movie was way too raunchy and crass to be enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend seeing it, even if you've enjoyed other Adam Sandler movies. Just too much of the raunchiness in this one.

Saturday, the original plan had been to go boating, but given the cool weather, and the high cost of gas these days, those in charge decided it might be better to wait for a more enjoyable day. I was alright with that, and took advantage of the day to clean up the house a little bit as we were having the ward over for breakfast on Sunday morning. That took up only a little bit of my morning and then I quickly proceeded to run out of things to do. After a day full of odds and ends, in the evening I went to dinner at Red Robin with a group consisting of mostly strangers, but it was alright. After that I got a call from another friend and we ended up driving out to Draper to check out a birthday party for a girl he knew. Again, kind of ho-hum...there were about 20 people there sitting around a firepit getting smoky.

Sunday morning we had the ward fellowshipping committee come over to cook our monthly ward breakfast. I was a little nervous about having enough places to sit for everyone, but it didn't really seem to be a problem in the end. I had my regular church meetings, and spent the late afternoon watching USA-Argentina play to a 0-0 tie, which has to be considered a big coup for America. Team USA's goalie made some great stops in the first half and really saved the game for us. After the game I headed to ward prayer, and then went to a friend's house to watch a movie, "Live Free or Die Hard" which I hadn't seen since seeing it in the dollar movies a year ago. I have to say I enjoyed it again.

Now that I've got this new template, I probably should work on getting my camera out again. Luckily, I'm headed to Vegas this coming weekend with some friends, so that ought to be a good excuse for some photography.

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.

More Meta

I'm playing around with my template today. I figured it was finally time I got something that would stretch to fill the width of the window that its viewed in. No more 400 pixel limits on the width of photos and videos. Unfortunately, there was no stretch template with the same color scheme I had before, so I'm working with the colors to get it back looking the way it did before. Bear with me until I get that worked out.

Watch This Wednesday #31: Get some rest Pam. You look tired

I definitely would not say that I am Jason Bourne's biggest fan. Yes, I've seen all of his movies and probably like the last one as well as any of them, but I don't own any of the DVDs or anything thing like that. However, one thing I do like about him is his knack for making phone calls from a place where he can see the people he is talking to. My favorite instance of this comes at the end of the Bourne Supremacy when he's talking to Pamela Landy, and then at the very end of their conversation he says, "Get some rest Pam. You look tired." and then the Bourne theme music kicks in. If there was a way I could get my phone to play that song at the end of all my phone calls, I'd end every call that way. "Get some rest , you look tired." and then have that music kick in. I think that would be awesome.

Anyway, for this week's clip, I've included the only decent clip I could find that includes this part of the movie. Its actually a clip comparing what is supposedly the same phone call from the end of the Bourne Supremacy and near the end of the Bourne Ultimatum and nitpicking the differences. Anyway, if you skip to the 1:50 point you can see the part I'm talking about.

A new friend on the sidebar

Metablogging: I just added a sidebar widget showing the most recent of my "shared items" from my Google Reader feeds. They're just articles or other blog posts or whatever that I liked enough to share with the generic public. If you aren't familiar with the concept of Feed Readers, let me know and I'll set you straight.

FSS 4 featuring BBQs, Drive-Ins, and Other Sundry Events

This last weekend began with an excursion to my hometown of Grantsville for a BBQ with some high school friends. Back in March, we had set some parameters for food assignments based on performance in an NCAA basketball tournament prediction pool. As my picks went horribly awry I was tasked with providing the meat for this BBQ. As such, I would have felt a little bad begging out of the BBQ, even though at times its not the most fun hanging out with a bunch of married people and their children. Anyway, it turned out to be a nice evening and I also spent some time chatting with my parents and siblings at the end of the night. After returning to Salt Lake I ended up swinging by a friend's house to watch a couple episodes of Flight of the Conchords on DVD, and then enjoying a relaxing soak in his hot tub.

Friday's late night was followed by an early-starting Saturday. We had a stake service project at 9, and our ward was meeting up at 8:30 to car pool over to the location. We ended up at a place called Bend-in-the-River along the Jordan River parkway pulling weeds for the most part. They split the large group into smaller groups and my group ended up pulling rye grass from around some rose bushes. Saturday afternoon was used up in resting, grocery shopping, and printing some home teaching assignments at the church.

Saturday night marked my first trip to the Redwood Drive-in of this calendar year. Approximately fifteen of us gathered at my house and then we headed over to see Prince Caspian, which I found to be passably entertaining. It had been long enough since I read the book that I really wasn't sure what was going to happen for most of the movie. The second feature of the traditional drive-in double feature was the Patrick Dempsey-helmed "Made of Honor" which from the trailers I'd seen appeared to be some kind of "My Best Friend's Wedding" retread, and as such I figured I'd call it a night and check out early. Most of our group was of a like mind.

Sunday morning and afternoon were filled with my usual meetings, and then in the evening I was pretty lazy. I finished the night off with ward prayer at Robin's, where I met some cool new girls in the ward, and then headed to Jason's and ended up watching the Bourne Ultimatum, a fitting follow-up to last week's Bourne Supremacy.