I think I'm supposed to learn something...

Natalie and kids have been gone for two full weeks now.  One of the silver linings to my family being out of town in that I don't need to find a babysitter so I can go and attend the temple.  The closest temple is in San Antonio, which in the past has taken about an hour and a half to get to from Austin.  So, two weeks ago I reserved a spot for the 4:30 session on Saturday.  I got going, and found that traffic was exceptionally bad, and arrived at the temple at about 4:50.  So I did sealings instead and felt the Spirit and was edified.

Natalie told me that I should do at least one session while she is away, so I dutifully scheduled another spot for Friday at 6:30.  I knew the traffic would be rather bad, so I left at about 4:20, thinking that a little more than two hours would be enough to get there, right?  I brought Sunday clothes to change into and took off.  Well, traffic was bad again and we were driving straight towards the setting sun.  I arrived at the temple parking lot at about 6:15, ran and changed, decided to leave my street clothes in the car, and went into the temple.  I walked in at 6:22, and was two minutes late, since the close the session ten minutes to.  I felt a little sad, since if I had taken my clothes with me or just gone in my street clothes I would have made it, but I did some initiatories and again felt the Spirit.  I even learned some new things!

I am going to try to go one more time this up-coming week.  My plan is to leave a full 3 hours before hand (if I am going in the evening again; I might try the morning of Saturday).  I think there are two lessons to learn from my efforts.  The first is that traffic between Austin and San Antonio is really bad.  The second is that I feel the Lord wanted me to do more than just sessions.  I don't think I was being negligent in trying to get to the temple, so maybe I was supposed to do sealings and initiatories.  I did feel the Spirit each time, so I think it was okay.

It has been a while...

Hello world!

I just read an article in the Ensign about using blogging to share your testimony.  I think it is interesting that every time I have heard about using social networking to share your testimony I have usually just blocked it out.  But not this time!  I read it and felt pumped.  So I will now share.

Natalie has been in Utah for the past week and a half while I have stayed at home here in Texas.  It has been a difficult experience, but I feel that I am getting closer to my Father in Heaven and to my Savior because of it.

I miss my family a lot, but in my sadness I have turned more to God.

I remember that we are commanded to be joyful.  I have many things to be grateful for.  My family still loves me and are coming home in another week and a half.  I have a nice apartment and a warm bed.  I have lots of opportunities to cook tasty food.  I can go to movies without getting a babysitter.  I get to make my own schedule, sleep when I want to.  And, I have plenty of time to contemplate my life, and together with the Spirit find what is lacking, and make plans to improve.

I don't need to be sad, even when my family is away.

P.S.  Here is a picture of us with our Halloween costumes.

The Next Update...

Well, life moves on.  I realize that I am a terrible blogger, but that's ok.  To be honest, I am somewhat proud that I don't blog very much, primarily because it means that I am doing other things with my time.  I spend a lot of time talking with my wife, I spend a lot of time on school work, and I spend a lot of time with my new son, Adam.

Here is a picture of Adam James Muhlestein.  Despite appearances, he does have a left leg.  He was born one month premature on October 24, 2013.  He spent a very short time in the NICU (about 10 days), and then came home.  All is going well.  He started out 4 lb 1 oz, and is now up to 7 lb 4 oz as of last Monday.  This picture is when he was about 3 weeks old.

In other news, I am now attending the University of Texas at Austin studying acoustics through the mechanical engineering department.  In particular, I study what are called acoustic metamaterials.  These are materials that are really just specially designed composite materials (for example, small air bubbles in water).  These materials can have rather exotic behaviors which might allow for such cool applications as cloaking devices for submarines.  I'm just working on the material side of things, though.

Also, I just thought that I would note that I have to go on two interstates (I-1 and I-35) to get to church every week.

Brief Update

Well, it certainly has been a while since I last posted.  Quite a lot has happened since then.  I am now much closer to graduating with my masters in physics from BYU, I got married in January, and I have decided to go to UT Austin's Mechanical Engineering program for a PhD this fall.  Both Natalie and I are quite busy trying to graduate in August.

Here's a riddle for those who are interested:

If you throw me out of a window, you'll have a sorrowful wife.  If you put me in a door, you might save a life.

Favorites

I don't know what prompted me to write this post, but here are a few of my favorites with some explanations.  Note that just because I say it is my favorite here, does not mean that it is my favorite tomorrow, etc.

Favorite Painting:  Saint Cecilia and the Angel.  Orazio Gentileschi

I first saw this painting in Mr. Hall's art history class.  It is not really a famous painting, and Saint Cecilia is a rather obscure saint (of music), but I took to this painting right away.  I was just enamored by the depiction of Saint Cecilia.  She seems so simple, beautiful and clean.  She has her sleeves rolled up so that she can work (play the organ).  It also seems like she could relate to me.  When I saw it, it took me about thirty seconds to realize that there was an angel or an organ in the picture.  To be honest, realizing that there were these other accouterments actually detracted from the painting a little for me.

Favorite Sculpture:  Dying Gaul.  Epigonos?

Again, Mr. Hall's class, but when I saw it there, I thought nothing of it.  However, when Mother and Daddy took me on my senior trip to Italy, I got the chance to see it in person.  I am not sure what it was that got me, but this statue just spoke to me (metaphorically).  I think I circled it five times in a busy day just looking at it.  There is so much emotion built into this one sculpture.  It is amazing.

Favorite Church:  San Vitale.

I thought that this was going to be a great church when I first learned about it.  I got to visit it in Ravenna as well.  It is a small church, but it met up to my expectations and more.  The octagonal design was genius, the decoration very appropriate (lots of mosaics), history fascinating (for example, Charlemagne copied his private chapel after this; he thought that the second floor was for nobility while here it was reserved for the women), and not very well visited.  Mother and Daddy both commented that I was most excited for this church, and I think that I agree.  Somewhere out there, there is a cool little program online that lets you see what it looks like from the center and you can change your viewing angle, which is probably the best thing after going to Ravenna to see it yourself.  If you do decide to go, maybe I can come too...?  :)

Favorite Soup/Stew/Chowder:  Mother's Oven Stew or Clam Chowder.

I couldn't find a picture that adequately represents the delicious splendor that is Mother's oven stew.  Which of these I would rather eat really depends on the day, but either are fine choices.  I would be happy to eat either of these any season of the year.  Even if it is a hundred degrees out, I think I might still want some of this piping hot and fresh out of the oven/pot.  As the bowl says, "Mmm, mmm, good!"

Favorite Mathematical Subject:  PDE's (Partial Differential Equations).

The above equations are used in MHD (magneto-hydrodynamics), which describes the dynamics of charged fluids, such as plasmas, neutron stars, possibly clouds, etc.  I think that the reason I like PDE's so much is because they are how physicists describe the world around them right now.  I will sometimes sit in church and think to myself, "Hmm.  This gospel principle follows this sort of function.  That sort of function is likely to appear from this sort of differential equation.  I wonder what sort of underlying mechanisms there are that would give one such an equation."  And then I go on to further contemplate the gospel principle, trying to better understand it from that point of view.  I also will relate the gospel other concepts in physics.  For example, I once realized that quantum tunneling can be related to the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I hope you all enjoyed my random post!

Eclipse

Last week there was a solar eclipse that was quite visible from my part of the US.  I helped out at our astronomy department's big outreach event of the year, and so they gave me special eclipse-viewing sunglasses.  I tried using the sunglasses for looking cool, but it turned out that you just are blind unless you are staring straight at the sun.

On Sunday, around 6:30 the eclipse began.  It was quite a long event, but I started to watch a little after the eclipse began.  I showed a bunch of people in my ward my glasses and let them look at the sun as well.  It was surprising to see how many of them were surprised I knew so much about eclipses (not that much).  My being a physicist seemed to satisfy their curiosity.

Right as the eclipse reached its minimum light state, clouds started to roll in, and it gave the illusion that the sun was completely blocked out.  My favorite part of the whole of the eclipse was the fact that it got so dark.  Shortly afterwards it got brighter again.  Sadly, the revealing of the sun again was mostly hidden by thick clouds, so that was the event.



This is not my picture (http://wordlesstech.com/2012/05/22/videos-of-annular-solar-eclipse-may-20-2012/), but it is still really cool.  Notice that the sun makes a ring around the moon; the moon does not completely cover the sun.  This is called an annular eclipse.  The reason for this is that the moon is too far from the earth, and so just becomes a (big) dot in the sun.  Total eclipses are ones where the moon is close enough that it completely blocks out the sun, and spontaneously cause Christina and Tanner to start singing and dancing.

Because I Have Been Given Much

I have been having a really busy semester. I am taking three classes (all of which desire all of my time; typical graduate classes) and working on two research projects in addition to working on finding a wife. At the same time, I have realized that I have gained a fair amount of weight since my mission, and so I am trying to cut back on eating and increase time exercising (or at least not sitting around my apartment or office). This leads to a tired mind, which makes my other endeavors a little more difficult.

The reason that I mention the above situation is to present the following scenario, my emotions intact. Recently I have been asked by my fellow classmates to help on some homework. This is not a problem as I love to help others with their physics and teaching is wonderful. The problem comes from my need to get more work done. Sometimes I have thought about saying no, just because I don't have time. But sometimes, when I am especially tired, my thoughts for saying no come closer to "why haven't you put enough time into your work?"

Today, as I walked home, I was thinking (as usual), singing (fairly common) and praying (not as common as I wish it were). What was interesting was that the songs that came into my head (hymns - rather common) seemed to dictate my prayer and thoughts. I know that the Spirit helped put them there. One of the hymns was "Because I Have Been Given Much". As I thought about the words, it occurred to me that I have been given much. Not just material goods, either, though I am abundantly blessed in those. I have been given a wonderful education, the ability to learn and an ability to teach what I learn to those around me.

Often I have wondered about how to apply King Benjamin's counsel about giving to the poor (Mosiah 4:13-22) to my age and life. I keep wondering whether I am to give to beggars who are more than likely not in need. But there are more needs (especially in this day and age) than just material needs. People need help and ask for it every day. It may not be for food and clothing, but it might be for a friend, for a kind word, or it might just be for help with homework.

"Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food [homework help], nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just -

"But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent ...

"For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance [knowledge, abilities] which we have ... of every kind?" (Mosiah 4:17-19)

I am grateful that I did help those who came to me for help. I am grateful that they were willing to ask me for help, that they trusted me that I would help them if I could. Indeed, I have been given much; from my family, from my teachers and, most especially, from God.

"Because I have been given much, I too must give;

Because of thy great bounty, Lord, each day I live

I shall divide my gifts from thee With ev'ry brother that I see

Who has the need of help from me."

(Hymns #219 - Because I Have Been Given Much)

Texas Trip

This past week Kathryn, Christina, Josh and Elisabeth and I all drove to Texas. Here is a day-to-day synopsis, with some special emphases.

On Friday, just after 7:30 we all piled into my car and drove out of town. The interesting thing here is the fact that not three days earlier I had slid my car off the road. No serious damage was done (I seem to have lost parts of my front bumper), but the thought of unknown damages haunted us. Also, the radio was locked, so we drove in silence (sound-system wise; we talked a lot). We drove through the night and...

On Saturday we kept driving. We had breakfast in Albuquerque (Village Inn), and then drove straight to Dallas. We arrived in Irvine at Joseph's house at about 6:00 PM. I must say that Nicholas and Lexi are two of the most cute kids that exist. We had a wonderful dinner (thanks, Maren!) and played Rook. We then went to bed (couch cushions for me).

On Sunday we got up leisurely and had breakfast. Church was very nice, and then home teachers came over. Then we had dinner, which was also amazing. Basically, food wise, every thing was fantastic. Kathryn's old mission companion Felicia Norris came over for the evening, as well. She is pretty hysterical. It was fun having her around. We tried to go and look at Christmas lights, but it didn't work out too well. The line for the lights we wanted to see was huge, and so we just drove around and came back to the house. T'was a wonderful evening.

Come Monday we went to the stock yards. We saw lots of cool things including the worlds largest honkey-tonk. We went to a barbecue for lunch (mm...) and came back. Joseph and I played some Halo while others took naps. After another fabulous dinner and some debate due to weather, we took off. I drove first through a lot of fog. It dispersed about the time that I switched drivers. We drove through the night until we got to Amarillo.

Ok, so actually we got to Amarillo on Tuesday at about 2:30. The weather had been getting worse and worse, and we were driving through strong wind and some snow when we stopped. We called the weather service and found that the interstate 40 was closed due to blizzard. So, we were stuck. We started at a Flying J - Denny's. We originally thought that the road was just going to be closed until 5:00 AM, so we waited for that. When 5:00 came around, I-40 was now officially closed and we decided to go into Denny's. Kathryn and I bought some hot chocolate (it was delicious, the whipped cream fantastic and only $2). After our first cup, Kathryn discovered that it had unlimited refills. It was a wonderful discovery. Christina, Elisabeth and Josh came in as well, but didn't buy anything. Everyone was really tired (though I didn't really feel it that much). About 7:00 we tried the interstate only to find that it was, indeed, actually closed. So we stopped by a McDonalds (Christina wanted to get a spicy chicken sandwich) only to find nothing but breakfast food, and then parked at Walmart and slept for a few hours. We got up, then tried the freeway again, failed, and went to another McDonalds (after getting lost and finding a large granary-type thing). It was still breakfast food, so we just sat there and waited. I had a book to read, but Kathryn and Christina decided to take this time to do yoga in the corner. We were all pretty tired. When lunch food finally came, we all ate as much as we wanted, regardless of price. Finally, I-40 was open at about noon, so we took off. Josh was manly and drove through the tricky parts of the freeway. We got to Albuquerque, then took off toward Monticello. We had dinner at Grandma's house, then got home to Provo at about...

2:30 AM on Wednesday morning.

Breakthrough

I thought I would just write and let everyone know that for the first time in something like two years (one and a half) I again have internet at my apartment. It turned out that we had internet the whole time, but just because you are a scientist it doesn't mean that you are technologically savvy. I felt slightly sheepish to say the least.

Life as we know it

Well, summer is come and is now heading out. Since I have held radio silence for the past 6 months, I thought I would let all know what is going on with my life right now.
This summer I have been doing research with Dr. Gee. I study very intense sound wave propagation, also known as a part of nonlinear acoustics. I got to go with our research group here at BYU to the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) conference in Seattle where I presented two papers. I also got to associate with some really neat people at the conference, many of whom are really big names in the society. It made me feel like a real acoustician.
Another fun thing that I have had the opportunity to do this summer is go out to the Salt Flats and do some acoustical testing of exploding balloons. It was grand. Here are some pictures that might interest you.



All right, so the first picture isn't at the Salt Flats, but I was blowing up balloons then as well. And by blowing them up, I mean I was recording the acoustical data. These pictures were taken by a colleague of mine named John Boyle. They are pretty cool looking.

My church callings are presently ordinance worker at the Provo Temple, elder's quorum teacher and stake institute co-chair. Or, maybe just chair, as there hasn't been another co-chair called.

And I feel like having another random picture, so here:

Last Full Semester of Undergraduate Life

Dance 280 - Intermediate Social Dance
Physics 416 - Technical Writing
Physics 442 - Electrodynamics
Physics 452 - Quantum Mechanics 2
Econ 110 - Principles of Economics

That is my class load. All of them seem like they are going to be interesting/fun, though not necessarily easy. I took the PS100 exemption exam this past week, so now I don't have any more GE's to do other than Econ 110. I am getting eerily close to graduation.

I still work at the temple on Saturday mornings. I also just picked up my old job of tutoring in the physics lab again, so that I have a more steady and sure income.

Life is good. Definitely worth living.

You may have seen this coming...

So it's not an interstate per se, but the Al-Can Highway is just that cool!

Life Update

Life in Provo.

1. Classes

- a. Physics Classes

- i. Quantum Mechanics
This class is fun. My teacher is French, so that adds to the flavor of the class.

- ii. Electrostatics and Magnetostatics
This class is math intensive. My professor is Dr. Mason. He's cool. I really enjoy this class.

- iii. GRE Prep
So I am going to be taking the Physics GRE on Oct. 9. I need this class.

- iv. Careers in physics
I haven't actually started this class yet: it is a block class and is in the next half-semester.

- b. Other Classes

- i. Writings of Isaiah
I really enjoy this class. I am learning a lot from Dr. Ludlow, my teacher. I recommend it.

- ii. Social Dance
Who could have guessed that I would like dancing? :)

- iii. Matrix Analysis
So I am a little crazy, as this is a graduate level math class that I am taking voluntarily.

2. Temple Work
The temple is really nice. I work on Saturday mornings now. I feel that I am learning a lot. If any of you are in the temple with me, I would be happy to share some things that I have been taught by our temple presidency.

3. Ward
I am a co-chair of the activities committee. We recently had our ward opening social, and people tell me it was a big success. I was kind of stressed out at the time, so I don't consider myself a good judge of it. It seemed as though people enjoyed themselves, though. The next party we are going to have is probably going to be in October sometime.

4. Research
At 4:00 today (Tuesday Sept. 14) I am going to go to my adviser's office and submit my first paper, myself being first author. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It is about exploding balloons as demonstrations for graduate level acoustics classes. If anyone wants, I can explain it to you.

Well, I hope that this outline is better than the nothing that I have been posting recently. Enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of things not koala related. :)

For Our Loved Ones in Maryland

Stuff, gunk and whatnot

Sadly, I can not get my pictures to load onto the campus computers, so I will just have to barrage you all with them later. As a note, I actually have been taking more pictures as of late, even if they are all research related.

Speaking of research, it might be interesting to some to know what exactly I am doing this summer. I'll say it first in jargon, which makes more sense to me, and then I will try and clarify what I said. I am studying non-linear acoustics, in particular shocks in a plane wave tube. Dr. Gee has an awful lot of stuff that he wants to look into, but I don't think that I will have time to do much more than just one, which is shock coalescence.

Ok, before I go on, I should clarify that last paragraph. I am studying sound waves that are very loud, which means that we can't make a lot of the approximations and simplifications that are usually done. One example is the small angle approximation is no longer valid. When amplitudes of sound are that large, it turns out that the speed of sound is different for different parts of the waveform. This means that the shape of the wave can change, like this:
When the wave is perfectly vertical in any given position, it is said to have formed a shock. As anyone with some good calculus background could tell you, perfectly vertical slopes are pretty hard to work with in a mathematical sense. And shocks do some pretty funky things in the real world. For example, they eat each other. Usually sound just passes through each other, which means that if two people are talking to you at once, theoretically (I can't do it) you can get what both of them are saying. However, if they were talking with shocks, we have no idea what you would hear right now, especially if there was some nonlinear (very, very loud) noise with it. This eating process is called shock coalescence.

Ok, if you are still reading this, I congratulate you on your perseverance. Finally, I am studying the noise aspect of this shock coalescence. Very smart people have been able to show what happens if you have just one tone at these very loud levels, but people aren't really sure what will happen with random noise (like the noise off of jet aircraft...). Thus, I am building a tube which will allow us to play noise into it at very high levels (today I pumped up to about 155 dB sound pressure level) and see what will happen. However, we want to to this right, so I am spending a lot of time making sure that I build this tube correctly.

Any questions? Please ask them!

Let's see, anything else...? Here's this. While working I have been listening to Pandora, and I heard a song that I hadn't before, which I really like. It is called That's All by Genesis (it's a British rock band that has Phil Colins in it). Look it up, if you don't already know it.

Alaska

Well, I must say that I had a wonderful time in Alaska. The weather was great, the company, too, and I got to see Beluga whales. How awesome is that?

Here are some pictures that I was given of our trip.

My blogs need more inventive titles. Any ideas?

So that everyone will know, these pictures are in reverse chronological order.

This is Zephne Larsen. She is sad because she has not put on her previous researcher's name properly on his box. Her sad face is supposedly saying "Sorry Joseph!!!" This past Thursday night Jessica and I plus one more friend went down to her lab to help her finish getting data for the spring research conference yesterday. A little last minute flurry ensued. We finally left with some crude initial data that looked not too horrible and left at 2:00 am. What fun! I personally presented at 9:30 am yesterday, and don't think that I did too bad!
Ducks! I found a bunch of ducks on the lawn outside to the JSB and they were all asleep, and I thought it was cool enough for not just one, but two pictures!

Jessica is taking a music class and needs to attend several concerts. She was also allowed to go to mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine and count that if there was a live choir. So we went! The choir was very nice and I learned a lot. The bishop presided over the meeting. It just so happened that that day was also the day that they were going to place a time capsule in the corner of the cathedral. Here is a picture of the bishop putting the time capsule in the corner.
This is Jessica Morgan. She is resting on the wire mesh in the anechoic chamber. I took this picture because she kind of sorta not really looked like she was floating in the air. This was during one of our 5 minute breaks from homework. Homework and research basically govern our lives right now.
So we were doing optics in my Physics 245 class and for some reason, our batteries wouldn't work. So I pulled the batteries out to change them, and low and behold I found the reason that they weren't working.
Yep, the acid had leaked out. Not the prettiest thing that I've ever seen.

In addition to the dance that Jessica and I went to at her ward, my ward also hosted a party. It was called the Cinderella Ball, as those of us who don't have significant others would pick the shoe of one of the girls at the party beforehand, and then they would find out whose it was and they would become their dates. Interestingly, Alicia formerly Steagall and her husband Dan came as well. A little different for a singles ward, but hey, why not.
This was the first time that I had ever been in line for a test that reached out of the building and all the way to the JSB. The reason for it, however, was because of a printer problem, not excessively many tests.

Dance!

Recently Jessica's ward had a formal dinner and dance, and I got to go! We had a wonderful time, even if dancing isn't really what we did. We had a nice lasagna dinner, and then the dancing started. Being a single's ward, I get the feeling that they might have been straying from couple-dance music. The songs they played were really cool, but not for ballroom dance, which I have been practicing a little bit with Jessica. So we ditched the dance and found an unoccupied room and we read the rest of A Study in Scarlet, which we had been reading slowly at the time. Good book, and even better with good company. After we finished, we were going to go back to the dance, but the other couple in our group (Zephne and Chris), thought we had abandoned them, and were ready to go when they found us. So we decided to go as well. We went back to Chris's apartment and watched IQ. It was entertaining, especially now that I am mostly through my physics undergraduate classes. I think that Jessica and I found more things funny than the Chris's roommate and date, who were there also, because we knew that the physics they were referencing was really basic quantum mechanics, but puffed up to sound complicated.

Anyway, that was our dance night! Just like a high school prom they were taking pictures of the couples, and here are some that they took of us!

A day in the life of Michael

Well, life has been going well for me. School plus research plus temple plus girlfriend plus ward equals constantly busy. For example, yesterday I got up at 10:00, as I was somewhat sleep deprived, and I find Saturday and Sunday mornings to be ideal for catching up for the next week. I then took my roommate Andrew to the temple because he is also a temple worker and doesn't have a car. He often walks, but he was running late, so I drove him. It is good for me, as it gets me up and going. Then I went to campus and proceeded to work on my thermal physics homework until I needed to go to my ward service auction. A nice thing about working on homework is that Jessica, my girlfriend, has many of the same classes as me, so we get to work together. That makes me happy. :) Then we had our service auction, and that was nice. I left early (and didn't get to see my service, a Japanese dinner, get sold) because I heard my homework calling to be done before midnight. I didn't quite get it done, but I am really close with only a really easy problem left!

There you have it, a day in the life of Michael. In particular, a (somewhat typical) Saturday in the life of Michael.

Life

I decided that I should post something, even though not a whole lot is going on right now. Let me tell all what it is that I do do.

I'm taking seven classes here at BYU. The classes that I am taking are Basic Vocal Skills, World History until the Renaissance, Statistical Mechanics, Introduction to Mathematical Proofs, Optics, Computational Partial Differential Equations and Experiments in Modern Physics.

I really enjoy all of my classes, but they keep me on my toes. For example, yesterday I spent about 13 hours on my thermo (statistical mechanics) homework. Thermo tends to take a long time to finish. In my history class we have been reading selections from world literature, and I have found that I really enjoyed reading parts of the Illiad and the Ramyana. I even enjoy discussing their implications in class. This makes me think that a literature class might not be such a bad idea, as I had supposed when I first came to BYU. High school English class didn't give me warm fuzzies.

In addition to class work, I am also doing research. My current research is on exploding balloons. I work on high speed video of various exploding things. We want to post some to YouTube sometime, but we aren't there yet. I also am working on finding an analytic mathematical model for the balloon bursts. I am also still looking for a senior thesis, so my research could very well change soon.

I also work at the Provo Temple as an ordinance worker. That is a wonderful thing to do, in my mind.

Finally, if I have time left over, I usually spend it with my girlfriend, Jessica Morgan. It helps that she is in many of the same classes as me (particularly the long homework ones), so we get to work together a lot.

Here are some pictures!

Here is a picture of the snowman that Jessica and I built. A friend named Chris came over and help us on the cleaning up portion. We named him Calvin, and we found out that he is from Morocco. We also found out the next morning that he is fatally allergic to sunlight. He didn't last very long.



This picture is of my home: the homework lounge for physics majors. This is Zephne Larsen being attacked/hugged by friends.

I hope that you enjoyed the post!