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!

Not the Route

An interesting and varied life

This blog is devoted to pictures I have taken (somewhat) recently. After a picture I will give a brief explanation of it. If further details are desired, please comment!

This is just a really pretty scene I saw coming home one night. I usually come home at times when there is no sun.
This is me doing an experiment for class.
We were measuring current through salinated water.
We were trying to find out whether electrolysis depended on amount of surface area and distance.
We tried a couple of methods of showing this.
Our conclusion was that it does matter.
You can tell which side made hydrogen and which side made chlorine gas by the color of the water.
It was an interesting experiment.
And the crowd came a tumbling down...
BYU vs. UofU. I like the sea of blue and the oasis of red feeling.
Thanksgiving pies at the Oxboroughs!
I like ice cream. I like liquid nitrogen. I don't know if you can get much better than this!
This is a pretty scene that I saw. I'm not sure, but I think that it was coming back from the temple.
I have always wanted scriptures in a raisin box. Not really, but I really liked the idea. Maybe Kathryn could do something like this...
This is having too much fun with liquid nitrogen. This is the result of a wrench, water, nitrogen, water, nitrogen, water, nitrogen, water, ... , ... , ... , and then a torque. You can see the layers of ice if you look carefully.
This is a picture of a different experiment involving superconductors.
The great 2 meter stick balancing act. Sometimes the tutorial lab got kind of slow.
Provo temple.
Isn't it pretty?

Well, that's it for my brief summary. Let me know if more details on any of these are desired.

Finally! I am updating my blog!

This is a picture of Clara, Jordan and Crystal's daughter. In addition to it being really cute, it is the background of my phone, hence, here it is.

These are pictures from the Muhlestein family reunion. I finally got them on the computer.

Here is a pot that my Uncle Jim showed us on our trip.

This is a pretty sunset that I saw from my apartment building.

This is a rocket test put on by ATK, and my acoustics class came on a field trip here. It was really cool, and totally worth the four hours we spent total on the trip. It lasted about 2 minutes, and discharged a huge amount of fuel. Next to the plume it was about 1/3 the temperature of the sun. It also had about 150 dB at 40-50 Hz (really loud at low frequencies). We were a mile and a half away, and it was still really loud. After it had started it took the sound about five seconds to reach us. It was really, really cool. If anyone gets the chance to see one of these, you should take it.

This is after the rocket had finished. This huge plume of smoke looked like it was a volcano. A plane flew by afterward, and it apparently caused a huge fuss among authorities. I thought it looked nifty, so I took a picture.

Andrew Westover, my roommate and former mission companion, had a birthday, and he threw himself a party. He made shabu shabu, which literally means 'splash splash'. It was really tasty.

My acoustics class also went to Eagle Mountain and we did a survey of noise related issues from a skate park. It was really fun. This is my advisor, Dr. Gee.

This is a sound level meter, which we used to measure how loud things were at various places.

Here is a picture of some houses nearby the skate park. The most vocal complainer of the noise lives on the right-most house.

Here is a picture of the skate park and our little outpost (the blue tent on the left hand).

Here is our group. We ordered pizza, and they delivered to a blue tent in the middle of a field! It was also really, really good pizza. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.

Pretty fall pictures around Provo.

Well, that concludes the various pictures that I have finally been able to put online. I lost my cord, but Daddy and Mother decided that I needed to get them online before Christmas, so I was allowed to borrow Daddy's cord. Life is going well, I'm busy and really enjoying physics. Perhaps a little too much...

How Michael Gets Sunburns

Well, I don't really have many pictures of this. I guess my wit will have to carry you through on this one. The week before last we went to the Muhlestein family reunion. That was great. On Thursday we arrived (and that's about all we did, as it took us a while to get there).

Friday we went on a three hour hike (a three hour hike...). Like my commentary suggests, it took longer than that to do, primarily because not everyone could keep up with Uncle Jim, even on his slower speeds. Daddy tried to slow him down by making him carry Macey, Peggy and Seth's daughter and his granddaughter, but he kept up the speed as usual. Dennis commented on how he knew that that would happen, and then the others wouldn't have any excuses. We went down one side of a canyon, went up the other, hike a little bit, went down a little bit and saw a really cool Anasazi pot. It's pretty well hidden from the casual viewer. We had lunch, and everyone drank all of their water at this point. We went back up, over and down, then took a turn and went and saw seven kivas. That was really cool, but everyone was getting really thirsty, as it was hot, so people started to want to leave. Before we left, however, Uncle Jim gave us a brief lecture on the Anasazi. The main point he wanted to leave with us was that the Anasazi, while interesting, were not good people, being very violent, hateful and even canaballistic. We hiked back out and went back to the cabin. Everyone was dehydrated, and even though I didn't get any real sunburns (for once I actually put on sunscreen), I do think that I came down with either severe dehydration or mild heat exhaustion, as I had a headache and was quite naseous on the ride home. Back at the cabin we had Hawaiian haystacks, and I took some medicine and went to bed. Mother took Tanner, Elisabeth and Ruth Checketts and went back up to Bountiful, as Tanner needed to weigh in for football.

Saturday I woke up and found that the very edges of my neck had been singed slightly. We then went to Bluff to see some cool exhibit on the Hole in the Rock-ers. Gerald Lund has a new book out about them called the Undauntables, I think. They were really cool folk. On all of these drives I spent a lot of time with the cousins about my age (i.e. Uncle Randy's kids) and found that they are really cool, not annoying, and have really shnazzy music tastes. One song in particular that has stuck with me is a song from Slumdog Millionaire called Jai Ho. I am finding more and more people who like Bollywood. I have come to the conclusion that I am going to watch the show Lagaan, which I hear is one of the best that Bollywood has to offer. Back at the cabin, we had lunch of Navajo Tacos and then took a nap. In the evening we had a big family history shindig and learned about a lot of my ancestors on my paternal side of my family. We had to cut it a little short as me and my family needed to get home for church. Well, mostly my family. We drove home through the night.

Sunday, as a brief note, I messed up on my alarm and found myself waking up at about ten o'clock. My church started at nine. I decided to, instead, go to Kathryn's ward, which was fun attending with her.

That Thursday (same week, three days ago) was Daddy's birthday and I got to go and get ice cream with Kathryn with Daddy. That was fun.

Friday I cleaned. A lot. I got everything ready for cleaning checks and went north to Bountiful. We had Chinese food and went to bed a little early for Saturday.

Saturday I hiked Timp. We got up at about 4:00, got ready and went to Salt Lake to pick up Dr. Shou and Dr. Tzu (I'm guessing at the spelling of the names) and headed for Timpanookee. It was just light enough that we could see where we were going. It was slightly cool, but I had a sweater on. It never got cold, and soon everyone had doffed their warmer clothes. When the sun came out I rolled down my sleeves and donned my hat so that I looked like a newsie sort of. The only problem was that it didn't really cover my neck, so those parts of my neck that weren't slightly burnt before became burnt. None of my burns were bad though, so I am all right. We got to the top in good time. Daddy felt really tired so he stopped at the saddle and didn't summit with us. George got to go for the first time this time, and he really liked it except for the fact that he started to get a little sick from the altitude. Tanner nearly ran up the whole thing, except for us restraining him. The Chinese doctors did very well, though they were also tired by the end. Once we started back down, George realized he had run out of water. Shortly thereafter, Tanner ran out of water. I was next, then Morgan and then Daddy. And this was before we got even a fourth of the way back down. And it was rather hot for a hike. Needless to say I got dehydrated, as did everyone else. I also got blisters regardless of two pairs of socks, boots and a spare change of socks which I used somewhere on the way back down (testimony of my sedentary lifestyle of the summer). About five minutes above the upper falls, Daddy fell and twisted his ankle. He sent George, Tanner, Morgan and me on ahead, as we were all dehydrated and it wouldn't help for us to be there, and he slowly limped down aided by the two doctors. Can you think of a better way of getting injured on the trail than on the way down with two doctors as your helpers? Dr. Sho had also saved a bit of his water, which saved my father greatly. Mother was at the bottom of the path waiting (I think) with ice water and food. Iwas most grateful for those things, and was thoroughly tired. I also got very stiff and achy joints. I took medicine and went to bed at 8:30'ish.

Sunday came around and I woke up, with much less stiffness, though the blisters are still there.

And there you have it! Hopefully it was entertaining enough to read the whole way through, notwithstanding the lack of pictures. Wait, I do have one! Just, I didn't take it...