Even though my mad scientist may develop a resemblance to Albert Einstein in 50 years, I'm still proud of him. He has finally chosen which research project he will be working on for the next 5 (we hope no more) years. It will be something called Combinatorial Study of Thermal Conductivity- what that means I have no idea, but I am trying to learn. He tells me that it basically means he is looking to discover new low thermal conductivity materials, but more so trying to understand the basic mechanism driving thermal conductivity- I still don't know what that means. Oh well. This project in particular will likely send us visiting or living in China or England. Hoora for adventures!He wouldn't be one to toot his own horn that he has already won over the love of his professor, but I will because I'm excited about it. Dr. David Clark with his fabulous British accent, who you can see here, is going to buy Taylor a laptop and is giving him his Bicycle. We truly do feel blessed because we have a whole like $2 in the bank and we know that we are constantly receiving Blessings from above to keep us going. So for now, I will try and keep that hair combed.
Sep 29, 2007
The Latest Graduate School Update
Even though my mad scientist may develop a resemblance to Albert Einstein in 50 years, I'm still proud of him. He has finally chosen which research project he will be working on for the next 5 (we hope no more) years. It will be something called Combinatorial Study of Thermal Conductivity- what that means I have no idea, but I am trying to learn. He tells me that it basically means he is looking to discover new low thermal conductivity materials, but more so trying to understand the basic mechanism driving thermal conductivity- I still don't know what that means. Oh well. This project in particular will likely send us visiting or living in China or England. Hoora for adventures!He wouldn't be one to toot his own horn that he has already won over the love of his professor, but I will because I'm excited about it. Dr. David Clark with his fabulous British accent, who you can see here, is going to buy Taylor a laptop and is giving him his Bicycle. We truly do feel blessed because we have a whole like $2 in the bank and we know that we are constantly receiving Blessings from above to keep us going. So for now, I will try and keep that hair combed.
Sep 22, 2007
Santa Barbara
Well... we arrived. It was an awful trip and sure enough Nevada did all it could to keep us from getting here, but we wouldn't be stopped. Jodi's parent's car started to break down in Primm, Nevada aka: the middle of nowhere.
We continued to think it would just ''get better'' by driving it in the blistering heat of the Mojave Desert (great idea?). The poor car was only going like 30-40 mph! Uphills it was even worse! You can't imagine how embarrassing it is to be passed by every fat trucker out there. Finally we got to Barstow where a seedy looking mechanic said it was the catalytic converter and that if we didn't fix it right then we'd burn it up entirely by continuing to drive on it. Fred decided he was full of it so we headed for the next town for a second opinion but didn't get there without the car breaking down! Who knew? the creepy mechanic knew what he was talking about! Turns out when fuel is burning too rich it will cause your catalytic converter to overheat and be ruined. Fred's Buick eats oil like mad (it burned 2 quarts going from Cedar City and back) so that makes sense now. Anyway so Jodi's poor parents had to leave the car in Victorville, the worst place on earth. Finally after driving miserably slow across the desert with a dying car we all had good vehicles and we made good time getting home.
Santa Barbara was like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Let us show you our new home... it's in the family student housing of UCSB.
Our apartments are like 8 blocks from the beautiful cliff lined beach and 8 blocks from where my office is at school! That means I'll have to suffer from a 3 minute commute each day (pretty rough, I know).
The city of Santa Barbara is on a narrow strip of land pinned between the ocean on one side and the green beautiful mountains on the other.
There's tons of shopping and food places all nearby. Our apartment itself is a two story, two room townhouse. It is on the second and third floor of a really pretty park like complex with huge trees and birds all over the place. The apartment has 3 balconies with glass doors and little shutters we can have on them. We are so happy! We have plenty of room for all of our stuff coming from our little one room basement apartment.
Here's the video tour: (my apologies for the less than spectacular filmography)
We continued to think it would just ''get better'' by driving it in the blistering heat of the Mojave Desert (great idea?). The poor car was only going like 30-40 mph! Uphills it was even worse! You can't imagine how embarrassing it is to be passed by every fat trucker out there. Finally we got to Barstow where a seedy looking mechanic said it was the catalytic converter and that if we didn't fix it right then we'd burn it up entirely by continuing to drive on it. Fred decided he was full of it so we headed for the next town for a second opinion but didn't get there without the car breaking down! Who knew? the creepy mechanic knew what he was talking about! Turns out when fuel is burning too rich it will cause your catalytic converter to overheat and be ruined. Fred's Buick eats oil like mad (it burned 2 quarts going from Cedar City and back) so that makes sense now. Anyway so Jodi's poor parents had to leave the car in Victorville, the worst place on earth. Finally after driving miserably slow across the desert with a dying car we all had good vehicles and we made good time getting home.
Santa Barbara was like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Let us show you our new home... it's in the family student housing of UCSB.
Our apartments are like 8 blocks from the beautiful cliff lined beach and 8 blocks from where my office is at school! That means I'll have to suffer from a 3 minute commute each day (pretty rough, I know).
The city of Santa Barbara is on a narrow strip of land pinned between the ocean on one side and the green beautiful mountains on the other.
There's tons of shopping and food places all nearby. Our apartment itself is a two story, two room townhouse. It is on the second and third floor of a really pretty park like complex with huge trees and birds all over the place. The apartment has 3 balconies with glass doors and little shutters we can have on them. We are so happy! We have plenty of room for all of our stuff coming from our little one room basement apartment.
Here's the video tour: (my apologies for the less than spectacular filmography)
Sep 21, 2007
better than hold music at least...
We know you're probably all anxiously waiting to see pictures or videos from our new home in Santa Barbara... but it's still not ready! Unpacking has been horrendous. that's right, I said it, horrendous. So to tide you over until we get it done please enjoy another of my favorite videos...
Sep 17, 2007
BEAT IT !!!
Well it's about time for us to leave for California... of course we had to get in one last good old hillbilly time with family and friends. So we had the whole gang over and hilarity ensued.
Did Ryan get naked? Nope.. not this time.
Did we put alicia's old cheerleader clothes on Maggie? Nope... not this time.
Did we convince Andy to eat another one of Maggie's dog biscuits containing Bone Mill just by dipping it in Michelle's wedding chocolate fountain leftover? Nope... not this time
Even better; Ryan was watching football downstairs and Alicia begged Andy and me to go and frisk him and try and get the car keys. We agreed but decided it would be a bad thing to take him on in a fair fight since our combined weight is still only as much as one of his legs... so we had the great idea of wearing Mexican wrestler masks to hide our identity. We quickly came to the realization that no paper bag was going to fit over Andy's enormous melon so we improvised and used one of mom's nylons.
Man it's amazing how much a common household nylon will make your best friend look like OJ Simpson. seriously. Anyway with Andy's nylon in place to disguise his identity we were free to try and trick Ryan into standing up from watching the game so Andy could pounce from behind.
Well.. nothing seemed to work. He was really into the game so finally Alicia had to call him upstairs and right then when Andy was about to pounce from behind Ryan saw him out of the corner of his eye and things went bad.
Andy leaped face forward, Ryan leaned back and dodged his assailant who proceeded onward on his original trajectory to the floor where Ryan quickly rolled onto him and put his knee into his chest immobilizing his would be attacker. It was a pretty good time. Did Maggie the 3-legged dog get involved? yup. you know it.
We proceeded to have a great time. Jodi and I are so sad we have to leave so many friends behind. We love it here, but bigger, better things await us in Santa Barbara.
So I cut my hair(not to be outdone by my wife), we rented a truck, we load it today and then we're off. The next post will most certainly be from sunny California. If only that dang Nevada weren't in the way!
Did Ryan get naked? Nope.. not this time.
Did we put alicia's old cheerleader clothes on Maggie? Nope... not this time.
Did we convince Andy to eat another one of Maggie's dog biscuits containing Bone Mill just by dipping it in Michelle's wedding chocolate fountain leftover? Nope... not this time
Even better; Ryan was watching football downstairs and Alicia begged Andy and me to go and frisk him and try and get the car keys. We agreed but decided it would be a bad thing to take him on in a fair fight since our combined weight is still only as much as one of his legs... so we had the great idea of wearing Mexican wrestler masks to hide our identity. We quickly came to the realization that no paper bag was going to fit over Andy's enormous melon so we improvised and used one of mom's nylons.
Man it's amazing how much a common household nylon will make your best friend look like OJ Simpson. seriously. Anyway with Andy's nylon in place to disguise his identity we were free to try and trick Ryan into standing up from watching the game so Andy could pounce from behind.
Well.. nothing seemed to work. He was really into the game so finally Alicia had to call him upstairs and right then when Andy was about to pounce from behind Ryan saw him out of the corner of his eye and things went bad.
Andy leaped face forward, Ryan leaned back and dodged his assailant who proceeded onward on his original trajectory to the floor where Ryan quickly rolled onto him and put his knee into his chest immobilizing his would be attacker. It was a pretty good time. Did Maggie the 3-legged dog get involved? yup. you know it.
We proceeded to have a great time. Jodi and I are so sad we have to leave so many friends behind. We love it here, but bigger, better things await us in Santa Barbara.
So I cut my hair(not to be outdone by my wife), we rented a truck, we load it today and then we're off. The next post will most certainly be from sunny California. If only that dang Nevada weren't in the way!
Sep 14, 2007
A new haircut
I have a sassy new haircut which Taylor is slowly learning to love. I sure like it though, and who knows, maybe next I'll shave it! For now Taylor is enjoying having longer hair than me.
Sep 10, 2007
Jodi's first photo shoot
I shamelessly hock my wife as an amazing photographer because she's too humble to do it herself. Here's some pictures from her first real photo shoot. True the only payment was a free cd and an I.O.U. for a cheeseburger, but you gotta start somewhere. The band is called Pleasant Tree and they're pretty cool, you can hear some of their music here. Our good friend Jordan Holloman (shown below in grayscale) is their bass player and worked with us out on Catalina Island.
My wife took amazing pictures of their band though. I'll put a few here for you to see, but they are the raw files without any editing yet so they'll be better soon.
My wife took amazing pictures of their band though. I'll put a few here for you to see, but they are the raw files without any editing yet so they'll be better soon.
Sep 9, 2007
The great city of Parowan and the Iron County Fair
Well as if we haven't traveled enough in the past 3 or 4 months we decided to visit Jodi's sister Carry's family in Cedar City. The trip was great. Carry and Vance have a sweet cabin way up in the Dixie National Forest with horses and several acres.
The place was really neat. they have 3 horses we got to ride. I got stuck on the fat old one named Deacon. To get Deacon to do just about anything you've got to sit there and kick him a ton. At one point I was doing Judo-Karate-KungFu and that sucker was still just mosying on down the trail at his slowest walk.
We had a really great time at the cabin though... until we went and checked on the spring. The bucket which collects the water seeping through the rock needs a new lid because things can get into it and therefore into our water supply. When we cracked open the lid we discovered a bedraggled, half-drowned chipmunk. Chipmunk terd water... delicious.
The next day Vance insisted on us going to the Iron County Fair in Parowan. He assured us it would be a great time. So we arrived and discovered that fairs anywhere are all the same. Just gross.
Now the fair did have it's high points. Hog calling, Demo Derby, Mud-boggin..... Jodi took 2nd place in the husband calling contest and I took 3rd in the wife calling.
Vance took 3rd in the pie eating contest and we all got a free lunch from the hotdog and watermelon eating contest.
But the best part by far was the goofy County royalty. This was ridiculous! There were like 10 girls running around in fantastic clothing like you see above with the biggest hair you've ever seen. My favorite was the green rhinestone shirt with American flags.
The place was really neat. they have 3 horses we got to ride. I got stuck on the fat old one named Deacon. To get Deacon to do just about anything you've got to sit there and kick him a ton. At one point I was doing Judo-Karate-KungFu and that sucker was still just mosying on down the trail at his slowest walk.
We had a really great time at the cabin though... until we went and checked on the spring. The bucket which collects the water seeping through the rock needs a new lid because things can get into it and therefore into our water supply. When we cracked open the lid we discovered a bedraggled, half-drowned chipmunk. Chipmunk terd water... delicious.
The next day Vance insisted on us going to the Iron County Fair in Parowan. He assured us it would be a great time. So we arrived and discovered that fairs anywhere are all the same. Just gross.
Now the fair did have it's high points. Hog calling, Demo Derby, Mud-boggin..... Jodi took 2nd place in the husband calling contest and I took 3rd in the wife calling.
Vance took 3rd in the pie eating contest and we all got a free lunch from the hotdog and watermelon eating contest.
But the best part by far was the goofy County royalty. This was ridiculous! There were like 10 girls running around in fantastic clothing like you see above with the biggest hair you've ever seen. My favorite was the green rhinestone shirt with American flags.
Sep 5, 2007
the ultimate showdown
the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny...
this could be the coolest thing ever.
home sweet home!
our couch-surfing tour comes back home... that's right. After bouncing from aunts and uncles to sisters and brothers to cars and islands all over California we've finally come home. We've mooched a free bed, couch, blow-up mattress or unused section of the road to sleep everywhere from LA, Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, Monterrey and even San Francisco. But finally, we're home at last. That's not say that we're here to stay, but since we don't move permanently to Santa Barbara until the 18th of September we figured if we're going to be living out of boxes still we'd at least like to be comfortable. Before we left beautiful northern Cali we did get to see some awesome sights. Here we go...
First off Monterrey was SWEET! Emily and Jeremy were super nice to let us stay there. 
We loved the aquarium there. It was about the coolest thing we've ever seen. I especially liked the giant tank of sharks, tuna and sunfish. Jodi loved the jellyfish...
Watching them feed the fish was way sweet too.
Then we went to Carmel where we saw awesome Lamborghini's, Michael Caine, cool paintings
and the beautiful 17-mile drive (shown above). I've never seen people so rich that they actually make people pay to just drive by and look at their fancy gated driveways.
After possibly wearing out our welcome in Monterrey we headed for San Francisco to visit my awesome sister, Michelle, and her husband, Aaron. We loved it there. The people watching is so much fun! That place truly is a human game preserve. There are the strangest types of people you can imagine that would only survive in that city.
We of course rode bikes to Golden Gate park where we saw a gigantic, purple, half-submerged head,
a craw-daddy that wanted to fight, and tons of other sweet things.
Jodi took amazing pictures as usual.
900 miles and 13 hours later we finally conquered Nevada though and made it home. Wheww! but the adventure didn't stop there... next post: Cedar City and the Parowan Iron County Fair.
the dogumentary
At long last it's here. behold, the dogumentary, if you dare...
(not for the faint of heart)
(not for the faint of heart)
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