Charlie bit my...

Youtube delivers once again.
Don't take your eye off the baby, he's hilarious.

Travelers are We

We took advantage of the holiday weekend (a week old story, I know) and journeyed up north to visit Taylor's sister in San Francisco. This is our fourth visit to the city, and it has become one of our favorites places. We are feeling less like tourists and more like regulars. Our friends, the Jeppesens, had not been so we were more than happy to have them join us and show them the best of San Fran. We had a fabulous time exploring the city, people watching, staying up late, and my personal favorite of this trip...delicious food. We went out to eat a lot at some pretty fantastic places that I give 2 thumbs up: The Cheese Steak Shop, La Boulange, House of Nan King in Chinatown, and the Dipsea Cafe in Sausalito. Yummm. We will miss having someone in the city to go and visit. Thanks Michelle and Aaron for showing us such a great time, every time.

top 10 things a scoutmaster does not...

...want to hear from the scouts on the overnight campout:

1) We didn't think we were going because it rained earlier.
2) Weren't you bringing dinner for us?
3) How come the bridge part of the road is also underwater? Are we driving through that?
4) This tent doesn't have any poles with it.
5) I brought 14 ramens.
6) Who brought the newspaper, wood and matches to get a fire going?
7) Why is the water coming out of this spicket white?
8) Didn't you bring plates, pots, and silverware? This stove doesn't work.
9) Who farted?
10) We used all the outhouse toilet paper starting the fire.

First overnighter was a success I suppose. I got to tell my scary night poem, which they loved. I particularly was happy when I got stuck in the tent which is just about big enough for a hobbit, it was the fetal position for me all night, because I couldn't come close to stretching my legs past bent knees. I really think it might have been one of those barbie tents we end up letting the lala or white mow live in.
Check out these pancakes the scouts made. I've never been so happy that I brought my own food in my entire life.

And in case you thought I was kidding about the river, behold. If you drove off the bridge (which you couldn't see and it had a turn somewhere on it) it would mean falling into 4-6 deep water and killing a van full of scouts.

sexy stache

I hate to admit it... but those BYU weirdos came up with something pretty dang funny this time.
enjoy the latest in funny videos I'm watching. If you don't hear anything that's ok, you will at exactly 37 seconds into it. I may or may not really want a sexy stache this year for Mustache May

LFHCfS

Someday... I will join this illustrious club:
The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists.


Go to the site found here. Search the archives. Admire the flowing luxuriousness of their bountiful hair. Stand in awe at the sheer volume of it. Appreciate the scientific goodness which it's growing out of.
Someday.

The whole Improbable Research site as a whole if very funny. go here to find it. It's done by Harvard as part of the Harvard Annals of Improbable Research (HotAIR). They showcase funny research and each year they hand out the "Ig Nobel prizes" for the most ridiculous, ignominious research like this one given out in the field of Medicine- MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects."

careful what you say...

... because you don't know who's listening. Or rather, you don't know the people who you know are listening.
I am a T.A. for Materials 101, Introduction to Structure and Properties. It's a general class which all the engineering students have to take at one point or another. All of the graduate students have to help T.A. a class like this as part of our stipend.
There are six of us T.A.'s this quarter. We give review sessions, supplemental instruction blah blah blah, what they really have us for is to grade homeworks and tests. So this Friday we have to grade the midterm. The professor was kind enough to offer to buy us pizza. He asked what kind we wanted and 4 or 5 out of the 6 T.A.'s are Catholic and as part of Lent they can't eat meat on Fridays so they sadly said cheese.... vegetarian... or whatever. I however happily endorsed a big fat pepperoni pizza. The professor couldn't understand why they didn't want meat so they explained Lent to him and then he starts in on this rant about an old co-worker he once had who was mormon. The guy only became a mormon because his wife was, and then he wouldn't even drink coffee or tea! Can you believe that?! how crazy! He eagerly started to go on and explain some other mormon oddities, but before he could embarrass himself further I said flatly "I'm mormon, and I don't drink coffee or tea." Wow. The awkward silence which ensued was priceless. Truth is I could care less and I don't get offended easily but it's pretty funny to watch the panicked look spread across someone's face.

BY THE WAY!
this site is really funny: Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics What's funnier still is that the information is really accurate and I often find myself referring to it for help in my Quantum and EPS classes.

The Legend of Bill Dodge

While I'm on the scouting subject, I'll tell the sordid tale of when I first met my brother-in-law, Baby Aaron. Other than seeing baby aaron for a brief second when I came home from camp for a wedding I didn't really meet him until the end of the summer when my mom, my sister Michelle, Baby Aaron, and the very newly returned from his mission Miles came up to Camp Loll to pick me up. We set off past Flagg Ranch towards Teton Village. We arrived and our journey across the beautiful Teton Crest began. We started by getting the first 4000 feet for free using the Tram (Rest In Peace) . Then the hike really began.
Here's Milo and his vintage "1950's Signature Sport Series Bill Dodge Mountaineering Backpack." Remember this backpack, it will come into play later.

We were off to a great start. Miles had been walking many miles a day down in Texas where he served his mission and I had done more hiking over the course of the summer working at camp than any one human should, my mom had trained everyday by hiking up Adams canyon, michelle is iron woman and had just ran the Spud-man triathlon if I'm not mistaken... and baby Aaron... well... baby aaron has itsy bitsy little ankles on long long legs, so we were a little worried about "the dentist's" ability to keep up.
We got to the top of the first big ascent near Marion Lake and things were good. We made many awkward jokes about whether baby aaron should be in the pictures because we wanted to use these for christmas cards and that meant he would have to marry my sister.
Here's the married Christmas card version (ignore the giant black blob in the lower right corner)

The non-married version

We started the last pitch up to Marion Lake and then things started getting a little weird. All of the sudden it seems Bill Dodge, the backpack, was so happy to be out of Miles' parent's garage and into the woods that he actually started to possess Milo. My normally tough guy friend put on a pair of his mothers jeans (literally), tied a fancy little scarf around his neck and started smelling the abundant, waist-high flowers....


Baby aaron was already skeptical.

We passed Marion Lake and started over Fox Creek Pass with our first glimpse of the Tetons coming into view. Important to the story is what appears to be a tiny square speck of white labeled below in the picture as Axle Rose. This is not what it appears to be. Axle Rose is GIGANTIC while boulder. It's at least 30 feet high I'd say. And just beyond Axle Rose is where we set up camp for the first night.


As I had led the hike of the Tetons many times I knew that bear bagging was important and that no better place could be found on Fox Creek Pass to bear bag than on the face of Axle Rose. So we started cooking as the rain started coming down.


We hurried and ate and pitched our tents. Then we gather all our smelly items and food and got ready to bear bag them. But we needed a bag. With scouts I'd always just take the ugliest pack and make it the bear bag doomed to swing high above the cold night holding our delicous smelly food. In this particular excursion there was just no question, Bill Dodge had to go. Miles protested, but seriously, there was no question. The pack had to go. We tied the rope with a hangman's noose high upon Axle Rose and left him. The rain was really starting to come down now. We had two tents, one for the girls, and one for the boys. Poor baby aaron got stuck with Mile-style and myself. Now we had all settled in when all the sudden WHAM! lightning struck really close by. It must have been RIGHT OVERHEAD! The rain kept coming down, the night was pitch black and lightning had us all terrified. That's when Miles started to tell the story of Bill Dodge. You see his last owner had abused the backpack too and Bill Dodge, the backpack, had come to life and killed him. We thought to ourselves how angry Bill Dodge must be hanging there alone on Axle Rose in the nightmarish rain and black wind. Then the lightning started sounding further off and we were left with the uncomfortable quiet of the rain drizzling on the tent. That's when Miles first suspected that Bill Dodge wasn't actually hanging there anymore at all. He figured the pack had had enough and was coming for us. Eerily Miles recreated the sound that the pack must make as it crawls back the hundred yards to our tents. clank... drag.... clank.... drag... The sound getting closer and closer. More and more like metal on rock. Soon Miles started saying that the pack wouldn't kill us itself. Our imaginations went wild. Already my mom and Michelle were begging Miles to shut up and not talk about it. But we couldn't stop now. We imagined how all the sudden the door of the tent would tear open and the person in the middle would be sucked out into the black night like a spaghetti noodle. Then Miles suggested that it would possess him to avenge the betrayal. Mom and Michelle in the tent next to us were already singing Primary songs at this point out of terror but Miles continued. Finally when my mom was crying we stopped but the damage was done. The terror was in all of us. Me and Miles included. We all sat still in the uneasy silence imagining the tell tale sound clank... drag...
Baby aaron woke up at one point in the night to adjust something or to go to the bathroom and I shoved my body halfway into his bag onto his comfortable pad. He was already frieked out because of Bill Dodge and his girlfriend's little brother spooning him all night but he didn't quite know what to make of this. I was doing all I could not to start laughing. He carefully tried to move me thinking I was still asleep. He pushed and pulled and finally just shoved me out of the bag. After a very long night morning finally came. To our horror Bill Dodge had an accident. The details are fuzzy. Some say he fell that morning when Michelle and baby aaron tried to take him down. I think it was more sinister than that. I think it was murder. Bill Dodge was dropped! He fell and exploded into a million pieces. Literally.

At this point, Miles was fully possessed with Bill Dodge's vengeful spirit. Baby aaron tried to make himself not look like a killer did his best to stich poor Bill Dodge up using dental floss. Literally. But poor Bill Dodge was no more. The pack had exploded, it wasn't good for anything but a trash bag now. The problem was that Miles had been carrying a lot of the heavy gear, so we took all the heavy stuff and redistributed it and made Miles carry mom's now heavy pack and made mom wear the pack of shame, Bill Dodge, the garbage pack.

The Tetons are beautiful. My favorite is how they name things such manly names. Arrowhead Peak, Battleship Mountain, The Death Shelf, Death Canyon, The Devils Stairs, Static Peak, Hurricane Pass, Alaska Basin and then amidst all the tough guy names they put in a few sissy ones like Marion Lake, Sunset Lake, and Paintbrush Canyon. Here's me on the Death Shelf.

And the Death Canyon...

The rain really unleashed all it's fury on us once we got to Sunset Lake. We bear bagged, but it was raining so bad at that point that we did a pretty crappy job and it was really more like a bear piñata. I mean, it was all of 5 feet off the ground. Anyways, it rained like 15 hours straight. It was torture! We were all miserable. Baby Aaron fought the rain vigilantly, trying to keep his girlfriend dry, the rest of us just accepted the fact that we would be in the cold, freezing, wet tent for 15 hours. Finally the rain stopped and we faced hurricane pass. Here we are, I'm particularly fond of baby Aaron's shorts over sweats look, very Sherpa.


Many long miles and blistered feet later we survived the Hurricane Pass and we hiked right under the Grand itself.

We then loved the hike down beautiful Cascade Canyon into Jenny Lake where we finally ended the ordeal.

I can't believe baby aaron didn't disappear for good after the terrifying ordeal. Seriously. He must have been meant to be part of the family to survive such an experience.

the curse continues...

I'm doomed to work in scouting for the rest of my life. In our last ward Jodi and I gave our introductory talks and I had to talk about working at Scout Camp and what happened a week later? We got called to be the Cubmasters in our ward. So we move to California and I waited until I had a calling already, two or three in fact, and then in my introductory speech I had to go and talk all about Scout Camp. Well, here I am the official new Assistant Scoutmaster in our ward. Go figure! I'm really excited though. I love scouts. I think I've even convinced our ward to let us go to Holcomb Valley for Summer Camp this summer! (one of my best friends happens to be the Camp Director there this year)
Here's a picture of your standard Scout Camp setting. The diehard staffer who has been living in the wilderness all summer and may or may not be nuts, the "adult leader" (white shirt left) who's barely 18 and acts like the boys, the kool-aid mustache 14 year old boy (blue shirt) and my favorite, the grungy unhappy child who wants to go home (far right, he actually did end up going home)




Here's a picture of when we hiked the entire Teton Crest in 1 day in four feet of snow (left to right; benihana, me, jonathan deveroux, wolverine)

And another picture of me with Andy clear back in 2001 working up in Yellowstone. (The pictures doesn't show it, but we'd covered ourselves in Mouri War Tattoos using Huckleberries)

selfless

Mitt Romney suspended his campaign at CPAC today. He accurately said that if he were to hold out until convention (his last chance at getting the nomination) he would be making it more probable that Hillary or Obama would ultimately win in November. This would mean the troops would be pulled out and our nation would be put in even more danger. He said “Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.” he later said “If this were only about me, I’d go on, but it’s never been only about me. I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America in this time of war, I feel I have to now stand aside, for our party and for our country.” This kind of selfless act is exactly why I wish he would be our next president. He was willing to put his own desires in 2nd place to what's best for the nation as a whole.

Now for a stark contrast you can look at the spoiler Huckabee. Time magazine writer Mark Halperin wrote “One of the biggest barriers to Mitt Romney becoming the nominee was Mike Huckabee, I don’t think Huckabee stands much of a chance to overtake McCain either, but he certainly stood in Mitt Romney’s way.” If Huckabee truly believed in the conservative positions he claimed to have he would have left the race when it was obvious he couldn't win. But by staying in the race Huckabee dramatically split the conservative vote and completely enabled McCain to win. What happened in West Virginia clearly shows this back-room dealing and collusion with John McCain which can be expected from such career politicians. No doubt Huckabee will receive the Vice-Presidential nod or some other cabinet position.

Our president should be one who leads selflessly as Romney has done. Even if he can't be our president he'll remain an example to me.

for shame...

I hate school newspapers. seriously. The Daily Chronicle at the U of U was bad enough. Every day the writers bemoaned the difficulties of living as a non-mormon in the oppresive Utah atmosphere. Difficulties include alcohol limits in beer, friendly smiles, courteous drivers, and the required institute class attendance for institute parking. (Shocking, I know)

Even worse is BYU's paper, the Daily Universe, consisting of heated debates over whether drinking Coke and Dr Pepper is against the word of wisdom, How-To articles on getting started on your genealogy, "Tunnel Singing", and the weekly schedule for night-games.

However, UCSB's paper, The Daily Nexus, is the worst thing I've seen yet. It is absolutely ridiculous. I am ashamed of it! UCSB's materials department ranks 3rd in the nation, all they've talked about since we first came during recruitment week is what an amazing institution of higher learning it is. And then you open the paper and the first thing you see is a graphically obscene comic depicting "ballcuzzi" and a whole page article on the Do's and Don'ts of "Ballcuzzi." You see once a week "the Wednesday Hump" malinforms the entire student body of the purpose of sexuality. Topics range from prostitutes, porn, cybersex, shaving and a whole range of filth I won't even mention. No wonder UCSB has the (unconfirmed) reputation of having the highest concentration of STD's than any other university. Other weekly columnist focuses on his unashamed illegal drug use. Just last week the article was a full page explanation of how to pass your company's random drug tests using a ziploc bag full of your friends urine duct taped to your stomach. Another drug article insisted that a few beers actually made the writer a better driver and advocated drunk-driving. I won't even delve into the horrors of the political or opinion articles, I might develop a heart condition. The annoyance finally became unbearable last week when UCSB hosted a huge Energy Technologies conference though. The writer they had cover the important conference was an absolute moron. The article had a few definitions for those who aren't familiar with the energy technology lingo. My favorites were (1) Methane: a potent greenhouse gas. and (2) Fuel Cell Technology: Works like batteries but more stable. Wow... I'm speechless. I read the full list to many of my fellow Materials Engineering graduate students and reactions ranged from shock to laughter to outright depression" These are the morons who will approve our funding someday?" Unfortunately that's all too possible.

seriously? Are you kidding me? They brag about what an amazing academic institution this is and then they have uninformed garbage in every newspaper misinforming all those who are unfortunate enough to pick it up. And in rebuttal all they say is "Nobody makes you read it" Sure, but if I'm the UCSB board of regents and I realize that the UCSB newspaper has it's name on it and is produced by the University, I'd at least want it to represent the values that the school espouses. Which apparently is blatant drug use, sex, beer-pong, and "progressive, liberated thought."Ok,I had to get that out of my system, now I can go back to studying for my 200B midterm. (a much better use of my time)

Jodi the amazing...

I would brag about my wife's amazing photography skills, but instead, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. She ROCKS! If you want to have cool family pictures taken and arranged... I think I know the person to do it for you!