School Again...

I'm done with my first week of school.  It has gone well, but I can see that it will be a lot of work this semester.

My first class is Artificial Intelligence.  It seems like a cool class that includes a lot of computer programming.  I'll have to learn a new programming language called Python which will take some time, but I'll be able to do cool things.  One of the projects that we will work on is to design part of a pacman game.  From what I've learned in the class so far, we are a long ways away from having robots take over the world.

My other class is called Intro to Robot Control.  It also should be pretty fun.  We'll be writing programs to control a robot arm that throws a ball, and working with the controls of each motor in that robot arm to make it aim and throw at a certain speed.

I am also a TA for the ME 1010 class where I teach Solidworks, a 3D computer aided drafting program, and MATLAB, a coding program.  The classes are a lot smaller than last semester so I won't be running around as much answering questions.

Overall, school is going pretty well.

Go up Higher

The name of my blog comes from a parable in the scriptures.  It was one that I found on my mission that taught me a great lesson about how to seek perfection while still being humble.

Jesus was the master teacher.  He took every opportunity to teach those around Him.  In this story, He was invited into the house of one of the chief Pharisees for supper.  There were quite a few of the big guys there, the lawyers and Pharisees were the upper class and had a lot of pride.  The story starts in Luke 14:7.

7  And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them,

So Jesus might have pointed out that some of them had gone straight to the spot nearest the head of the table or the places of honor in the house.  They all thought that they were more important than the others and that they deserved the honor.

8  When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

9  And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

How embarrassing it would be for you if you have sat down in the place of honor all ready for the feast to have a more honorable person come in and the host ask you to move down and sit somewhere else.  To make it worse, you have lost any chance to sit in that room because the other spots are also taken and you realize you have no importance.

10  But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.
11  For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

This shows true humility.  We shouldn't set ourselves up in a position to be praised and honored, but instead we should be humble and true praise, honor, and exaltation will be given to us by our Friend, Jesus Christ.

As for me when I was on my mission, I didn't need to go around with the attitude that I was so righteous and should be honored for my position as a missionary, but instead, I was to do the things I was called to do and be content with what the Lord gave to me and when He would give it.

All of us are striving for perfection.  We want to be like our Heavenly Father through developing Christlike attributes.  But the first thing to remember is that we do this through humility.  We are not any better than our brother or sister next to us, and we cannot know the thoughts and intents of their hearts.  There will be a day when the Savior comes to us, knowing our hearts, and will say, "Friend, go up higher".

Scouching

skiis

+

couch

=

scouch

During this last week I went up with a bunch of friends to go scouching. They had taken skiis and mounted them to the bottom of a couch. Then you get about four people on there and go down a snow/ice covered hill. You have one person on each side to steer by braking with their feet when needed. We went up to Dimple Dell Golf Course up Parley's Canyon. It was a lot of fun. You can get the scouch going pretty fast. The only drawback is pushing the scouch back up the slippery hill.

Wasatch Back Relay

I'm running in the Wasatch Back Relay on June 18 and 19. It really doesn't seem that far away anymore and I have a lot of work to do to prepare for it. My family has done a lot of races and triathlons, but I've usually been too busy with school. I thought that I would make time for this one though.

The whole thing is 188 miles divided up into 12 people. It goes from Logan to Park City. I've got three legs of the race, one of the legs is going uphill, but the other two should be fairly easy (as in flat). If I keep running to prepare myself, I think it will go well. If I don't, well, I think I might die.

I was running

So, I decided it was time to go out running to prepare for the Wasatch Back Relay. So, I went running with a friend. It was good because it really helps to have someone pace me and keep me going so I don't stop when I first start getting tired. We just kept running. She had a route that she likes to take but it ended up to be about 5 miles. I'm pretty tired now, but it's a good start. I'll really have to get into a routine so I can keep it up when school starts.

New Apartment continued

I found my camera battery charger so I was able to take pictures of my apartment so that you all can see how it is.

This is my bed...

This is my desk, bookcase, and window.

This is my bookcase, door and dresser.

This is the night view from my bedroom window.

and another...

and the view in the morning.

Here is a movie, because pictures don't get as much.

I start going in from the front door, then you see the kitchen, the living room, my bedroom, my roommate's bedroom (he moves in today sometime), and the bathroom.

If you want to see any more than this, you're going to have to come and visit.

Sigma

At the start of the Fall semester I knew that I wanted to get more involved in Institute and other activities. When I went to Rush Week, I found out about the Institute Fraterity, Sigma Gamma Chi. Rush week is where they have a big outdoor party and you can join one of the chapters. I thought that it sounded fun and would be a great way to get involved. A friend and I walked around and looked at all the different chapters that there were and we chose Sigma. I didn't really know what I was getting into, but I knew that there would be activities and new friends so I was good to go.

I don't really have too many pictures to document it all, but here is what I have. We have activities every Wednesday where we get together and do something fun. Also, every week there is pizza night at the Pie Pizzeria. We also had exchanges with the sorority chapters where we get together with the girls. Some of those included playing football, going to the Haunted Village, a picture scavenger hunt, and others. Everyone worked hard to plan activities and that made it a lot of fun.

One activity that we had was called "Catch a Cougar". We carpooled down to BYU and walked around campus asking girls out. When we "caught" one, we met up with the rest of the guys at the Brick Oven for pizza. It certainly put me out of my comfort zone, but we all found girls and had an enjoyable night. I'm in this picture...just behind the other people, so you'll have to pretend to see me.

Another activity was the Battle of the Chapters. All of the fraternity and sorority joined together and each fraternity chapter was paired up with a sorority chapter. During the week, we collected food for the food drive, then we met together at the SLCC campus. There were games, relay races, tug of war, crab soccer and tons of other competitions.

Our advisor's brother owns the Rio Tinto Stadium, so we were able to go watch a REAL soccer game and sit in the owner's suite. It was a lot of fun. The owner's son also served in the Rome Italy Mission with me, so it was good to see him there too.

Sigma Gamma Chi stands for Service to God and Country. The whole fraternity includes about 12 different chapters. Each chapter has about 30 to 40 guys. It is awesome to see that good that it does. All the activities built unity and brotherhood. We did service projects and did a couple of temple trips. There were a lot of other activities that were really great. One of the best things is to hang around people who have the same values as you do. I'm glad that I am a part of it, and I look forward to when things start up again next semester.

Graduation!!!

Since I haven't posted anything for the past year, I thought it would be good to catch up on a few things. With so many big things happening over the last year, it will take several posts to catch up. I'll hit the highlights.

I graduated with a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering in May of 2009. It was an exciting day because I knew that I was done with a giant step of life. There were mixed feelings though. It was exciting to know that I would have the first summer off of school for a while, but it felt like a brick wall coming fast because I didn't have any fixed plans for a career. With the economy being how it is, I wasn't too excited to go on the job hunt yet. Also, I wanted to go to graduate school right away so I could keep my momentum instead of having to decide to go back one day.

Anyway, it turned out to be a great day with the friends I had spent a few years with in the classroom. In engineering, you usually take most of the core classes in order so you are with the same people for four years.

Weston was in my classes at Salt Lake Community College and transfered up to the University of Utah with me when we got our Associates.

I met Patrick while working at Heath Engineering. He was also in my classes when I transferred up to the U. His wife graduated at the same time also. I also met James when I transferred up. He went to the Milan Italy mission so we also took some Italian classes, which was a great break from Engineering classes.

I couldn't have done it without the help of my parents. It is impossible to list all the things that parents do for you in your life. Helping me stay out of debt by letting me live at home was very appreciated. It was also nice to be able to get advice from people that had been through it all before. Thanks Mom and Dad!

And you can still be dumb, even after you graduate.

New apartment

I moved twice in the last month! That is something I never really want to do again, so I'll wait a few months before I move again. My lease ended for my house in Bountiful and we all had to be out by November 30th. I had started looking for a new place up closer to the University of Utah, but hadn't found anything that felt right. I could have chosen between living with three 40 year old roommates or living right next to a busy road with a landlord that wanted to run the lives of the tenants. Exciting! I chose to wait, which meant that I would move into Mom and Dad's house for a couple of weeks. If you ever want your life to feel displaced for a month or so, move all your belongings into a pile into your parents basement and sleep in the guest room. While I'm thankful for their hospitality and having to put up with a basement full of junk...or extra junk...I was ready to get out on my own again.

I talked to my friend Rich at church and mentioned that I had moved out and was looking for a place. He told me that he was going to be renting out a two bedroom apartment in the Medical Plaza Towers up by the school and that I could have one of the rooms. It seemed like a great deal, but it was a difficult decision since we would not be able to look at the apartments until it was time to move in. I felt like it was a good deal though so I told him I would do it.

I moved in on December 17th with the help of Dad, Jason, and Geoff. Thanks for helping! (Also thanks to Steve for helping me move my stuff to my parents house.) I have great friends and brothers. Rich actually isn't moving in until January 7th so I've had the whole place to myself for a few weeks.

So there it is, I'm moved and settled into my new apartment. My room is a lot smaller than the one I had in Bountiful, but all my stuff fits in nicely. One of the best things about my apartment is that it is so close to school. It has been nice to be able to do things up at school and get there in two minutes rather than twenty five or more minutes. I'm on break from school between the semesters, but I'm sure I'll appreciate it even more when school starts back up again.

I can't find my camera battery charger yet, so I can't take any pictures of the inside of the apartment yet, but I will when I find it. There was a picture of the outside on the internet though, so there you go. I live on the seventh floor. It's a different experience to live in a tall apartment building, but it makes a nice view.

Happy New Year

I've decided to start a new blog with the new year. Hopefully I'll write more in this one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I can't believe it is 2010. The new year has brought a lot of changes in my life, so there are plenty of things to report on, but since I don't want to write one big long post that people get sick of reading by the end, I'll spread it out into different posts.

Here are some of my goals for the new year. Hopefully these goals can help me stay more on task.

• Daily Personal Devotional - Praying, reading the scriptures, and writing down impressions are the best ways to open up a connection with Heavenly Father. I have noticed that this really does make a difference in my life. For some reason, I seem to have an extra hour or two in my day if I do this.

• Plan tasks better - Start early and finish projects before deadlines. I learned this lesson the hard way last semester. It takes a lot of motivation to plan the hard stuff first and get it done so that you can have more free time later. Guiltless free time is more beneficial.

• Quality over quantity - It is easy for me to make a lot of friends, not that this has been my goal, but it just seems to happen. Having a few friends know you really well is better than being able to say hi to hundreds of acquaintances. Recognizing the people that love you most is important as well. I have an amazing family that is always there for me.

These goals don't really have a start or an end, but they are something I can think about to make my life better.