fitting in

Hello readers from St. George!

Yes, Mojo has taken the trip down to the hot part of the state with KB and her family.  Apparently she got a lot of lip about inviting a boy down here, but she got over it pretty quickly.  We got in last night just in time to grab some food, set up my N64, play a little Mario Kart, play loud enough to wake other people up in the house and go to bed.

The funny thing is, I brought a lot fo videogame equipment.  I didn't go true "old school" on everyone and bring the SNES, but I wanted to.  I thought that it might have been (rather, "I might have looked") a little too dorky, but judging from this:

I think I'll fit right in.

idea generator

I sometimes wish I had an idea generator.  This semester, I've been told to come up with multiple game ideas.  I had to come up with a new game idea for a class (not the senior project) and what I came up with was a Bomberman-style game.  I used to love Bomberman and I played it on consoles, computer, and even my TI-86.  Yeah.  I was a nerd even back then!

But I'm trying to be original in these ideas, but I'm feeling like my ideas are starting to get a little repetitive.  Hmm.  Maybe if I came up with an idea generator where all I would do would be to add in some confines and it would give me an idea. 

Some of the ideas from my class have been interesting.  I've actually liked some of them, but hearing pitch after pitch has been a little hard to really focus on.  I'm getting tired and it's only the second week of the semester.  I think it's time to go on vacation.

Oh wait, I have one planned!  KB's family has invited me to go down to St. George with them this weekend.  It's going to be pretty fun.  I haven't been down there since I was in elementary school and I think it's time to go back.  It's going to be nice because they boys in her family are all like me.  They love games and they love CS.  This bodes well for me. 

I'm going to have to do quite a bit of homework while I'm there, so I might not be the funnest person in the whole world, but I'm going to try and keep that boring-ness to a minimum.  I've gotten a few assignments to do over the weekend, which I think is totally lame.  I can't believe that teachers think that over a long weekend, all I would want to do is homework.  Yikes.

KB, I wish we were leaving today.   

ouch

So this weekend, I did a bad thing.  I was so good all last weekend up until Friday.  I forgot sunblock and boy am I paying the price.

We did a campout near Morgan (the city.  Yeah, I know.  It was confusing all weekend) starting on Thursday and going through today.  But my misfortune would bring me to my knees on Friday and I came home early.  I drove late Friday night and got home around 11:00 to tend to my sun-scathed wounds.

But here's the really cool part.  Everyone kept saying that I should try this trick to heal a sunburn.  I figured that it couldn't hurt (too much) so I'd give it a try.  To be honest, I'm a little impressed and I think I might keep doing this in the future.  Now mind you, I've read some articles online that make it sound like you put it on and, magically, it's like you never were in the sun to begin with.  THAT is a little too far-fetched, but it worked on me.  My burns don't hurt.

So if you haven't already used the link from above, here's the trick:  Vinegar.

Yeah, you read right.  But read it again if you'd like.  See?  Still what you read before.

I was shocked.  All I did was take a shower in somewhat cool water (Come on.  I can't take a hot one with a sunburn), dried off, and them sprayed on the magic concoction (Can a concoction consist of one ingredient?) and I feel great.  I feel the burn, but the burn doesn't hurt.  I can tell my skin is a little upset, but it's like it was screaming at me, and I just walked out of the room, shut the door and put in some headphones.  Yeah, it's probably still screaming, but honestly,  I'm already jamming out and dancing in the living room.  Awesome.

So the weekend was okay.  I need to be diplomatic because I honestly don't know who reads this thing (cough.  Just my mom) but I feel like there was a lot of planning that went on, but the planning wasn't really organized in a way that made it clear to everyone.  The camping was great.  The spot was gorgeous, the pond was "stocked" with fish and we even had rented port-o-potties out there.  Meals were hit-and-miss though.  Some of the ingredients were missing for some meals, others were perfect pseudo-camping style meals.  I think that the planning people were great and they put a lot of work into this, don't get me wrong.  I just think there were a few miscommunications about activities and meals.

Sadly, by Friday, I was already hating life due to 3 hours of sleep and skin like unto a fried fish, so I called it quits and didn't stay for the boating planned for Saturday.  Oh well.  I guess I can learn to wakeboard some other time.

complex variables

Take one of these:

Add a couple of these:

Put them in this:

Subtract this:

And then for good measure, put this at the end:

And what do you get?

You got it.  Awesomeness.  

By the way, White Pine backpacking trip was a success.  We went up Logan Canyon on Friday morning, hiked (4 miles) to the camp ground, spent the night, came back down and made it in time for the demolition derby.  It was my first one ever and it WON'T be the last!

big things come in small names

Have you ever thought it funny that such a large company has a name that starts with "Micro?"

I got my resume all typed up and sent it off.  I hope to hear back soon.  An internship over the summer would be fantastic.  I know I'm getting into the game a little late, but it's always worth a shot.  

It's been a fun spring break.  I was a little shocked that it was Thursday today.  Honestly, I went through the entire day thinking that it was Wednesday.  Weird.  I've been quite productive and I hope to get everything done this week that I need so I can focus on school.  I'm cutting it down pretty close to the wire, but I'm sure I can work it out.

I've been working with my new job and I have quite a few new leads.  It really helps that my mother worked for the school district and seems to know everyone that I would need to talk to.  In fact, she got me talking with the people whose job is to find people like me.  Nice.  I'll be making a few more calls tomorrow before everyone goes home for the weekend to see if I can get some more headway on this project.  I'm pretty excited about it.

I did get to visit Slagle while I was down at the highschool the other day.  She's great.  It was the morning before a concert so it seemed that she was pretty busy getting everything done.  She made a huge impact on my highschool days.  It was fun to see her and I hope that when we get up and running at that school, that I'll be able to say hello more frequently.  

Why does spring break go so quickly?

ben rocks

Kudos to Ben for the awesome pic at the top of my blog. He wants the credit, so I'm giving it to him. It's from the Yellowstone Summer of Epic Proportions trip. There was a strorm coming in over the water. It was pretty amazing.

leavin on a jet plane

Boston here I come!

Grant is heading off to school and I'm road tripping with him to Boston. It's going to be freakin' sweet!

There is one little problem though. I seemed to have bought my ticket online, and the moment after I placed my order... I looked at my calendar. Yay!

So I'll be returning from Boston the Monday AFTER school starts. Yes, you heard right. I'll be missing the first week of school. I was nothing but thrilled to find that I had forgotten to make considerations for, well, you know, the whole GOING BACK TO SCHOOL THING!

Although I'm not too worried. I have already emailed my professors to explain my idiocy. I've heard back from two of them and they said not to worry at all about it. In fact, one just said I could meet him the week before and we could go over the stuff that I would be missing. Here is the really nice thing about being in the Computer Science department. I wrote an email to all four of the professors that I'll be taking classes from this upcoming semester. Within 10 minutes of sending, I had already gotten a response from BOTH the CS teachers, and in once instance, had already emailed her with one more question and gotten a second response.

Awesome.

I'm still waiting to hear from the Art and Writing teachers. Seems that in other departments, professors seem to not check their email compulsively. Sad really. Think of all the fun internet playing they are missing out on while they do their "interacting-with-other-people-in-real-life" thing. Virtual communication seems so much easier...

soep hiking... the drive there

Summer of Epic Proportions trip #2 - Hiking Green River

It's been a while readers. Guess what though? I am freakin amazing!... and somehow still alive...

I was helping my friend Dennis the other day make some calls on Monday, and it soon got too late to make any more. I don't know about you, but I think around 10:00 pm, I have to call it quits because I feel bad calling people who are not expecting calls from a random person...

Well, as luck would have it, we started to chat. He asked if I could make the final few calls on Tuesday. I had Tuesday and Wednesday off of work, so I was delighted to put in a helping hand. Lo and Behold, it was just my luck that I told him that because after a few moments of thinking, he said, "Well, do you want to go on a hike with us tomorrow?"

Woot!

Of course I want to go on a hike! What kind of silly question is that? So he had to make sure there was room in the car, so he called our friend Sarah to see if that was cool.

IT SURE WAS!

Sarah called me instantly and in more or less these words said, "We're leaving in about 20 minutes... [(thinking)... what? It's 11:00 PM] and it's going to be a 7 hour hike with repelling. Do you have any gear?"

"No," Morgan replies

"That's okay, we can send it up and down the ropes. [(thinking)... Let's see, the last time I went repelling... 12 years ago...] Do you have any good clothes that are quick drying?"

"No."

"That's okay. I think it's not going to be too bad if you just bring some shorts."

"... shorts eh?..."

"Do you have a camel back for carrying water?"

"... No."

"No worries. I might have one. Make sure to bring some good food for hiking because it's going to be a long one. Online it said 7 hours, but we're thinking about 5 or 6."

"hmmm... I'll have to stop by the store..."

At this point Morgan started to doubt his ability and preparation for said trip. Although somehow Sarah convinced me and I found myself at Albertsons packing my cart with granola bars. As I was packing, I wasn't exactly sure what to bring so I grabbed some plasticy pants that I use for sleeping every once and a while. They're kinda like warm-up pants, but totally cheap and crappy. My guess? 50 cent sale at Old Navy kind of quality. Although my dollar flip flops are still holding together. "Thanks Old Navy!" [Cheesy smile and thumbs up as seen in photo]

Sarah and Nathan quickly show up and I load my very improvised-last-minute gear (bag with granola bars) in the car. I had forgotten by this point to think about where we were going to go hiking. One of those last-minute details that seemed to slip my mind as I scrounged the isles of Albertsons. I asked where we were headed.

Sarah replies, "Well, to tell you the truth, we need to go pick up Dennis in P-town (~45 minutes away) because he's still doing a job out there."

??

"He's doing some carpet cleaning of a house, and might need some help."

Here's the lucky thing. I worked as a carpet cleaner for a long time with my dad's company, so it was pretty easy for me to get back into the swing of things. Although here is the major problem with it. Boy is it hard on the body! It uses a lot of arm strength which I sadly have lost from my carpet cleaning days. I got right on a machine and started the hardest part of professional carpet cleaning... stairs.

Clean stairs, clean second floor and 4 hours later, we were done. I know what you're thinking...
Phonecall: 11:00 pm
Picked up: 11:30 pm
P-Town: 12:30 am
Carpet Cleaning: 4:30 am

You are correct, and give yourself a gold star for aweome math skills... base 60, carry the 2... We loaded up Dennis's car and returned the equipment thus leaving P-town by about 5:00am. I proceeded to ask the question again of where exactly the hike was thinking mostly about how much sleep I was going to get after working my arms for quite a while and then going on the 7 hour hike.

"It's just outside of Green River."

"Green River? How far is that?"

The next part of the story is a little painful in memory and may have been permanantly blocked in my memory... Let me just show you the picture...

Point A: P-town
Point B: Green River
Distance: 140 miles
Time (with construction): ~3 hours

Now here's a little reference for you. You might be thinking, "Where is Green River exactly? What landmarks or big cities are near it?"



As you can see... Nothing. Unless you count Crecent Junction, which litteraly is just two highways converging with nothing there. Salina is 70 miles away...

Back to the good stuff. Let's see here:
Carpet cleaning: 4:30 + 3 hours... carry the 12... oh yeah. 7:30 am

I don't sleep in a car too well either...

We arrived and luckly the group that had slept [there] the night before was just leaving. They were about 10 minutes ahead of us, but they could hear Sarah's poor car being demolished my the dirt and motly tire-eating rocks which seemed to find delight in slamming themselves against the undercarrage of the car. Fun!

We didn't want to keep them waiting any longer than they already had waited for us, so we packed up our stuff and started to head out. Sadly, due to lack of sleep and food, Sarah was feeling pretty sick to her stomach. She said that if she went with us, she would be good for the first 2 hours or so, but she knows her body well enough that she would get REALLY sick. After much deliberation and trying to convince her to "tough it out," Sarah made her decision to stay with the car and sleep. She gave us her equipment and food and mothery concern, and Dennis, Nathan and I started down the first hill (and back up the second)

And thus the Hike begins...

[Next time on IisMojo... can he survive the towering cliffs and shear cliff wall drops? Stay tuned for the next installment of IisMojo]

rocky mountain high, colorado...

"I thought that Rocky Mountains would be a little rockier..."
"That John Denver is full of shit."

Ha! Now that I've offended my readers with a little Dumb and Dumber quote, I thought that I might indulge those of you that remain with my fun times thus far on the road trip to the BolderBoulder...

Friday (Day 1)

Left the comfortable abode and made our way up the canyon.

A few hours in, Mojo thinks that he sees something in the road in the lanes going the opposite direction although the little wooden peg reflector thingies are in the way so he can't quite tell what is going on... Suddenly is forced into a life-or-death (of a coyote) situation where he has to lay on the brakes... doesn't swerve too into the other lane, but slightly, only nearly missing the confused and terrified animal. His brush with death averted.

Laramie, WY...
hotel 1 : no vacancy
hotel 2: no vacancy
hotel 3 : no vacancy
hotel 4: no vacancy
hotel 5 : no vacancy
hotel 6: no vacancy

some would be discouaged, BUT NO! Not us. Hotel 7 had abundant rooms available and we were lucky enough to have it be the cheapest one too! The sketchy people outside pacing made us bring in all our belongings from the car into the room...

Saturday (Day 2)

Woke up. Car NOT sitting on cinderblocks. Rejoicing ensued.

Mojo and Nathan head over for the "complimentary breakfast" at the resturant across from the front desk while Sallee goes over to the Walmart to buy some socks... (She might need those for running the BolderBoulder) M & N quickly find out that they had missed the "complimentary" portion of the breakfast by 25 minutes.

Nathan (to waitress): "I think I'll have the same thing that the complimentary breakfast was... but looks like I'll pay for it."

Fill up with gas (petrol for Nathan) and head out.

Mile 25 of the newly filled gas tank: Mojo realizes that his glasses are in the resturant.
Mile 50: Mojo gets his glasses from the front desk
Mile 75: "I feel like I've seen this before..."

Trip to the National Park is beautiful. But after a quick hike to Bear Lake (not the one in Utah, the small one that is more similar to a big pond). GPS coordinates entered and we're on our way to Boulder.

1 hour later in a city called Ward, CO: "2 houses and a country store... so... one person stalks the shelves and the other person buys?"

Short time later: GPS reading: Turn Right... 2 minutes away. Actual sighting: If we turn right we go up a REALLY steep road that would be of the DIRT variety....

15 seconds later: GPS reading: Recalculating route (because you jerks didn't turn)... 1 hour remains.

2 seconds later: GPS powered off.

Safely arrive in Boulder, eat dinner and head off to the lodging. YAY!

I'll keep you updated on how the race goes on Monday, but I might not write until Tuesday...