Spring break 2008 pics are upload!

Pictures from this years spring break 2008 are up on picasa. It was so much fun. I would make more comments on the trip and what is happening, but I won't.

I have carpal tunnel syndrome so bad in both of my hands and wrists that I can barely tolerate it. I will see the doctor tomorrow and see what can be done. My braces so longer control the problem. I'm concerned because it is starting to affect my motor skills, which is potentially irreversible. I now will not use my computer for anything outside of work, and I am trying to reduce computer use as much as possible at work. We'll see what happens.

Spring Break!!

For the next week Joe, Dad, Patricia, and I will be seeing the sights of Miami from beaches to swamps to city life. I am going to give them a whirlwind trip of South Florida. I had to promise Sam that I would keep Joe away from the spring break scene on Miami Beach. Otherwise he was not allowed to go by himself. I decided instead to take to the 'Glades and Keys where he will likely be eaten by a shark or gator. I guess that is better than taking him to South Beach and have Sam kill him later.

Stay tuned for photos. Jason, this is a preview of what you and co. can be doing!

Engagement Story

Pictures: Patricia, Elder Brenchley, and I at the church. Elder is one of the Elders that taught Patricia (other was Elder May).

Sunrise photos from Miami Beach

The news is finally completely out and entirely official: Patricia and I are engaged. I know that this does not come as a shock to most of you or all of you for quite some time, but nonetheless it is official. Actually it was official with a ring on the 22^nd of February, but I just took some time to post an update on my blog.

Engagement Story

As a continuation from the previous entry about how we met, I’ll talk about how we got engaged. When we started dating, we both had no intentions of talking about marriage or getting married so early in our relationship. We discussed marriage from an intellectual point of view (i.e. what we thought about marriage). However, as we spent all day together, we had a long time to talk. Over a long period of dating, our conversations about marriage very slowly evolved from an intellectual discussion on the relative merits of the institution of marriage to about the possibility of us getting married. This was a long drawn out process of many long discussions over an enormous time period of serious dating … well actually one month.

I know that that it sounds really quick. I was always rather disgusted by those you start talking about marriage so quickly and loved to make fun of them. Well I guess things change when you find the right one.

We discussed how we were going to go about getting married over the next two months when we realized that we better start planning something if we wanted anything to happen. We decided to get married at the end of the year before the sealing, but we did not feel this was right or possible because of school. Miguel, Patricia’s father, did not wanted Patricia to get married so soon. He was not so sure about the idea of his little girl marrying someone that he did not know, from another country, and so soon. Well we still felt that we should get married in the summer, even though that looked impossible. I asked him for permission to marry his daughter, and we had a long talk about marriage and life. I really like her father. He is definitely a good man. After our talk he was a lot more comfortable about the idea of the marriage and said that we could get married in the summer if we were so inclined. That was exactly what we wanted to hear, so planning went from a December wedding to a July wedding.

Now that wedding planning was in full swing, here came the 1001 wedding plans. The wedding was going to be in Brazil, but we did not know if that was possible, so it was moved to the US. The wedding location changed from Yuma to San Diego to Salt Lake where it stayed temporarily. Then finally back to Brazil after we figured out how to bypass the whole legal mess called Brazilian bureaucracy. With that solved thanks to both Joe and Miguel, we finally settled on a Brazilian wedding in Patricia’s hometown Botucatu. This meant that we needed to find a place and talk to the branch president down there and everything.

Of course, you are all probably wondering why I am already talking about all the wedding plans, though I have yet to talk about how we got engaged officially. Well, there is a good reason for that - it had not happened yet! Patricia does not like to sit still taking it easy, so she was in full swing in the wedding planning though we were not officially engaged. I was willing to take things easy for a little while longer. Of course after I talked to her dad, Patricia got really antsy about getting her ring. She told me one day, “You need to get me my ring because I am getting rather compulsive. The first thing that I think about when I wake up is my ring, I think about my ring all day long, and it is the last thing that I think about when I sleep. I cannot stop thinking about my ring!” At that point I figured I better go get one. Patricia wanted me to go pick the ring, and she said that she would like anything that I bought for her. In other words, she would like whatever I got for her because I, of course, would pick exactly what she wanted, even though what she likes leaves an extremely narrow list of possibilities. Yeah right. I was not about to fall in that trap. I dragged her along with me to look at rings. Of course, she loved every second of it and tried on every ring in the store. By the end of the night, I had a good idea of what she wanted. So the next day, I went out and found a ring.

She always said that she wanted a surprise (hence the reason why she wanted me to pick the ring.) I was buying her ring at the same time that she was buying her dress. She called me up to tell me the wonderful news, and she had the sneaky hunch from the noise in the background that I was in a store buying her ring. Of course, when I saw her later that day she pestered me for several hours to know if I bought her ring. I would not tell because I wanted to make it a surprise. Finally she said over and over that she does not want a surprise, but all she wanted was to know if I got her ring. Finally I gave in and told her that I indeed bought her ring but could not pick it up till the next week. Now she began counting down the days until the day when I would give her the ring. Now she knew that the ring would soon be on her finger, but she then told me that of course I had to make it a surprise because she still wanted a surprise. How on earth was I now supposed to make it a surprise when she knew that I would pick it up Friday night and she would get it that weekend? I told her that the possibility of a surprise was over. She was so sad because she really wanted a surprise. You can’t have your cake and eat it too as the old saying goes. I told her that I was going fishing Saturday instead of helping plan part of the wedding. She was rather upset at my apparent lack of interest in our wedding. I then told that she could fishing with me in the morning. Instead of fishing we went to the beach and watched the sunrise at the same spot where we went on our first real date. As the sun was coming over the horizon, I proposed to her. She loved it. She told all the men in her family that night that they needed to take lessons on how to be romantic from me. Oh boy, I would hate to see these pathetic fools if they can learn how to be romantic from me.

Now everyone at school and church know about our engagement, and some people have given quite impressive responses. Patricia’s good friend nearly hyperventilated from shock as they walked down the street. She screamed when she later saw the ring right as a professor was introducing a visiting professor before his talk. I must say this is quite unexpected for most people at work. Of course, the news did not spread as juicy news normally would at work because this news is too correct and above board. Had I cheated on Patricia or if we had a huge break-up than the news would be out as soon as it happened. Good news is just not as interesting as scandalous news.

More news

I figure it is time for some news updates after a month and a half of ‘not getting around to it’.

Here are some pics of Miami. I thought it would be a good idea to have pics of Miami, so I went out three times to take photos. As much as I love photography I just hate taking pictures of city and people. IT IS SO BOOOORRRRING! I just don’t know why photographers would intentionally take pics of the city. Very weird. If I take a landscape photo and person is in it, I usually crop them out, so they don’t ruin the otherwise good photo. The first two attempts failed after taking a total of 3 photos. The last and final attempt was slightly more successful. Patricia and I went downtown, which is only 2 miles from my apartment, to take some photos. We were bored out of our minds in 30 minutes, so we ditched the idea and had nice walk along the bay. That was so much more fun.

Luckily, it the photography trip was not completely a waste because I found a pretty little orchid to at least take some good pictures.

If you all want to see Miami, you’ll just have to come and see it yourself because you won’t be receiving many photos from me any time soon. (On the other hand, photos of creepy, crawly things, tweeties, and flowers will always be plentiful.)

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Patricia decided to try out her domestic skills and bake a cake. At the same time she thought that directions were beneath her because her mother never needed directions, and all her cakes were perfect. I tried to explain to her that she needed to follow the directions precisely and that the fact that her mother was an expert chef did not make her one. She promptly and curtly told me that she was baking and if she needed advice she would ask for it. So I sat back and watched her change every step of the recipe. The first pic is her first lovely attempt at cake making. She put too much sugar in the bottom of the pan, and as the temperature was way too hot the sugar boiled up to the top of the pan and burnt black. After taking photos of the debacle, I was willing to try to salvage the middle of the cake. She, on the other hand, wanted to erase the experience from her memory as soon as possible, so she threw the cake away. She only said after seeing the cake is “But my mom’s cakes are all perfect, so why isn’t this one??” I, rather enjoying myself, pointed out again that she unlike her mother has never been in the kitchen before.

Her next attempt at baking resulted in a cake that did not rise. I made the suggestion that maybe my baking powder was no good. She looked at the expiration date and found that expired in 2002! Next thing I know she is telling her mother that I sabotaged her cake (BOTH of them). Oh well… I went from being a good cook to a fraud that ruins other peoples’ hard work.

Until today she has baked eight cakes and the last five were all excellent. I must say that she is quite the little baker. She made 3 banana cakes (like upside-down cake but with bananas instead of pineapple), 1 carrot cake that is completely different (and quite good) from any carrot cake I have eaten here, and 1 coffee cake. Of course, Patricia knows how to endear herself to everyone. She brings cake to school and shares with the lab, janitors, and anyone else who wanders by. They all love her. Our advisor is trying to watch how much fat and cholesterol because he has high cholesterol. She offers him cake each week, and he scolds her for being inconsiderate because he is on a special diet. He finally finishes his scolding, while he finishes 3^rd piece of cake.

Now our meals have all the proper parts: meat, a starch, vegetables, rice or bread, and desert. Our advisor always comes in and teases us about eating a banquet for lunch everyday. I think that he is just jealous of our large spread. Lunch used to be such an easy thing. I heat up one container and pronto. Now I have at least 3 if not more containers of food to eat up and a little table space to set up. I always was partial to a just having a big mess of stew myself, but this complete meal idea is not bad.

Everything has to be proper for lunch, and sadly she is still rather disappointed if not horrified by table manners. She is overreacting. I use utensils most of the time, eat my food off a dish or plate, and half the time I don’t even get any food on my clothes.­­­­­­­­­­­ It is Patricia writing now – I need to add some things: he always spills food on his clothes and he loves to speak with his mouth full of food – and even more, he puts more food that his mouth is capable of holding - I am trying to fix it, hahahaha.

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I just finished applying for a three-year fellowship with the Department of Energy Global Climate Change Program. I hope that I get the funding because it pays my way for the rest of my PhD. Also my co-mentor (as is required for the fellowship) is none other than the head root guru. I wanted to put him on my committee when I first started my PhD, but never asked him because he is impossibly busy. However, I needed a mentor for this fellowship, and he was the only one on the list that was similar to my field. I decided to risk it and ask him. He replied quickly and said that he was interested. Both my advisor and I were very excited. Now we’ll see if I get the fellowship because if I do, he’ll be an important asset in the future.

I had such a scare when I submitted my application electronically. When I uploaded my proposal, I uploaded it as a doc file instead of a pdf. Then I read that the application called for pdf files only, and that I had only one chance to upload a file. If it was the wrong file, I could not change it. When I tried to upload the pdf next, it would not upload. I nearly died. I thought, “man, if I cannot apply for this fellowship because of stupid problem like this!” I was rather stressed for the next 2 hours trying to figure out if there was any way to fix the problem. I was not sure if the doc file uploaded correctly, so I just had the idea that maybe the reason that uploading the pdf failed was because of the Firefox. I decided to try it in MS Explorer. Thank goodness, it worked!!!! I realized that if I had accidentally tried to upload the doc file in Explorer, I would have been in serious trouble because it turns out neither the doc nor the pdf uploaded correctly. Thankfully I was saved, and everything in the end was submitted correctly.

I know this is about the most boring news in the world, but unfortunately it is the best I can do because all I do is work until late at night.

The sad thing is I sit all day in front of a computer and first thing I do when I get home is sit in front of the computer again. My live revolves around a square electronic box.

More photos online

I posted more pictures on Picasa. Also in the next week I will update my website with landscape and wildlife photos.

A white Christmas

I finally returned from my nice 2-week vacation in the West among family and friends. I went to Colorado first to spend time with my sister Julie and her family plus my dad, Jarom, Emilee, and Cody came up from California and Arizona. Later I went south to Safford and Yuma to visit family and friends. In all it was a lovely trip.

I arrived in Colorado before Dad, Jarom, Emilee, and Cody, which was nice because I was able to spend a little time with the Smacks before the Christmas commotion began. We had a lot of fun. I went to 2 Ft Collins Eagles games with Ted. The Eagles won both games! The Eagles are very good and have won the national championship 2 times in 7 years. The first game they won without having to break a sweat. They dominated the game from the beginning and shot nearly 3 times more shots than the other team. The second game ended with the Eagles winning by penalty shots. I was excited that it went to the penalty shots round because I had never seen penalty shots in person. At the second game Ti, Tate, and Joe came with Ted and I. Ted only had 4 tickets, so he had to figure out a way to get as ticket for Joe. Joe was not going to go, but he was so enthusiastic about watching his Eagles play that Ted didn’t have the heart to leave him at home. In the end another man gave Ted an extra ticket for free. What luck!

After the first hockey game Ted and I went to Walmart to buy stocking stuffers for all the kids and family. After what seems like half the night and multiple calls to Julie to figure out what to buy, we came home with a large Santa bag full of goodies. Ted bought so much stuff that the puny stockings could not hold half of what was supposed to go in them.

The rest of the family arrived late Saturday night from Becky’s. Ted immediately started preparing carne asada. Nothing like carne asada as a midnight snack! Ted made it his personal duty to fatten everybody up. He figured that if everyone was not several pounds heavier by the end of the Christmas vacation then they obviously have no idea how to celebrate the holidays. We had carne asada, salsa, pork loin, smoked turkey, sausage, loads of candy in our stockings, fruit, and numerous other side dishes.

One of Ted and Julie’s friends came over dressed as Santa Claus. After all the boys sit on his lap to tell him what they wanted, he gave them some candy. Then he makes Julie sit on his lap before he would give up his big present from his bag. He brought the boys a Nintendo Wii! They are expensive even if you can find them. The boys were so excited and played as much as they could over the next few days. I must admit that I played my share of tennis and bowling, too, as did all the adults. It is a pretty fun set up. For those who do not know. Wii is an interactive video game. You use a controller in your hand that recognized hand movements and makes your player on the screen make the same hand movements. When playing tennis, you use the controller like a tennis racket. When bowling, you move the controller like you would use the bowling ball. It does a good job of mimicking your movements, so it is like place real life sports. You even get tired and sweaty like when playing real sports. It has several different sports like baseball, boxing, tennis, bowling, and golf.

My holiday tradition: the flu

Unfortunately on Saturday I started to feel the beginnings of the flu. I hoped that it was only an obnoxious cold that does not hamper the celebrations too much. I was wrong. I got the flu with all its body aches, stuffiness, headaches, sore throat, and clogged everything. I was sick for the next 10 days. That was the worst flu I have had in several years. After a week of being sick, I started feeling much better only for the flu to settle in my ear in the form of an ear infection. Luckily the infection was not bad enough to prohibit me from flying home.

I never get sick outside of the holidays. I am single and live quite a sterile life away from any disease vectors. However, during the holidays I spend time with children. I love my little nieces and nephews, but my body cannot defend itself from the relentless barrage of diseases that they have passed around among all their little friends. I hopelessly fall ill to the whole suite. I feel like the poor Indians trying to defend off the onslaught of small pox, measles, and cholera brought to the Americas with the European settlers. In the end it is a hopeless battle. Last year I got pink eye, an ear infection, a sore throat, and a cold. The 3 Christmases previously I had the stomach flu. I guess that is just the price I have to pay to spend time with little kids.

Winter Park and lots of snow!

The day after Christmas we all piled into the Julie’s Denali and Ted’s truck and went up to their condo in Winter Park. Winter Park is one of several resort towns in the Rocky Mountains dedicated to skiing, snowmobiling, fourwheeling, hiking, biking and enjoying the outdoors. The condo was so nice, and we had so much fun. Too bad Jason, Joe and company could not join us in the fun. We were there fore 2 nights. On the second night we went sledding. I was a little worried about the cold because I was still sick. However, Ted bundled us all up from his store of winter clothes that were sufficient to cloth half of Winter Park. Though it was 5°F (-15°C), I was quite warm the whole time. We went innertubing at a hill where you can sled down the hill then use the sled lift to return to the top of the hill. It was so easy to sled numerous times in the hour that we were there. We must have gone about 10 times in 1 hour. We went down several times holding on to each others’ tubes in a large hurling mass. We would change positions within the mass has slid down the hill, so the ones in front could end up in the back by the time we reached the bottom of the hill. Later we made a large string of tubes where each person would hold onto the tube strap of the tube in front of them. We could move around like a large snake as we jetted to the bottom of the hill. One hour seemed like such a short period of time, but it was a good bit of time - enough time to wear out all the kids and get our feel of excitement. Afterward we headed down to the Jacuzzi for a little relaxation. It was a rather interesting experience, considering that there were 7 adults in a hot tub.

Heading south to warm country… NOT!

Next I headed south to what I thought would be warm country. Boy, was I wrong! Safford was cold and windy. I intended to call in coyotes, bobcat, and foxes in Safford, but the weather was too windy. Windy weather makes calling in predators nearly impossible because predators don’t seem to be out hunting that much in windy weather. For those you do not know, calling is a method of attracting predators to you to hunt them or in my case to take pictures of them. When calling coyotes and bobcats I make the sounds of scared/wounded rabbits to attract predators that would like to eat the unfortunate rabbit. While calling, I sit very still and am completely camouflaged, so that the predator cannot see me. It is a lot of fun. Coyotes, foxes, and a bobcat have come so close to me that I could almost reach out and touch them.

Though I did not get to go calling, I did get to do other things like see a lot of family, especially the Kempton’s and the Curtis’s. We stayed at the Kempton’s, which was fun. I have now stayed at the Kempton’s since before all the Kempton cousins left home. I would go over there then go hunting all day in the hills. Those were good times. Sadly I have only gone hunting once, since I left Arizona.

Jason Brimhall has his horses at the Kempton’s. He has a nice little broodmare band of 9-10 and a total of 15. He raises quarter horses and of course has to supply the market with what it wants, which is color. He mostly has grulla, buckskin, and palomino mares, and his buckskin stallion throws good color. Jason, Traci, and I went a short ride through the hills. I did not realize how long it has been since I last rode horses. I was a small buckskin mare and was using a small saddle, which made it worse. After 10 minutes I was already saddle sore. The stirrups were so high that when I took her at a good lope I bounced all over in the saddle. On the way back I switched horses with Traci because Traci was riding a taller bay mare with a larger saddle. Finally I was comfortable! After returning to the house, I took the kids on short rides. My mare decided that she was tired of riding and started playing games with me. She tried to back up into the ditch to get me scared. She sideswiped a fence post and a telephone pole in an effort to hurt my leg. Finally I got mad and started kicking her hard in the flank and did not let her get away with it. She desisted in her mission of sabotage and noncompliance and started to obey me again. Dad did not go with us because he had to cook carne asada for the New Year’s party that night. (I think that the real reason he did not go is because he does not know how to ride horses. Cooking carne asada was just a convenient excuse. I think all those stories of roundup when he was 8 years old are fabricated stories that he has perpetuated over the years to a gullible audience. I need to see him ride to believe.)

On New Year’s Eve we went to Jay and Dustin’s nursery where we lit their branch pile on fire. It made a nice bonfire for an hour. Then we went to Kevin and Kristi’s for a New Year’s party. I am not sure what everyone did because as usual I fell asleep before midnight. I assume everybody had fun. I must say that I enjoyed my late night nap. I awoke and found a group of people putting together a puzzle, so I joined to finish it. Sadly I did not get to do the tradition Safford New Year’s activity. Every time I have been in Safford during New Year’s I have hunted on New Year’s Day. Instead this year I went out to the ranch with Dad, Aunt Barbara, and Jay to talk to Pete (and take pictures).

Hackberry Ranch and the 111

Seeing the ranch was a lot of fun because it looked almost decent. Last time I visited the ranch, the drought was so bad that there was hardly a blade of grass on the range. The range received some rain, and the effects of it were noticeable. The cows and calves were fat. We visited several stock tanks and deeded lands within the ranch. The purpose of the trip was to discuss the details of the ranch with Pete, the manager. However, I was more preoccupied with taking pictures. I encountered several sparrow species at the stock tanks. Sparrows are without peer my favorite birds, so I was excited to find so many of them and get some excellent photos (to be posted later on my website).

I paid attention to some of the discussion with Pete and just shook my head at all the regulations and people-pleasing with the BLM that goes on in order to be left alone. The BLM is a bureaucratic mess as is every government institution. However, bureaucracy has its advantages at times. The San Simon River (ephemeral wash) runs through the Hackberry Ranch. The feed in the flood plain is excellent, especially during the winter. The BLM wants fewer cows on the river, but cannot do anything without public approval. An environmentalist group opposed the measure to limit cattle on the river because they want to remove all cows not limit the number of cows there. The BLM now has to rewrite the whole regional plan because of this dispute, which will take months if not more than a year. As a result the range along the river is left alone and our cattle graze there as they always have because there are no fences to keep them out. For the cows’ sake, disagreement should continue indefinitely.

On another note, the ranch is not what it used to be. I have heard stories that the ranch held at least a couple thousand cattle. When Grandpa William Ellsworth bought the 111 (called 111 because it is 111 sections, and a section is one square mile or 640 acres or 256 hectares), he was guaranteed 800 head on the ranch. He went out there to look and stopped counting at 1,500 head. The 111 could barely support a tithe of that many cows now. That was the fate of most of the desert grasslands. Climate change and overgrazing changed the range from semi-arid grassland to arid shrubland. Probably nothing can be done to reverse the current trend.

After our trip to Safford, Dad and I headed to Yuma to spend a few days before I flew back to Miami. Tony Whalen (my old boss and Dad’s friend) took us fishing on January 3 at Senator’s Wash. It was so nice to get on the water and do some fishing. Tony loves fishing and goes out every week in either Yuma or Lake Havasu where he lives. We have a rivalry going on because he knows that I have only once in my life caught less fish than someone else with whom I was fishing. In the case that I cought the same number of fish as someone else, I always caught the larger fish. That holds true for every time Tony and I have fished together. Sadly for Tony, the precedent still holds. He caught one striper and I caught two. Haha! For the trip between all of us we caught 5 striped bass while trolling (another friend caught 2 fish.) The weather was cold, and I guess the fish were not in feeding mode. At this same location we have caught many more fish.

Dad got more bites than anyone but could not land a single one! He needs to work on his fishing technique. Fittingly Tony Whalen repeatedly invites him to go fishing in Lake Havasu. Dad needs to take advantage of this invite and learn how to fish. Could you ask for a better offer? Use of Tony’s guest bedroom, all the fishing gear you need, a boat, and beautiful Lake Havasu. It sounds perfect.

Thank goodness for Skype

I left a trail of Skype through Colorado and Arizona. First thing that I would do when visiting a place was install Skype on their computer. Skype is a program that allows one to talk with a webcam for free over the internet. I used it to talk to Patrícia in Brazil. It was so nice because we could see each other while we were talking. It would have been a cold and dreary vacation if we could not have spoken to each other for one month. I already linked Julie and Jason linked to my account. Let me know if anyone else wants to set up their account, I can help them with it.

One funny thing that happened with Skype occurred after I returned to Miami. I was talking to Patrícia in Miami on Saturday, and I must have left Skype on at Aunt Debbie’s. It popped up on Aunt Debbie’s computer, and she did not know what it was. Patrícia could not figure out who was talking to her on my account because it wasn’t me. That left us scratching our heads for a while.

Traveling home

Finally after a nice vacation, I returned to Miami on 5 January. I left San Diego on a red eye and arrived in Ft Lauderdale the next morning. I decided to take the train to my house because it is an easy trip of only 1+ hours. The tran to take me to the train station from the airport was late, and I arrived just in time to see the train leave. I had to wait for another 2 hours for another train! I took the train to the elevated train station where I caught the train to my house (a station is only 2 blocks from my apartment). I fell asleep and missed my stop. I got off at the next stop and had to wait nearly an hour for the next train to take me back to my stop. It took 4.5 hours to arrive at my house. I was so tired that I did not go to the track to watch the first big stakes races at Gulfstream. I was sooo disappointed.

Now I am home and back in the grind. I have so much work to do. However, I enjoy my work, so it is good.