Wednesday, December 17, 2008

I may be a little biased...

...but how can you not love these people? (These people being my family)

So, my sister sent me these videos of a recent Monday night activity. It was my dad's idea to have a headstand competition.

My mother blew everyone out of the water. She's (an undisclosed amount of years), for pete's sake!

If that's not impressive...it doesn't matter, it's her birthday today...just go with it.

My dad, on the other hand, well...you'll see...

Friday, December 12, 2008

A little old-fashioned Christmas spirit.

‘Twas a fortnight from Christmas, and all through the house,
A girl was seen lying around like a louse,
Watching hours and hours of old t.v. shows,
And ignoring the chores that in piles still grow;
Her first months at school were nigh unto done,
She had given up trying, which we know is more fun;
She did what she could to do the best that she can,
And the two finals left were not part of the plan;
You see, four months of school will sure tire you out,
And the thought of more thinking makes one want to shout,
“No papers, no quizzes, no tests, no robots!
Oh Christmas, oh playing, oh laughing a lot!
Oh living and loving and being with friends!”
Just a half a week more and the stress will all end;
Then it’s off to the races for lots of good cheer,
For in no time at all the whole family’ll appear;
They will play and they’ll play ‘til they’re blue in the face,
The effect of those memories no time will erase;
…But school always starts far too soon than we’d like,
And the terrible homework with vengeance will strike;
Though hope is not gone, she thinks with a glee;
‘Cause pretty soon, very soon, she will be free,
From filling her weeknights with hours of work,
Taking phone calls from clients and going berserk;
So in the spirit of Christmas she declares with her might,
Happy finals to all, and to all a good night!

Friday, December 05, 2008

Oh M.E.

Well I did it. I built a robot.

Rather, my team of 4 built 4 robots. We competed yesterday in the campus-wide Egglympics Gymneggstics competition…yeah, I don’t come up with these things. The competition included 4 events: balance beam, uneven bars, vault, and floor exercise. My team met almost every day for the last week and a half, including staying up ‘til 2:30 the night before building and building and reconfiguring and not sleeping. All for almost naught.

Our robots only kind of worked.

As luck would have it, neither did my camera. I was excited to document this momentous occasion with video and pictures and stories galore…and I forgot my memory card. Thankfully I found an Asian with a very large camera to take pictures for me.

Just so you know, each event involves certain objectives—like traveling the length of a beam and completing a flip or going from one corner of a taped-off square to the other and performing a 180 degree rotation—all while not breaking an egg...and all by itself. Perhaps I'd be more sure that this is what I want to do if we had been a little more successful...
Duct tape and hot glue. That's what our robots were made of. This picture made it onto the Daily Utah Chronicle's website.