Josh's Not-so-caffeinated Babblings

Signing Off

2006-09-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

As you have noticed, I stopped posting sometime last Semester. I'm officially done blogging for the time being. Hope you enjoyed it.

Google video is my friend

2006-04-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

Check out some more videos of us testing the sweeeet project, we go to competition this weekend keep us in your prayers!

Dynamics Competition

2006-03-24T06:58:00.000-08:00

The First one shows us casting, and reeling the lure back in.

This one shows us reeling in a 1.5 kg mass, and the best score is for when you get it off the ground at 30 seconds, so we waited for the clock.

The Never Ending Post

2006-03-23T13:25:00.000-08:00

So this is where all my time has gone since the beginning of the semester and I started neglecting my blog. Our porject was to build a device that will cast a lure and retrieve it using a remote control, It was supposed to hit a 20cm x 20cm target somewhere between 6-10 meters from the casting point. We have been working really hard on this since the beginning of the semester and we had our project competition last night, and it actually could have gone a lot better. We had a major malfunction, and the teacher said "You're Disqualified, but if you want to fix it and show me what you can do i'll let you". So we did and we casted very well till it broke again due to the hasty fix, but we'll see what the results come back tomorrow. We'll most likely get massacred in our grade but may have a chance of going on to the next competition due to the extreme lack of good competition. Only one group of eleven really could be classified as performing well, and so they're definitly moving on but there are three groups that are going to continue, so we'll see how it all pans out. Anyway that was waht I've been up to forever. Now for some other activities in this very long photo post.

Here's our project, we used springs on motion blocks that could adjust the tension of the spring going around a cam. We used two solenoids, and three electric motors, two with planetary gear systems. The design was completely unique from the other groups, only one other group used a spring cast.

competition again

Some random pictures from a foggy day at Letourneau

Ahhh ahhh ahhh! (an angelic chorus from the cool streaming light)

The Bell tower....

What was this guy thinking, saw him in Dallas... compact only... doh!

So Laura was able to fly down late February and we got to do a lot of fun stuff, then I visited her during my spring break the second week of march. This pic is from the Dallas World Aquarium, it's a super cool sea horse.

Standing in the waterfall tropical room thing.

We also went to the Ft. Worth zoo, luckily it rained and was very cold so no one else was really there. It was a lot of fun, though quite cold.

Riding that gator, I think we got him whooped.

It was super nice on the sunday that Laura had to fly home so we went for a walk around a lake in north Dallas.

In Laura's dorm room... we uhh.. well mistakes were made while making chocholate covered strawberries.

We made dinner for our big two year anniversary of dating. That's sparkling grape juice before anyone asks.

Laura does a sweet puppet show at the Des Moines Science Museum

Dorm Improvement Projects

2006-01-19T07:18:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, everyone got on their game and we got a lot of things done to improve the dorm, we Painted two new logos on the opposing hallway ends on the third floor...

We also made a screen for projector to project on, all we need now is the projector. Also you might notice that the TV is on a nice little cart on casters so the two TVs are both easily movable.

Tyson, Pokey, Jimmy, and I made the sweet stadium seating also. Now there is leg room and stairs on either end. Of course we also outlined the edges with rope lights on a dimmer, it makes for a really good theatherlike experience.

Dorm Projects...

2006-01-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

It looks like we're going to be able to get a dorm projector for the third floor lounge. I've been working on getting people to commit to giving money, and then raising some from alumnus too if we can. Today, I went to go buy some cloth to make curtains for the windows and also buy some white cloth to make a screen for the projector. While Tyson, Tim, and I were at handcock fabrics (obviously looking like fish out of water) this slightly older lady maybe 60's come up to me and Tyson and demands "I want my purse! where is it!?" and repeats herself each time to Tyson and I's complete confusion, and we both responded "uhh we don't have your purse." So then she stares us down for a minute then looks around a realizes that her purse was on the shelf where she left it about three feet from where we were standing.... it's intersting to think of the profiling that takes place. Neither of us were even dressed to much like hoodlums but none the less rather than inspect accusations are made. After she realized her mistake in her defense she did apologize.

Later today I needed to get some more potting soil that I had bought at the beginning of the year and of course it was in the far back bottom of the storage closet. So I started pulling stuff out to try to get to it, and finally I just decided to pull everything out and reorganize the whole thing. A couple of peeps joined my by the end and we cleared out a huge amount of space. Before it was floor to ceiling and you couldn't close the door. Now you can walk in and we even have two bikes stored in there and plenty of room to operate the door.

Now after my first week of classes are done, I think I can safely say that i'm going to make it, but it's going to be a lot of work with dynamics.

New Room Setup

2006-01-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

My room is pretty much the coolest ever now after i got my new Ikea lights and a piece of carpet from home. It really is cool, and all my lights are on a clapper, so you can only imagine the coolness.

Driving back to Texas...

2006-01-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

I drove down to LeTourneau on Friday, I left at 4:45 AM and drove till 7:00 pm, making 960 miles in a record 14.25 hours about a 67 mph average including stops for the whole drive. So needless to say, I drove fast and stopped little. I finally got to see the sun for the first time in a week and a half just outside Kansas City.

Christmas Break Review

2006-01-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

Laura turned twenty on December 22nd.

They tried to tell me that 20 candles were not going to fit on one cupcake...

But I sure showed them, look how yummy this waxed/frosted cupcake looks afterward.

Laura and I exchanged Christmas presents, I got her a necklace with her birthstone, and she got me a nice pulsar watch since my Folex broke.

We made some snowmen one day with her family, we had to use 2x4's to get the snowballs up on top since the women weren't quite pulling their weight in the lifting.

Laura came to my family Christmas eve celebration with all of my cousins, and she was thrilled that I slipped a present in Santa's bag for her. I also was able to go with her family to her Christmas celbration, that was lots of fun too.

uhh I'm not sure what to say about this.

Laura and I went on two nice dates during break, the Thursday right before I left we went out to eat at 20.21 in Walker Art Center, the food was really good, and the restaraunt was pretty fun. I ate with chopsticks the whole time too, and quite masterfully I might add too. Then we strolled through the Walker Art Center, and to our suprise there were a lot of artsy fartsy kinda people there. It was interesting since both Laura and I posess so little creativity or general interest in art. Laura accidentally stepped on some of the art that was on the floor (honestly, who puts art on the floor anyway), luckily the Art Supervisor person was facing the other way flirting with some girl, so we ran away with no problems.

There is nothing to suggeset where this picture was taken, but it was at the Pantages Theather on Nicollet in Minneapolis. We were able to see Jim Brickman ("the new sensational romantic pianist") and that was a lot of fun.

D4 Takes Over for Security

2005-12-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

So security in general, has done nothing about the bike thefts, but a group of D4 guys were eating dinner in the dinning hall and two 12 year old kids had the gall to ride stolen bikes around campus, our guys recognized one of the bikes and took off after them. The kids got off campus and two of the guys who got cars chased them off campus, and after quite a bit of chasing, yelling, and general threats one of the kids dumped the bike and ran. Its was Dave Allen's bike that was stolen more than a month ago now. So we got the bike back safe and sound. Way to go D4.

Dorm 4 Pulls Together For the Christmas Surprises

2005-12-11T08:50:00.000-08:00

We had a Christmas party this last Friday and we all exchanged one dollar gifts and rigged it so that Josh Matthews and Jimmy Phillip would both end up getting bike locks, which to them seemed like cruel irony since they had had their bikes jacked earlier in the semester. So we ended the party and Grant and I started giving some bogus announcements and while we were talking we wheeled in two brand spanking new bikes for the Josh and Jimmy. Both the bikes were just what they wanted and it was really amazing that neither of them got wind of the surprise since 45 odd people were in on it. We were able to collect enough money so we had more than enough for the bikes, and so we gave the extra money to Joel so he could fix his car (he was in an accident just before thanksgiving) They were both so happy. Definitely the best Christmas present giving of the year.

Josh Matthews being surprised.

Jimmy Phillip being surprised.

2005-12-06T15:52:00.000-08:00

Beautiful sunset tonight...

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving

2005-12-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

I went home for thanksgiving weekend, it snowed friday morning so Laura and I went to briskly walk the dog around the loop behind her house.

Britt, Dave, and I hanging from a tree.

Quad-date; Mom and Dad, Jon and Christie, Dave and Catherine (sp?), Josh and Laura, and of course Britt and Kally... errr...

Fell off the radar for a bit there...

2005-12-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

Well I've been somewhat busy/lazy lately and have forgotten to update my blog, so recently we took some dorm Pictures to hang up on the second floor lounge. We're planning on hanging them every semester as a bit of a record of who was in Dorm 4 at any given time.

We repainted the second floor wall so now it looks like a pool table and we hung a new picture on it.

The workers (I swear the must be union) continue to work steadily (quite slowly) as the leaves finally change and fall arrives (in december?!)

Who says LeTourneau Isn't an Artistic School?

2005-11-22T07:41:00.000-08:00

Classic Dr. Graff. So we had this quiz, and i aparently did too much of the work in my head. I had the right answers, just didn't explain them. It's not too often though that the prof takes the chance to draw a frusterated face. HA! I also got back my circuits design report, and got full credit. I think I'm gonna pass Circuits, and if I'm lucky I may just snag a B!

2005-11-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

So a while back I had sent Laura what I considered "Creative Genius" (by an engineers standards anyway) ;a new bag to hold her letters that i've sent her, with a hand embrodiered heart on it. Today, I just got this really cool hand made frame from her. Notice the intricate work with the puzzle pieces. I was quite impressed. Way to go Laura! Now, I have to think of another creative thing to make in response.

Johnny Cash: Walk the Line

2005-11-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

Went to go see the new Johnny Cash movie "Walk the Line" last night and I really enjoyed it. I'm typically not much of a country fan, but Cash is different. I like the movie, it shows a not perfect but very real story about the succeses and depths of a life. I was really impressed with Phoenix and Witherspoons acting too, they did a fine job and apparently even sang everything too. Very good movie. Listen to Johnny Cash.

Courtyard Special Olympics

2005-11-21T13:59:00.000-08:00

It all started when I set a hammock up in the courtyard, soon I had two hammocks up, and a few random ropes between the trees. We made some challenges to jump from ropes to land in the hammocks. Suprisingly no one got hurt.

Tyler State Park: "Trail design by three year olds"

2005-11-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

So we started toward the bottom of the map where there is a little outjutting across the road. The first part of the trail was really hilly and really tired us out, but luckily whatever it lacked in flatness, it made up for with useless switchbacks. It was really fun though, we did loop A, B, C, and D. Then we came back by the road so it wouldn't be such a long ride on the trail back to the car.

I've been riding with some of the BMX's lately trying to pick up some skills, and i've come a long way but i definitly got a long way to go. Dave Allen came along on his BMX bike and rode really well considering he was in a single speed heavy steel frame bike with road tires. Quite impressive.

Tim Shirley, Kenny Martin, Me, and Dave Allen

Ambitious Reading

2005-11-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

After finishing "The Count of Monte Cristo", I've been craving some new books, so i picked up two more ambitious reads, "Les Miserables" and the complete "Chronicles of Narnia", I wanted a box set, but those cost about $25 more so I went with the tank. We'll see if these books can survive a bit better than "The Count of Monte Cristo" Which took on a quite sizable amount of coffee at one point. As you can tell being the engineer and innovator (and not to mention poor) I was able to save the book in it's err mint condition.

As an extra perk, you get to see some pictures of Laura in the background.

Field Trip #2: Southwest Steel Casting

2005-11-12T09:11:00.000-08:00

Another hard day at the plant....
We definitly got these super cool safety glasses from the 80's and we even got to keep the earplugs! wow!

The furnace that heats the metal is pretty cool, there are three independent graphite electrodes about 8 inches in diameter taht they run HUGE amounts of current through which in turn arcs in the furnace and heats the metal. The electrodes were all bright red hot to, and I can't imagine what their energy bill would be with allllll that current.

This is the area where all the casts are poured. The casts are all sand mixed with a hardening polymer, poured into a mold. They are then flipped over and the mold is pulled out and the sand mixture is the only thing remaining. The spray an alchohol based heat shield chemical onto the sand casting mold, and then burn off the achohol. It's crazy cause there is fire everwhere people with flamethrower looking things doing who knows what. A lot of blue collar work in there. Grinders, welders, and packers. Quite a system too.

Heat treating to 1400 C. It was incredible how hot the whole factory got as soon as that door was opened and that super hot metal got rolled out. After heating to 1400 C they would normally quench it in a bath of some sort, here they use water. Tempering the steel helps to counteract the brittleness of the initial casting, though it does sacrifice some of it's yield strength.

It was a pretty cool tour. On a different note I FINISHED MY ENGLISH REVIEW CLASS!! SCORE!
(Yes i was in an english review class... dope!)

Pics from Dave's Fire

2005-11-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

So my brother Dave's dorm burned down a month or so back, and I just uploaded the pics to flickr. check em out on my flicker zeitgeist.

A ridiculous Confirmation Email

2005-11-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

Read this email I took verbatim from the email that cdbaby.com sent me to confirm my order's shipment.

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, November 7th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music

A Whirlwind Weekend

2005-11-06T07:25:00.000-08:00

It all started Thursday night, our dorm was playing T3 in an intramural soccer game. One of our guys, Dave Roberts, got slide tackled from behind and went down hard. His ankle was completely dislocated, and multiple bones were broken. They put him in the back of a pickup and a couple of guys held him while he screamed in pain. When they got to the ER they called me and grant, the two RA's for D4, and we went over to meet them. Eight of us and Dave's girlfriend ended up spending the next 8 hours at the hospital taking turns visiting him in the ER and then we got to see him again after his surgery in the middle of the night. He made it through surgery well, he had shattered the end of his tibia, broke his fibula in two places, and messed up a number of his tendons. He got four plates and a couple of screws.
We've been sending people down and visiting him as much as possible to keep him company, he was off the morhphine all day yesterday so hopefully he'll be able to come back today.
Saturday morning 5 of us from the dorm went to SMU welding research labs, it was a school trip, and i might get some extra credit, but the tour was pretty interesting. It got a bit old because a lot of the machines weren't working and it was a lot of advanced science that we didn't neccessarily understand. There was this one guy who was the kinda guy who would be a perfect candidate for a disgruntled worker. Then when we left there he took off in his racing mini and passed us going a hundred and something. Ok so the labs had some cool stuff though, the had friction stir welding ( mechanically mixing two metals together with a tool steel), abrasive water jet cutting (they can cut out any shape really fast and with very little heat, and can even controlt he depth penetration of the water jet, also they can cut Titanium, one of the hardest metals rather easily), and then the other highlight was their rapid prototyping machine. This machine can make a part by using metal powerder in an argon gas jet pushed into a high power laser beam, and adds material in layer after layer to make the part however it needs to be. It's fairly percise but it is still weaker than a cast part and it comes out pretty rough because of the nature of the molten weld material. Still got a long way to go but very cool none the less.

Anybody read this blog?

2005-10-31T06:54:00.000-08:00

So, I put a hit counter on my blog a month or two back, and I've had 1100 hits. So I was curious how many of "my readers" I actually know. Comment below or drop me a line.

Fall Break Part I

2005-10-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

So Laura flew home to Des Moines on Tuesday Oct 17th, and when I got back to the dorm that night Tyson asked if I would let him borrow my car to drive to El Dorado to see his g/f. I said sure, and then the more I thought about it, it's really not that much farther up to Des Moines. So I decided Thursday afternoon that I was going to go see Laura for my fall break.

We left school at three in the afternoon, dropped off one guy in Oklahoma City, and then dropped Tyson off in El Dorado at 11. I got the graveyard shift and drove till 4:15 AM to get to Des Moines. I slept in the parking lot of a church for two hours till I froze my bunions off. And then kinda drove around and was sick. So I went to the doctor (as I had been sick more or less for 10 days) they gave me some meds and I felt better (now I’m off the meds and feel completely better).

Laura and I had a great time while I was there. We played some racquetball and pool; went to see Wallace and Grommet and the curse of the Wererabbit and March of the Penguins (which is pretty much the pinnacle of documentaries); went to dinner at the cheese cake factory, the zoo, random parks for pictures, and lots of other stuff. Mind you this took place over the three days I was there. It was a lot of fun. My Aunt and Uncle were kind enough to let me stay at their place again and they also were kind enough to have Laura and I over for lunch one day.

So I had a rather enjoyable fall break, and have been able to see Laura more in the last week than I did at all fall semester last year. I also put on 3,000 miles in my car since I left to pick her up in Dallas during her fall break. Crazzzzy.

Enjoy the pictures from my awesome weekend.

Fall Break Part II -> Josh Goes to Des Moines

2005-10-28T14:18:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from my fall break this last week:

Blank Zoo, Des Moines IA

It was really cool at this part of the zoo, cause they had Emus, Wallabies, and Peacocks all just roaming free and you could go real close to them and taunt them, err chase them, wait no i mean walk swiftly behind them with no intention of catching them as the rules explicitly prohibit...

Here, Laura is modeling one of my creative geniuses. I got my jeans caught on gear on my bike this one time, and it ripped it all up the side so I cut off the other pant leg and combined the two partial legs to make this super awesome letter holding sack. Complete with and hand embrodiery and a drawstring. 100% original, not sold in stores hand sewing. Score

... and two random but kinda cool pics too

ok that's all of them

2005-10-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

Laura came to visit this week, that was really awesome, went to tyler rose garden, a nice dinner in Dallas, Tyler state park, sherieveport (sp?) and some other random stuff. Here's some pics.

This was kinda cool, a thirteen second exposure of this really random herd of iron steer in this downtown Dallas park.

Moutain Biking

2005-10-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Went mountain biking in Tyler State park again, somehow accidentally ended up on the same easy trail as last time, but eventually we got over to the expert loop. We couldn't find the right place to get on, so we went down the wrong way for a bit. It was really crazy hilly, but it had some really cool stuff. We're going to go back sometime when we can do the tough stuff when we're fresh.

Sweat Shop inductees

2005-10-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

We made T-Shirts for the dorm on Friday night. I actually went a little with the plastic paint that we use to coat them, but they all came out pretty awesome. We spent about 9 hours total, with at least 5 or so of us working to get 170 shirts and about 10 sweatshirts done. Now I can make a T-Shirt from start to finish, how awesome is that?

The Shirt and Sweatshirt combo.

2005-09-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

Printed up a cool panoramic pic from Eliot.

New Logo for the 3rd Floor Lounge

2005-09-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

So here is a short little glimpse into our logo painting project that we did at the beginning of the year, over the course of the next year or two we're hoping to update more of our old logos into nicer newer ones.

2005-09-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

So last night I had a free hour, one of the first in the last few weeks, so I decided to clean out the janitors/random trash closet. To begin with, I couldn't even see the floor. But the finished product, as you see here, is "perfect". Relatively speaking anyway. I did find a few gems while I was cleaning it out.

Like this sweet disk (oh yeah baby, that a 7 1/8th" floppy) for instance. Pretty crazy huh. Not to mention it was radioactive, and gave me super powers like the hulk. It's actually quite odd the things that give you superpowers rather than kill you.....

I have a child... read on....

2005-09-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

Tony Campolo came to speak in chapel on Wednesday, and while he was speaking he said, "Every day 25,000 people die of starvation or illness related to malnutrition. And no one gives a crap (a different word in reality), and the sad thing is that most of you are more worried about the fact that I said a bad word then the starving people!" This convicted me because it hit the typical Christian right between the eyes, I know my reaction was "my goodness he swore" and it just really struck me how concerned I am for the things that don't really matter, swearing is nothing compared to the thousands that die each day without a chance, or Christ. This was really on my heart so I picked up a Compassion international child yesterday. His name is Vico. I thought it might be a good thing to start using what money i have wisely when I have only a little, than when I have a lot. So meet Vico. Pray for Vico if you can remember to, I’ll write him a letter this weekend and give you all an update on how he’s doing when I get a response in the distant future.

A review of the past few weeks

2005-09-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

I suppose it would be wise to mention Hurricane Rita, it supposedly came right through our area, and we had about 150 evacuees come through here. Though, there was definitely nothing to be worried about for our area, it was downgraded to a tropical Storm by the time it got here. Pretty disapointing for the most part, I volunteered some but the weather was nothing worse than your average rain storm.

Went to a Thousand Foot Krutch, Hawk Nelson, Dizmas, and 4th ave Jones concert on Friday night, the night before the storm was sposed to hit. It was a really good concert, TFK was pretty awesome, got right up from and center stage, one row back. It was cool, cept there were a ton of lil jr. High girls everywhere, really odd for a place like that I thought. I did catch one of TFK's drum sticks and got that signed. That was pretty cool.

Last weekend we had a big barbecue bash, here Tim Shirley tries to ride his 6ft unicycle.

We always know what to do with the extra vegetables that saga gave us.

We also like to paint up for some of the soccer games; here is the halftime show, Jake and Dan had a race, and just prior to this Jake ran around as Pedro tried to lasso him. Quite entertaining.

I painted up too. Got some sweet tan lines off that tight yellow shirt. (those were supposed to be muscles painted on... dope...)

We had some Mohawks, then they got shaved off, then this guy, Tim Onken, went all out and shaved his head clean and then covered his head in glow in the dark paint. so i took a pic.

AIRSOFT

2005-09-10T23:47:00.000-07:00

The airsoft war has begun!

Freshmen EO

2005-09-10T23:46:00.000-07:00

Freshman Extended orientation week is done! Each night had a different activity that got the freshman to know eachother better and to get to know us better. This is the majority of the 43 guys that are part of Dorm 4 this year. This night we took the freshmen around to all the girls dorms and introduced them to the few girls that didn't lock us out. They seemed intimidated by forty guys dressed up cramming into random girls rooms. ELH 3 gave us a welcom (granted a number of the girls have brothers in D4)...

Mountain Biking leads to Roses... (no one died)

2005-09-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of us guys went to Tyler State park this morning and checked out the mountain biking trails. We found there were a lot of hills and that we (ok maybe mostly me) were out of shape. Afterward we went to the Tyler Rose Garden, it was quite pretty and i took a lot of pictures of the cool roses. Check out more pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshlawson/sets/877375/

Booya.

2005-08-31T16:17:00.000-07:00

I am the computer master. Now I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "My what an incredibly cocky thing to say" and you're absolutely correct. But i was incredibly lucky in my success so i must gloat for at least a little while. So here my dad lets me take this ol sony laptop to school, and of course it's broken, Dave gave up all hope for it to ever work. So of course the fact that it doesn't work makes it a perfect gift to give me. So they did. I took it apart and jimmy rigged it so now it works, i had to solder a power source into the motherboard and suprise of suprises. It worked. Booya. Now i can hope my bro dave will read this so i can have a monster gloating session. So this is by far the most cocky post of this blog to date.....

2005-08-31T09:35:00.000-07:00

Since i'm the RA this year I get a room to myself and so i went crazy with it, I built new shelves this year so i have some more accesibly storage area, planted some flowers and bamboo, and bought a sweet couch from good will. It's pretty sweet.

2005-08-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

We painted a new logo on the wall of the Third floor lounge before classes start, I made a fun little time lapse video which i'll try to see if i can post a link to it at some later date. But here are a few of the pics.

Perfecto!

Summer Review

2005-08-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

I have not died friends, I have merely been lazy. Very lazy. I took the summer off, but since I was actually quite busy during the summer I decided to just do a Summer in Pictures review. In no particular order... here goes nothing.

Jon throwing up on the freeway

A little mudding up in Pine City MN

Atlantic Ocean - Atlantic Beach NJ

Me and my cousin Chloe on mothers day

Grandma's Marathon - I beat that girl in the final sprint... booya

Laura was kind enough to come all the way up to Duluth just to see me run my marathon.

Dave and I took it upon ourselves to split 50 wings at the new Buffalo Wild Wings in Woodbury. I wouldn't recommend this as a first date move to anyone, though Laura did get to enjoy this sight.

Some random swans in a pond from when I went camping with the Bonney family in Hinkley MN.

My fellow assemblers at Harland Medical, where I interned for the summer.

A timed shot with the camera on a tripod. We all thried to jump at the same time and we ended up getting quite a few cool silhouette shots.

On Father's day we went to the state fair grounds to check out all the cool hot rods.

A view from the Empire State building in New York.

Random ductape creations compliments of the campers at my brother Dave's Camp. - Inspiration Hills Bible Camp

Random Flowers I liked when I was walking in IA

Souix Falls with Dave and Pete Kolb

Laura and I putting out the vibe for the picture.

My bros and I did a lot of mountain biking and practiced our first aid.

Laura and I putting out some more monster vibe at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis MN

Dave playing tug of war (and losing) with the statues

The bonney's bought some kayaks this summer so I made use of them as often as possible with Laura, here we're going down Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis MN.

My girl under a cool bridge

We rented a bike in minnehaha falls park and the beauty of this bike is that she has a steering wheel and it wasn't connected to anything. So i made liberal use of narrow sidewalks and bumpy grassy areas and did as much off roading and dangerous things as one might find possible in a city park.

Laura and I spent a day at Taylors Falls hiking and prancing in the woods.

I dunno, took a picture for fun.

Memorial day with the sheps and laws

Witnessing

2005-05-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

I was blessed on Sunday, and I have to share it. Eliot and I were just sitting at a restaurant on Sunday after church. We were sitting at a booth waiting for our meals to come when the bus boy came up and asked if we were college students. We explained I was but that Eliot had already graduated. He chatted for a few seconds and moved on his way giving us straws for our drinks. Eliot and I though the conversation was a little weird, but then a few minutes after our waiter came and said that our ticket had been paid for. It was completely out of nowhere and took both of us by surprise. When we were getting ready to leave the waitress came over and gave us a business card sized thing that just said the name of a church, New Beginnings Baptist Church, and had a nice handwritten note on it. Way to go New Beginnings.

I have come to think that this is one of the best ways of witnessing and outreach I have ever heard of. It’s really incredible because there is no pressure to visit, if you do visit the church, you do it of your own accord. There is no awkward moments or condemning, just blessings. I think this is something that churches and especially myself should do more often. So while I may be poor I’m going to try this out this summer and maybe suggest it to my pastor as a means of outreach.

The semester draws to a close

2005-05-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

Fire Hazards run rapant as everyone takes apart their shelves and throws them in the hall.

My new dancing friend Greg

2005-04-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

Meet Greg, he's my friend that I made while I was taking a break from my work this last week. He lives in front of my subwoofer and he likes to dance when the music (well mostly bass) gets craaaazy! My neighbors, above and below, both like to join in on the fun and bang on their floor or ceiling with heavy objects. It sure is fun! Check out some of his sweet dance moves!

2005-04-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

When I don't have too much sweat in my eyes to open them I sometimes notice the wildflowers growing in the weeds near where I run. So I went out and found a few of them.

Some fun by the statue...

2005-04-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

5 mile run in 87 degrees of heat. It may have been dry out but I managed to stay soaked.

2005-04-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

I'm a Texan... no seriously... don't I look like it? Ok so a bunch of us went out to the country with enought ammo to start a revolution, and six guns. Four were shotguns, 2 - 12 guage, one double barrel, the other semi-automatic, an over under 28 gauge, and a semi-auto 20 gauge. We got a bunch of clay pigeons and had our fill of shooting, we originally were worried that we wouldn't have enough pigeons just because we had 5 times more ammo than pigeons. We later found out most of us weren't that great of shots, though I did gain respect from Tyson, our resident bushman from the sticks of Kansas, for my shooting ability. It was crazy fun and we shot off some thousand rounds between the shotguns and two .22s.

Running 17 Miles

2005-04-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

I ran 17 miles today, I am pooped. See that nasty looking white stuff? It's salt from my sweat. EWW.

Two Weeks Left!!!

2005-04-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

There are only two weeks left till I get to be home and finally seem family and Laura. Not to mention I got a job waiting for me that I am quite excited for. Labs are finishing up, one is done, and I finish my Chem lab next week. Then comes finals and getting busy with packing. The end is near!

Also anyone from NLA or really anyone, you should check out my flickr thing. Its a link on the right. Eliot was kind enough to hook me up with a year's pro account so I get 2 gb of uploading a month, so I'm starting to add a lot more pictures. Enjoy.

2005-04-23T19:57:00.001-07:00

My Road.

2005-04-23T19:57:00.000-07:00

I thought this flag was really cool, so I took a picture. This is right outside of the Dallas City Hall.

Dallas Auto Show 2005

2005-04-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

We also went that same weekend to the Dallas auto show. There were some really sweet cars, they had most every car you could think of, but the highlights were definitly the Saleen S7, Lambourgini's anything, and Chrysler's new super car, the ME4-12 (because it has 12 cylinders and 4 superchargers, and it mid engine). The ME4-12 was sweet, all carbon fiber exterior, 0-60 in 2.9 seconds. Crazy fast.

ME4-12

Dorm 4 Camping at Lake of the Pines

2005-04-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

The dorm went camping earlier in the weekend (yes this is out of order) before we went to Dallas. This was at The Lake of the Pines. We went to a boat dock and parked and walked down some path thing with a big gate blocking it down to the lake and camped out there. It was perfect weather, which was quite handy since we didn't have enough tents, and 5 of us slept on the blue tarp by the fire. Which was all good and fun till the fire went out at 3 am and the crazy coons got in a fight at 4 am. Other than that I slept well. We have a sweet deal at LETU; we can give our ID numbers to Sodexo (our food provider) and they will actually give us food to go camping. Fortunatly they gave us a ton of fruit and some vegetables, of which we abstain from for health reasons, but found a good alternative use. We just so happened to have a bat along, so we all took our turns wacking the fruit. These were some of the highlights.

This is us the morning after lounging around. The five of us slept right on that blue tarp.

Texas Rangers Game

2005-04-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since the last posts but i had a very full weekend. Here we're at the Texas Rangers V. Toronto Blue Jays game in dalls. Now notice the change in perspectives of the pictures. We umm "found" better seats much closer, and the truely amazing thing was that a security guard helped us find better seats.

The outside of the Ameriquest Field in Arlington.

Extreme Vandals

2005-04-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

.. ... .--..--.. <- That's a news flash, maybe you don't speak morse code, so I'll break it down for you. We had two, unnamed, campus residents who flew overhead and TP'd from about 500 ft. Members of Dorm 4 caught wind of it and yelled out to everyone in the Dorm that there was going to be a TP drop. So we all ran blissfully out into the field and watched the mayhem unfold. Ok really it wasn't much but they had 4 Industrial length TP rollst hat they threw, it was really cool to watch cause with gravity they unrolled perfectly without tearing and there were 200 ft streams in the sky. Vandalism has reached a new level. Actually we cleaned up everything that was on campus, and apparently it's not illegal said a flight instructor. Score.

Off Roading!

2005-04-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

So this morning we went out to go to an auction that Eliot wanted to check out, which turned out to be a glorified garage sale, so we left there, went on a shopping spree to Wal-Mart. This of course proved to be quite exciting. I decided it was about time that I buy some silver wear and some things to eat on. Then we decided we should go off roading down by the Sabine river. This sounded good to me, so we got two other guys to come from the dorm, and we had ourselves quite a time. First Eliot says “ oh this looks like it” and the rest of us are looking at each other as he slows down and pulls off I-20 into the median right before a bridge and we drop down do a dirt road that goes under the bridge. It was pretty crazy, there were some nice mud spots and a lot of nice pits. We took his car a half mile or so down this four wheeler trail, we’re talking ATV not car, and then we finally got to a place where it was impossible to go any farther… or turn around. We were trapped at the crest of a hill with no where to go but backwards. So … with a great deal of effort we backed up through that whole really narrow road. We kept going all over, and stopped to look at some deer stands, since there were a ton of stands and feeders and I snapped off a picture of these flowers. Then we got to this spot that was more swampy with more weeds and stuff, we got so stuck in this really deep mud puddle. We spent an hour trying to get out and finally called Jake to come pull us out with his tank of a truck. We met him on the freeway and rode through the trails with him again, and while we were doing this the guy still at the car calls and said that the land owner…. Came by and went to get his truck. By the time we got there he had pulled him out and was sitting there waiting for us. He let us out another way, and said something like “I hope I don’t see you out here again” which we translated from east Texan into “I’ll shoot you if I ever see you on my land again” he had the tone just right… so we knew… a lesson learned, a good time had.

One of my more impressive works

2005-04-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

Doodling
Originally uploaded by joshlawson.

Well since I do attend one of the most artistic universtities in the nation, I thought I would share one of my fine works of art. While it leans a bit upon the impressionistic values imposed by the industrial revolution using picaso as one of my major sources, I've found that the more you look at it the more you can see the true renissance influence that it has taken on. I hope you enjoy this true work of art as much as I do.

I want a mail order Doctorate.

2005-04-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

I have decided that there definitly needs to be some sort of class to the tune of "How to use technology competently" in all doctorate programs. I was in a seminar today and the professor put in the CD upside down and was baffled as to why it wouldn't read the cd. That was impressive. Also the guy who was speaking struggled to find his presentation even though he had named it whatever he wanted to and he was in the correct directory, so perhaps a "How to recognize your own file" class may also be good. Interesting presentation once I was able to get beyond the lack of computer expertise.

Todays shirt of the day reads:
Chicago Police Department: Narcotics
"You huff and puff and we'll blow your door down"

The other D4 RA was wearing that yesterday and it made my day!

Training Miles : 111

2005-04-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

Running has been going pretty well overall, though I have missed a number of runs because of vacation or sickness, I'm sticking to my schedule as best I can. Today while I was running at the park a really cool thing happened. I had run about 4 of my 7 miles for the day, and there was a guy up ahead of me and I decided I needed to pass him, because he looked older than me. So I caught up to him an offered a friendly hello, and some comment about the weather, and he threw back "Hey you're not allowed to pass an old guy." So I said, "I'm afraid I might have to, ya see I'm running Grandma's Marathon in 2 months," and then we just started talking about marathons and anything and everything for the last three miles of my run. It was really cool because he had run a 2:21 marathon which is really fast, though that was in 1980. Now he's 51 and still runs six miles everyday, so while he was running a tad slower than me I really enjoyed cutting the pace back a bit and soaking up some knowledge from a runner who had run all his life. It was really cool and we talked about MN and the cold, TX and the heat. A very good run!

What follows:

2005-04-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

These next pictures are incredibly random, and really serve no practical purpose. I was having fun taking pictures in sepia color, and of course high speed shutter. With high speed shutter I can take 30 odd pictures one right after the other in less than 20 seconds. It's mighty fun!

2005-04-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Ok so i'm a nut, but i've been having a gay old time taking pictures with my camera on high speed mode, so i can take 30 pictures in some 15 seconds

Fire Alarms....

2005-04-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

These alarms are just getting out of hand, yesterday alone it went off four times, and this morning at the splendid hour of 4:00 AM it went off again. I am really starting to lose my patience for the schools response to the fire alarms. Once or twice a semester is ok, but when the fire department has had to come more than once a week because the alarm goes crazy is bad. Sleeping now has become more of a sport on the dorm and we are considering things that might be able to get the attention of the powers that be that need to fix this problem. A few ideas mulling around are camping out in the yards of the president and various faculty, having sleep overs in MSC, and crashing in our RD's apartment the next time it goes off. It's been very annoying especially since I had a chemistry test this morning. Oh well, such is life, but if it keeps going off I think we shall begin visiting people late at night.

FIRE ALARMS STINK!

2005-04-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

Having a room to yourself: $0; Rain :$0; Having three False Fire Alarms in the Rain at night: Priceless.

2005-04-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a little eye candy for all of you who love blisters. I ran 15 miles today, it was a really beautiful day and run, it was nice rolling hills, goats, dogs, hicks, trucks, and sun. Wonderful! I can still walk after running so far! Wahoo.

2005-03-30T10:34:00.000-08:00

Wahoo! GT4 is the best! I got 90.1% of the game beat!

2005-03-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

Here's the challenge, I'll bet that no one else can take a picture like this all by themself. I presed the self timer button and then had to time my jump so it caught me at my apex. I was pretty impressed, and yes I do have a fair about a free time before you even ask.

Summer Job!

2005-03-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

I just got an email from Harland Medical Systems, I've been offered a full time summer internship! Wahoo! I am very excited to finally be able to have a real job, and hopefully put away some dough this summer, not to mention I should be able to learn a lot since I haven't had a ton of useful classes yet. Wahoo!

Easter Sunday

2005-03-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

This Easter Sunday I went to a sunrise service with about 14 guys from my dorm. It was at 7:00 AM and was put on by a conglomerate of churches in the Longview area. It sounded like a great idea, but the weather decided to spice things up a bit. It had rained pretty hard the night before, but in the morning (after my double strength Vanilla Crème Brule coffee) I looked outside and saw it was only drizzling, so I threw on my jacket and went out into the courtyard with the group to get ready to go. We got there and no one was there, they were all in the cars debating it looked like so all of us brave younguns went out into the park (oh yeah, it was a OUTDOOR UNCOVERED morning service) It was a really good service though, they had special music, readings, worship, and a full sermon too. One thing I thought was really cool was that the communion they passed out was ready made. It looked like a clear coffee creamer container with a piece of bread sealed in the top, so it was all protected and could hand them out a lot easier, and they also did a really good job talking about the significance of communion. They used the story of the week prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, when Mary Magdalene used her earthly wealth all that she had, and poured her costly perfume on Jesus feet using her hair to wash his feet. Giving everything to her heavenly father. Then they had a really good way of tying it in… that I forgot. Ooops. Then toward the end as the 14 of us were huddled under 2 umbrellas (yes I’d imagine it was quite comical) the rain picked up and all of us with a shoulder out from under the umbrella got drenched. Then the sprinklers turned on, in the rain, and drenched a few of the people, that was entertaining. It was a memorable Easter, even without any productions, or choirs, just down to earth worship of the One who was raised.

2005-03-26T20:59:00.000-08:00

Full moon on campus.

2005-03-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

Des Moines, beautiful Skunk river (I actually just named it myself because it stunk like no one's business)

2005-03-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

We have our matching sweaters! Ok, to be honest they were both Laura's but I got so excited about it... ok no, I was just feeling crazy so i tried it on. It forever will be stretched out now.

2005-03-23T20:03:00.000-08:00

Laura and I at the Conservatory.

Spring Break and beyond

2005-03-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

So to do all things correct I should really start with spring break. So I shall.

Spring break was really awesome, though a bit unspringy indeed. When I was leaving Texas it was a chilly 81 degrees out, and Minnesota was of course a balmy 11 degrees. So that came as quite a shock, but I went out the next morning for an 11 mile run with Christie and assorted other Sheppards that we suckered into coming also. That was a bit long of a run, and I got some very appealing blisters.

I spent the first four nights at home doing various things, showing off my wicked sweet beard growth, hot tubbing and pool with MD, and I also had a job interview with Harland Medical for a summer internship. It was really nice to be home, though college is starting to feel more like home, and home is feeling different. They always say once you leave for college it never feels quite the same. I'd like to know who they is first of all, but I think they were right. I've spent so much time away and I live out of a suitcase when I'm at home that college feels more nautural right now. I'm sure when summer comes things should go back to normal when I move all my stuff back and actually get to spend time at home. If ya know what I mean. None the less I really did enjoy getting to see all my friends from church that I had not seen in a long time. Also Jon and Christie got their dog this weekend so I had a good time tormenting it. I mean playing with it. I was also able to visit my grandma and grandpa, which was really good to see that my grandpa was doing well after his hip replacement surgery.

Then on Tuesday the week would hit its’ peak and stay there for a long time. Tuesday morning at 7 am (yes you know I am whipped because not just anyone can get me out of bed at that time of my own free will) I left to go visit my Laura. I had a spectacular time with her, we visited numerous parks around the Des Moines area, I visited her economics class, we went to the art museum, the conservatory, we went to a wedding, and we just spent time together. I had an absolutely perfect time because it had been more than 60 days since I had last seen Laura.

Though the drive back from Des Moines was a bit long since we didn’t leave a wedding of one of Laura’s Intervarsity Leaders until almost 9, then it was an hour back to Des Moines, and roughly Four hours home, so we dropped off Megan at 2 or so, and then I drove Laura home, we said our tearful goodbyes, and I got home and packed and got to bed by 3:12 am. I left for the airport 3 hours later and slept anywhere and everywhere I could all day, made it back to my dorm by 6 pm, 12 hours a travel. Ufta

So I had started to notice that my throat hurt on Sunday, but just ignored it until Tuesday. When everything went to pot, I went to my 8 o’clock English class, but had to leave early, rush back to the dorm, and worship the porcelain gods. Then I went to bed for 20 minutes and then went back to puke again. I repeated this process until 10 pm and decided something needed to be done, so I went into the hospital around 11:30, and they said, you have strep. Poked me in the lucky left butt cheek with their little needle and pumped some penicillin in. I also got a fun fun IV with some meds for about 2 hours and then I got to go home. The meds helped me sleep like a baby, but they also wrote me a prescription for some nice gel that is anti nausea and all you hafta do is rub it on your chest. Now of course this seemed weird at first, but the alternative to wonder jelly was a suppository. No more questions says I, where’s the gel. I am finally back to eating somewhat today. But that was my fun first few days back at school.

2005-03-09T20:23:00.000-08:00

Grand Turismo 4 progresses check out that hot van, I put about $100,000 into it to get it from 32 hp to almost 90, it tops out around 64mph, plus of course that spoiler made it twice as fast as well as those hot red rims.

Training Miles : 54

2005-03-09T15:59:00.000-08:00

So the past few weeks I've been training for grandma's marathon this summer, thus far I have run 54 miles. I've stuck to my schedule all except for three runs while I was sick, and once when I went to a Toby Mac concert. Ufta, ran six miles today, and I worked out way to much yesterday, and it hurt. Plus I think I’m starting to get a cold Wahoo! Bring it on cold, I can take it!

I am officially accepted to be a RA on the third floor of Dorm 4, so I am pretty pumped, my running mate or the guy who got the other floor on Dorm 4 is a good guy, so we should have a good year this next year getting to work together.

2005-03-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

The Grand Turismo 4 mural continues with from top left to right, zonda c12s, ginette g4, Ruf 3400s, Camero SS race car, and the 350Z race car.

2005-03-02T16:07:00.000-08:00

Cool Bridge

2005-03-02T16:06:00.001-08:00

A cool Island in Tyler State Park, with certain significance from Laura's last visit to Texas.

2005-03-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Eliot and I went camping at Tyler State park for Friday night, and spent most of the day at the park Saturday. We woke up late to the slowest version of "The old Rugged Cross" I have ever heard in my life blaring out of someones huge late 80's conversion van. Then we got a call from eliots mom and sister who were in town for a dog show and I got to see my very first dog show grand prix competition. It was kinda interesting the trainers run along side and make commands to the dog as they have to perform about 18 activities, jumping over things, through things, climbing A-frames, and other sundry tasks. Then we went back to the camp after seeing his sister compete. We set up the hammocks in the exact same spot that Laura and I had set up our hammock last fall when she came and visited me down in Texas. Then after a 1/2 hour nap I went out and ran around the lake 4 and change times in order to make my quota of 9 miles for the day on my marathon training schedule.

2005-03-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

So it all started when we had a really weak flush on our toilet, my suite mate jake decided that it needed more power. Now this seemed like a good idea, so he adjusted the whatchamacallit and gave er a flush. It was quite powerful, we actually had ourselves a little geyser. It got the water flowing circullarly so fast that it would fly out of the toilet bowl and onto the floor, so I raced to the janitors closet and mopped with vengence sweeping it towards their room (since my room was aparently downhill). But now after numerous adjustment flushes our toilet flushes with good power and handles the biggest tests we can throw at it.

2005-03-02T15:56:00.001-08:00

While i have been a huge fan of the amish beard that I have been using for the past few years, I decided to shake things up and try something new.

2005-03-02T15:56:00.000-08:00

I moved my 4x4 beam that crosses my room to the center more so i can hang my hammocks better, but now it is really high up... woah...

2005-03-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

Hmm... nail... shoe... good combo

2005-03-02T15:54:00.000-08:00

The nail I took out of my shoe, I wonder just how long that has been in there....

2005-02-23T21:06:00.000-08:00

Grand Turismo 4. It came out yesterday, but didn't arrive at any stores in longview until today, I was at Best Buy waiting when they opened, bought the game, and played it like a banshee today. Man it is awesome! this is my current car, the Camero SS race car version, i popped in a turbo to up my HP to 921, and added some NOS for kicks and giggles. This is easily the best game I have played this year.

2005-02-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

There's some really pretty trees budding on campus, this is my favorite. It was 82 today, it's been rather nice out lately.

LeTourneau enters the days of the 1960s

2005-02-19T19:14:00.000-08:00

I think I now know what it was like to be at LeTourneau in the days of yester year. Tonight at dinner someone pointed out the sever lack of women at dinner. I looked around and counted 5 girls, and there were about 150 people there. That was an intersting revelation. I figure this has got to be about what it was like back in the 60s. We had a speaker who had gone to Letu back in the day explain that there were seven girls on campus, all of them known by name because there were so few of them. Now at first the severe lack of feminine presence perplexed me, but soon it was clear. Tonight was a sadie hawkins date night. So it looks like most of the girls did their duty and asked a boy to the orchestra, or maybe they cruely went in groups, but none the less dorm four escaped with only one person being asked to go to the orchestra. Shufta. anyway it was a very masculine night.

Also I found out when I blow my nose really hard I have air coming out of the corner of my left eye, I know this because I can feel it and there are bubbles there. How freaky is that!

2005-02-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

I had a sore throat today? How does it look in there? Think i'm gonna pull through.... yeah i will... check out the detail on that... oh i even brushed my teeth and did some listerine just for your enjoyment. It does really hurt though. MORE COUGH DROPS TO FEED MY NEW ADDICTION!

MARATHON TRAINING

2005-02-15T17:20:00.000-08:00

Time to begin training, today I ran three miles in the 80 degree heat of texas, and then i also worked out. One day down in the many to go in the next 18 weeks up to Grandma's marathon.

Also I was a bit proud yesterday I decided on a speech topic at about 2 in the afternoon, wrote it around 5, and gave it around 6:30. So i would have to say i did a pretty good job at condensing that whole thing down. The truely impressive part is that I got complimented on it the day after by a class mate. It's actually suprising I've found recently that having 19 credit hours this semester keeps me pretty busy, not to mention now training for a marathon.

I also had my group interview for the position of RA (resident assistant) today. It felt like a psyche analysis with all the people watching and listening. It went well, I have my big one on one interview on friday evening. Wish me luck!

Valentine's Day

2005-02-15T17:14:00.001-08:00

Valentines Day was about as wonderful as a Valentine can be while so far away from MY VALENTINE. It was still a good day, I got a lot of great things, my girlfriend sent me a puzzle of a picture of us (very well made) with a really sweet note on the back, and she also sent me a story made with candy hearts sayings, and finally i also got a gift package of various coffee grinds from laura too. I'm excited to try them all, they smell really good. These made me very happy, but also I got a thing of chocholates from my mommy, and some cookies from my bro jon and Christie, so i made a really good haul this valentines day.

2005-02-15T17:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, the suspense is over, I made Laura a scrapbook for Valentines day! It was pretty awesome if i do say so myself, I covered the major events of the last year, and wrote a page about them.

2005-02-15T17:03:00.001-08:00

John Clark and Grant something or other

2005-02-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

Motor Scooter: John and Skinny

Big guys, small bikes

2005-02-15T16:57:00.000-08:00

So just recently there has been a revived love for the motorscooter, which is not too big of a bike. Skinny has especially taken a liking to it, and love to drive it around. A lot of the guys have recently been out on it, and it certainly makes for some entertainment.

Valentine's Day

2005-02-07T15:41:00.000-08:00

I've been rather occupied lately doing a pretty awesome valentine's day presnet for my girlfriend. Lemme tell you it is something else. I just finished it a couple minutes ago. I am quite proud of my work. I'll post a picture when she's got it, that is so I don't ruin the terrible suspense I've been keeping her in.

Hair Cuts

2005-02-07T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm getting to be quite the master barber. I've given three haircuts in the last week, and a few more people were thinking about it, they're just not brave enough. Granted i'm a Mechanical Engineering major, but I can still cut a decent head of hair. One minor problem is when I cut my own hair, I can't actually see anything in the back. Anything goes back there.

2005-02-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

This would be very concieted to post this if it was a regular occurance, but this is nothing short of a miracle! Last semester my best was like a 82% the whole semester on a Calc I test. Now in Calc II I get this !! WAHOO!

2005-02-01T10:22:00.001-08:00

My girlfriend and I prancing in flowers

2005-02-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

Before