Go Fly a Kite!

Today it was as warm as its been since last summer. The thermometer said it was 71 degrees, but in the sun and dry air it felt like 80. It was SO warm and sunny that Seth and I HAD to take a homework break and get outside. Seth called his friend Trent who brought out his paraglider kite, which has about two square meters of surface area. This kite is a trainer for the larger kite boarding kites that get as large a nine meters (see http://buyslingshotsports.com/kite/2008_kite.htm ). In any kind of breeze at all this kite is a handful, and one gust knocked me off my feet and dragged me across the grass.

Here is Seth getting a complete body workout. Notice the leash in case the handle gets ripped out of your hands. You steer the kite like a bicycle; you rotate the handle around a vertical axis.

Seth took this picture looking over my shoulder while the kite was relatively motionless (not a frequent occurence). After about five or ten minutes I felt like I'd sprinted a mile or two. Very tiring but a GREAT whole-body workout.


As you can see Seth is using quite a bit of strength just to hold the kit. One stunt the boys do is when the kite gives a big jerk is to jump up in the air and have the kite give them a big boost. People would cut across the grass in front of the boys, and I worried that if the kite ever swooped low while someone was under it, that the cables might really injure them (like cut off their head).


This short video shows us launching the kite so you get an idea of its size


This video shows Seth really working it. I didn't notice the annoying dog barking in the background the entire time.

Spring Break

This past week Jane was in St. George, Utah with her mom & dad and two sisters (Pam and Annette). This was planned so I cleared my travel schedule and Seth and I had a bachellor week filled with no-key work and relaxation. I generally went to work in the morning and came home mid-afternoon; about the time Seth got up (just kidding). Seth spent lots of time with his seminary friends, and I got caught up with my e-mail (about 250 at the beginning of the week; I'm down to about 127, most of which I've read but I'm holding onto because of actions I need to do). Seth applied for a life-guard job at the rec center and started filling out the last of his Eagle Scout paper work which needs some info from the Scout Office to complete. He also spent a lot of quality time working on his on-line driving class.

We had some sunny and warm days, so Seth was able to go to the park several times with friends and fly kites, etc. On Wednesday he ask if they could all come over to our house to watch a movie around dinner time, so ran to the store and bought some fried chicken, threw a pan of cornbread into the oven, and fed them all. Then they went to Activity Night (Mutual to you old timers) and then they all came back afterwards to finish the movie.

This is Seth's seminary group of friends. They call themselves the West Gulch Similar Religion Affiliation Group, because they aren't associated with a single ward and the boys are from the Westridge Ward and the girls from Spring Gulch. So far there aren't any pair ups. Most are 16 years old now except for Abbie; yellow shirt between Jessica (blue shirt) and Tenille (green shirt) who's b-day is in June. Then Seth has a BIG wait until November. I guess I don't have to say he's dying to get behind the wheel.


Saturday Seth and I went skiing/snowboarding. It was a great day and Seth and I both skied/snowboarded better than ever before. We like to go together because of our Colorado friends are experts but we spend time on the easier slopes and have a good time. As we were leaving Seth got a call from a friend (a girl) and asked if was going to the Stake Dance. Man...I never had a girl call ME and make sure I was going to a dance! All his friends showed up and that lasted until 11pm. In the meantime it started snowing and by morning we had two inches on the patio table (our depth gauge).

This morning (Sunday) I had to leave early for church for choir practice. I always hated those last minute practices that go on while people are arriving. I have to admit, at the beginning of practice we sounded SO BAD. The pianist was in tears because she thought she was going to wreck it and quite frankly I didn't think they would notice her mistakes over the choir. Fortunately we went over the song a bunch and more people came it started sounding better, but after the 20th time of the guys in front of me singing the same wrong note even I was getting a little frustrated. At four minutes before the time the meeting was supposed to start I told the choir director that we had to quit (the Bishopric was trying to sit on the stand). The actual performance went well and no one suspected the Easter miracle that occurred right in front of their eyes.

After church Seth and I went to the Chambers' house for dinner: ham, funeral potatoes, homemade rolls, salad, the several yummy desserts. Afterwards it was still sunny so Seth and I went for a walk on "the loop". We were going to fly our kite at the park, but we got there without kite string.

Mom comes home tomorrow so we're doing laundry and a few other preps. Seth and I generally aren't messy; we keep up the dishes and don't cook indoors all that much. We barbecue about half our meals and I cooked bacon for BLTs on my big burner in the front driveway so as to not fill the house with smoke and bacon smell that will persist for days.

Jock

A few weeks ago we (Seth's Parents) received a somewhat cryptic invitation to attend an awards ceremony where Seth was to be given some kind of award; the invitation failed to say what it was for. Last Thursday Jane and Seth went (I was in Portland) and it turned out that he was being given an "academic letter". So I guess that means he got a varsity letter in....homework? grades? Anyway, it was a nice honor and he was the only recipient from our ward. I was pleased to learn that two of his close friends from the other ward also were at the event. The award was given to students who maintained a 3.75 grade point average for the past three semesters. If you click on the program below you will see that there were only THREE people who kept it up for six semesters. Yikes!

This is the program

This is the ribbon

This is the letter. I think the Thunderidge Grizzly theme in the letter is kind of cool. I asked Seth if he wanted a letter jacket and his response was "not at this time". I must say I always coveted the guys that had one.

High Tech

This week I attended two conferences. The first was in Orlando, FL where I gave a one-hour talk and then jumped on a plane to Portland, OR where I spent the rest of the week working at the "Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education" conference. The conference was held at the Portand Convention Center. This is the top conference for computer science academics, and Microsoft is a major sponsor of the event. This is the booth that we had built for the event. Eighteen Microsoft researchers and academic managers like me attended the four day event, which ended this afternoon (Saturday, March 15th). I had a major role in planning Microsoft's engagement at the event, and I spent the entire time in the booth engaging conference attendees in conversations so that I could tell them about some of our academic offerings. This was my typical approach:

1. Hi, can I answer any questions?

2. Where are you from?

3. What classes do you teach?

Once they tell me what they teach, I can steer them in the direction of one of our booth experts and then its off to the next person. It was kind of like tracting; I found myself playing tracting games like "the next person wearing a blue coat that walks by I'll go talk to". It was pretty funny. If we saw someone that looked like they were purposely avoiding our booth because we were Microsoft (and therefore evil), I would purposely go strike up a conversation just to bug them. Some people I actually joked about using my Jedi mind powers to persuade them to adopt our technologies in their classroom.

Sailing in Cozumel

Last November I bought a cheap water-proof camera for under-water pictures while I was on the Disney Cruise, but didn't use all of the pictures, so I kept it and took it on last week's cruise to finish up the roll. We didn't end up snorkeling, but I did take it sailing, and we had some nice pictures turn out. I just took the camera to Walmart today to get developed. Less the $7 and I got prints and the digital images on a CD. Enjoy!

This is me at the tiller of a Hobie Wave catamaran

View of the sail looking up from the trampoline

I had Krishna stick the camera under water while we were under sail to take a picture of one of the hulls to show how clear the water was

There was some people parasailing out in the bay and when we were way out there, the para-sailing boat brought the guy over our catamaran to give the guy a cool view, which ended up giving us a pretty cool view as well.

This is the para-sailing guys from a distance

This is when the guy went straight over our heads. We tried to get him to wave, but we could tell the guy was holding on for dear life and probably wasn't as thrilled about going over us as the guys in the tow-boat though he would be.

Another shot of the guy on the para-sail. I can't figure out what the reflection in the picture is

Train Up a Child- Mixing Business with Pleasure

This past Thursday I was in Tucson as a sponsor of a regional high school event to help convince kids to major in technical careers. The event was held at the Pima Air and Space Museum. In the afternoon, Allie brought the kids down, and when she saw how much fun the kids were having, she called James and he left work and came down too. Most of the pictures were taken by James while I stayed at my booth. Earlier in the day, it was quite busy with kids attending on field trips. This was in the afternoon after most of the high school kids had gone, and before the evening families showed up.

Notice the sweet location I got: right under the SR-71 (that's what you get for arriving early to set up)


Marie is posing outside of a little plane that kids were allowed to climb into


With all the giant airplanes and jets around, when Ben saw this little jet, he was SURE this one was for him. He was under the rope in a 1/2 second trying to figure out how to get into the cockpit.



Marie and Tessa like the Bumblebee. Grace isn't quite as impressed.


At the table next to me was a local medical college with their infant care simulator. Ben is listening to the heart rate. Check out the candy dish!


Ben was totally in heaven with all the dials, switches & cranks. The girls not so much.


Ben getting the hang of a joystick.


Posing in front of the SR-71: the worlds fastest jet at over 2000 mph. Designed in the '60s no less.


Tessa is ready for a dog fight over the Pacific

Cozumel, Mexico

This is a map of the island of Cozumel. The town is San Miguel, and that is where our ship docked. We arrived about 11:00am and left around 8:30pm, so were were ashore about 8 hours total.


The guys I was with and I rented a jeep for about $100 for the day, but at $20 each it was much cheaper than the organized shore excursions offered on the cruise, plus we got to go where ever we wanted. Krishna is driving (he put it on HIS credit card), Brad my roomie is riding shotgun (at 6'2" he wouldn't fit in the back), Gautam is in the back seat foreground and Alfred is in the background. I wedged my skinny bum next to Alfred on the passenger side.



We spent about 3 hours at the Playa Mia beach resort. I spent most of in sailing the Hobie Cat in the background. We had to stay between two piers about a mile apart, but could go out as far as we wanted. Needless to say we were WAY out there (about two miles). We had a nice breeze most of the time so the boat would go between 6 and 8 knots. The water was crystal clear and with the coral sand bottom was very pretty blue.


Of course no trip to Mexico would be complete without a taste of the local cuisine. We drove to San Miguel and then started looking. The guys were REALLY NERVOUS about the sketchy-looking places I wanted to stop but this one looked perfect and I insisted. Maybe it was the mermaid... The food turned out to be FABULOUS, and Alfred admitted that maybe Randy CAN tell how to spot a good place to eat



Here we are eating five chicken and five fish tacos plus rice, beans and soft drinks all for about $24 total plus tip.


Our food came with some amazing green salsa picante. So good but pretty hot. I dabbed it on my tacos, but Krishna decided that he would put entire spoonfuls on his plate despite our warnings. This video captured his reaction:


This is our ship from the dock as we were reboarding. I put the camera on a wall with the flash turned off.

Save the Children of Cozumel

While we were exploring Cozumel in our rented jeep, I frequently saw this scene: a family riding a motor scooter with all of the family members wearing a helmet EXCEPT FOR THE BABY. One scene, which I was not fast enough with the camera had two adults and two children, with the baby straddling the gas tank and the mom holding the baby with one hand and steering with the other. Another child about age five was wedged in between another adult who was on the rear. All had helmets except for the baby! Notice this mom doesn't even bother to hold the baby with both hands, even though she apparently doesn't need it to hold on! Sorry about the blurry picture, my $90 camera has a very low ISO speed, so when the light gets even a little dim (like at sundown) it slows the shutter speed so much that you need a tripod to get a clear picture.

"Knuckles"

I was showing a couple of my Microsoft colleagues our family's blog and the guy in the following picture (DeVaris Brown) said "Dude....who is that?" when he saw the dating pictures of mom. When I told him "that is my wife when I started dating her", he said "knuckles, man.." and held out his fist. Touching knuckles is the current equivalent of the "high five" I guess... DeVaris is always giving me a hard time about being conservative and old fashioned. On the last night of the cruise, DeVaris and I were standing near the exit at a reception and the Mexico rep came up to me and said "my girlfriend (a cute young girl) wants to have her picture taken with you" like I was some kind of celebrity. That also left DeVaris scratching his head...