darkveggie's Xanga

steal this book

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:35:18 GMT

Seriously.
Crazy Love by Francis Chan
Only until July 31st.

a song i can't get enough of

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:50:24 GMT

cookin'

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:11:00 GMT

Today church was more intimate because the students were away for spring break. It was a good message about the need for prayer. I like staying afterwards to hang out, but I had to work on my proposal for my mentor. So for dinner I made some asparagus and sausage, which is a pretty good combo. Afterwards I read a paper for my project and worked on my assignment.

newsboys

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:12:00 GMT

Today I watched the Newsboys in concert with Po-ling, Scott, Tim and his siblings, and Bing in Westlake Village. It was good to see them again. We went first to BCD on Western and had some dinner, which was relaxing, although I felt like we could have caught up a lot more. All during the drive there and back, during the concert, Tim's little brother and Bing were engaged in an 'epic struggle' in the middle seat, while I sat with Tim in the front.

The Newsboys got Michael Tait for their frontman, so the sound was like a strange mix of Dc Talk and Newboys. But they had mostly songs I liked - Breakfast and It is You were the best. Someone even brought a box of Cap'n Crunch =). I think I like Newsboys better now, but it still has a little too much electric-reliant sound for me.

I have abbreviated notes for the month I haven't been writing, but I just am too lazy to write them into fullness yet In the meantime, PhD comics can adequately describe my life.

wrapping up

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:10:00 GMT

Today I tried to wrap up all of the work I've done in my current lab. I wrote a lot of comments in the new version of the code and did some debugging, and made nicer graphs than what I've done before. My mentor says if the results pan out it's interesting enough for a paper, but since I'm the only test subject it's not clear yet. What makes matters worse is that my astigmatism probably confounds the results because my lenses will over correct part of the image, according to Bosco. At least it's not my fault.

mothers

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:15:00 GMT

I've been thinking about visiting my mom for her birthday next month. I don't want to take too much superfluous time off from my work though. Today after lab we had a Bible study at the medical school which was really interesting. Among other things we talked about loving God with your mind and having a positive effective tone. Although it seemed to me at first positive psychology, recovering your identity in Christ and the church was a big part.

After lab I found out that John's mom had passed away of cancer recently, and the memorial service was tomorrow. I was sad for him and missed my mom for a while. I went to Ralph's to pick up some groceries and came out to see an old guy ask me for money for jumper cables. When I told him I had neither he insisted, so we walked across the street to the gas station to buy jumper cables. While walking I learned his name was Cliff and he was a veteran visiting his son on his wife's birthday. They were at Ralph's to get a gift but his car wouldn't start. When we got back with the cables we couldn't start the car, but I gave his wife (also a veteran) some of my groceries as a birthday present. Seeing mothers everywhere makes me miss mine - I realized I don't talk to many daily anymore.

Back from Mammoth

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:15:00 GMT

We drove back from the trip today, right before a big snowstorm was about to make traffic bad. There were great views of the mountain coming down, and we were all really relaxed with a trouble-free weekend, thanks to Lei. The biggest hassle we had was probably getting 20% coupon discounts from the ski rental lodge, which she took care of.
Along the way we stopped by a German bakkery with really good bread and sandwiches. Because it was near a Carl's Jr, a KFC and a Denny's, it was the most packed place in the little town (I think it was Bishop), and deservedly so. Aaron and I in the back seat ate half a loaf of garlic cheese bread on the drive down the slopes, while Dan graciously drove most of the way down.

More Snowboarding

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:14:00 GMT

Today I decided to go out again to the slopes while most of my friends went snowshoe hiking. I definitely snowboarded farther and fell less today, and wasn't so sore from the day before. I went down the bunny slope in the morning at a rate of 1 fall per trip and down the long green slopes at a rate of 4 falls / trip. Apparently there was a big storm on the top of the mountain, and Joe and Christie snowboarded down the blue blacks at the summit in near-whiteout conditions. The view from Mammoth was great at the base camp, though, and the fresh softpack snow was forgiving. Borrowing Pong's padded ski pants also helped considerably. I really like snowboarding now, because I can manage my speed and go faster without freaking out. Shuyang, having tried snowboarding this day and having picked it up faster than skiing, agrees. While in the lodge getting some hot cocoa, I heard a really good bassist play with the musician in the lower seating area, and missed my church for a while.

Also, we ate dino nuggets as part of dinner again today. Dino nuggets have a really high deliciousness/effort ratio. Also, according to Lei I have the nerdiest humor of anyone in the NGP program. I can't disagree with that.

snowboarding

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:14:00 GMT

Today was my first day snowboarding, and my first day on the Mammoth slopes. By the time I got up to the slopes with a day pass it was 10:30. I had thought a lot the day before on how to turn, steer, speed up and slow down, but I hadn't anticipated one thing, which was how much I'd need to get up. When I got on the long beginner slope I couldn't even get up off the ground a few feet without falling down again. I would have the major problem where I'd get up about a foot off the ground, start picking up too much speed and sit down again. About a fifth of the way down and thirty minutes in someone passed me and told me Shuyang was up the slope doing even worse than I was. So I walked back up the slopes and helped her ski down a bit, and then we decided we'd fare better on the bunny slope. As it turned out, even getting up the bunny slope lift (which was a disc on a rope lifted up) was hard. By the end of the day, though, I had made it down the bunny slope without falling. This was a pretty big achievement. In particular I discovered I could get up satisfactorily by leaning back on my back foot, digging with my toe to slow down, while slowly shifting my weight up front. It took me two days to reach that point while skiing, so I think that I've become a lot more kinetically smart.

After skiing and dinner (cheese 'n mac a la Pong with dino nuggets) we started playing Mafia at someone's suggestion (I believe it was Kingson). I was the cop only once, and a moderator once, so otherwise I was doing pretty average. In particular I think I can read people better from farther away than from closer. While I was moderating I gave a good plot but accidentally gave away the gender of the cop and doctor by putting too much plot and saying 'she... or he'. At the end of maybe 7 games things got pretty heated so we decided to call it a night.

on the road

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:16:00 GMT

Today I went out of the boundaries of Southern California to Mammoth Lake with a bunch of my classmates. We left from LA at around 4:45pm in Dan's car, in the on again off again rain and through bad LA traffic. Along the way we talked about a lot of topics, like politics and faith, that are not supposed to be talked about in normal conversation. Long car rides provide an opportunity to bring out stuff that you wouldn't normally talk about. About three miles out from the lodge we put on snow chains and made it to the cabin a little before 12am.