Andy Morrow's Blog

I realized it’s been a few days since I posted, so I figured I’d write something. Later today, I have to take the first midterm for Math 113. I’m not looking forward to it. I don’t think I’ve stayed well enough prepared thus far. We’ll see. Apparently, Math 113 scores are often heavily curved. All I have to do is do the best in my section.

Nothing else significant to report. The IT folks are coming over in 20 minutes to try to fix my ethernet jack, which has been broken for over a week now. Sigh. I’m going to miss work today to take the test, also. Sigh.

Oh well. I’d better get to my math homework, which is due tonight. Wish me luck.

Well, I did indeed go to the Amazon info session, and I’m glad that I did. I almost didn’t – I didn’t want to miss any work – but I felt like I ought to, so I did. Well, good thing I did:

Solid Aluminum!

A free water bottle! Woo hoo!

In all seriousness, however, I’m glad I did. I learned that, were Amazon to offer me a job, I would probably be willing and able to live in Seattle on my own without a car. Apparently, the public transit is good, and Amazon gives you a bus pass that will take you anywhere (not just to work and back). Furthermore, Amazon will find a roommate and a place for you if you can’t, or you can find your own place and they give you a living stipend. Living in Seattle is somewhat expensive, but the employees and interns said the pay makes up for it. Apparently, last year, four guys from BYU interned together, found a cheap apartment together, and made a ton of money from both their paychecks and their living stipend put together. Plus, I think I have a fairly convincing resume for Amazon – all my recent experience has been in web programming.

Anyway, I’m hopeful of getting something back. In the mean time, I’m going to relax this Saturday. I put in a 40 hour pay period, and I’m caught up on homework, so time for a break.

Yesterday was the second engineering & tech career fair. I think this one went a little better – I handed out ten resumes as opposed to three last time. Furthermore, the Apple recruiter, when she saw me, said that I needed to talk to Quinn, who was responsible for taking resumes from technical people. I might get another interview with them. That’s encouraging.

Anyway, I may skip a little bit of work tonight to go to the Amazon info session. I think I’d enjoy working for them, and I think I have skills that would be useful to them. We’ll have to see what I feel I ought to do.

Time for class.

Box lunch! I have just arrived at work with a delicious boxed lunch taken from the Cannon. Turns out that all you have to do is ask and be on the Open Door meal plan. Boo-yah! Now, there’s not much to choose from in the lunch department during breakfast. However, there’s always salad and PB&J. And fresh fruit. And I have a fridge here at work, so the salad won’t go bad. So, today, I have a PB&J, an apple, and a salad. And I won’t have to stop working to eat and I won’t have to walk all the way back to the Cannon for lunch. Hooray!

The only next question is whether or not I’m limited to how many times per semester I can take out a lunch. We shall see.

– A Moment Later –

It appears not! It just counts as a visit to the cafeteria, as far as I can tell. So I just ask them to swipe it twice and give me a box and I can eat lunch on campus any time I so desire! Woo hoo!

I’m home from my second trip into the Ophir Hill mine. This time, we took some fantastic pictures. We have 44 snapshots taken with my new camera that look pretty good and roughly 100 photos taken with Chandler, my hallmate’s, Canon EOS 5D. Before entering the mine, we went shooting on a hillside nearby. We put a lot of lead into that hill. We topped the shoot off with an Armalite AR-50, a .50 BMG caliber rifle. The shockwave from that gun is astounding. Standing ten feet away, it’s like a physical push.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded every photo I took with my camera to Picasa. I’ve installed the beta, and, although there are a few rough edges, I’m so far extremely impressed with its abilities. I may replace iPhoto – at least for a while.

Anyway, so far I haven’t made the album public. I’ve sent invites to everyone I could think of, but if I missed anyone, let me know and I’ll send you a link. Or I’ll just make the album public. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

Time to read the manual on my camera again. I want to see if I can set the aperture and exposure. I know how to do manual area focus, set the ISO sensitivity, and do exposure adjustments. I don’t know yet if there’s a full manual, though, and that’s what I’m looking for.

– Later –

Nope, no manual mode. Thankfully, it does very well in standard auto mode without any real adjustments. Besides, photography is more about the photographer than the camera.

I’m going to call home and then maybe read in The Innocents Abroad. See you all tomorrow.

Well, I’ve sealed my fate as far as a spring/summer scholarship went – the deadline was yesterday. Oh well, opportunities missed are opportunities gone and shouldn’t be mourned. Learned from, but not mourned. So, that leaves me two options. Either try to pay for housing and tuition on my Chemistry job, or find an internship in CA and come home for the summer to work towards a mission. Right now I’m leaning toward coming home. I have high hopes for the career fair later this month. I’m going to pursue things actively and aggressively.

Time to finish sorting my email and writing my CS236 project. I’m going to finish it tonight –  four days ahead of schedule.

Here are the compiled answers to a series of comments. I’m taking a short break from my homework so as to retain my sanity.

By the way, Happy Birthday, Gary!

Datalog is, in fact, a language. It’s a subset of Prolog that’s designed for database queries etc. It’s better than SQL in some ways; however, it never took off except in academic circles. I’m writing my parser in Ruby as opposed to the recommended Java. I just couldn’t force myself to willingly use Java, even if it might be easier. So, Ruby it is! Maybe for my next project I’ll write in something bizarre like Lisp.

I haven’t yet used Picasa. I’ll have to try it. They do limit you to 1GB of storage; however, that’ll last me for a while, and I have at least three different Google accounts.

The fireside was wonderful, as was today’s devotional. As my friend Brad and I stood up after today’s devotional, I remarked that it was good, to which Brad replied it was the best he’d been to yet. I think I may agree.

Back to the fireside, however. It was wonderful. The hush that sweeps the room as the prophet enters is always incredible. It was even quieter here than in the Conference Center – not a single cough, even. Pres. Monson’s talk was wonderful, as expected, and I enjoyed the music, as expected. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to attend these events.

I’ve just interviewed earlier tonight for a temple recommend. I never went to the temple last semester, and I feel somewhat remiss in that regard. It’s so close that I have absolutely no excuse for not being present weekly. I’m going to try and figure out when I can work it into my schedule. Maybe on Saturday.

We’ve now got two cardboard shelves in my room – one for books and personal items, and one for food. I’ve got a variety of videos and photos that I’ll post soon.

Well, time to get back to work. Hopefully I can finish my math homework tonight.

Tonight at 6 PM, President Monson will address BYU from the Marriott Center. People have been saving seats for over an hour already. I don’t plan to go more than half an hour early, meaning that I’ll be near the back. But I’ll be there. I’m not going to watch this one on TV like I have with some others – that would be foolish.

Otherwise, uneventful Sunday. I was using my scriptures to hold a hymn-book on the piano during Priesthood when they fell on my left hand, causing a strange addition to the hymn and quite a bit of laughter. I managed to throw them on the ground, but not before they flopped sideways and added a second interesting chord. I won’t deny that it was amusing. Plus, we managed to finish the hymn.

I’ve also taken control of the facebook account my hallmates created for me about a month or two ago. At first, it was sort of funny; then, everyone in the ward added me as a friend, which made me uneasy; finally, everyone in my extended family added me as a friend, which made me actually want control of the account. So, after some negotiation, the account is actually mine. I refuse, however, to become addicted. I will not use it in class like many others around me do.

I’m going to look into some lunch. I missed breakfast because I got up too late. Feel free to call any time today, and if I’m not at the fireside, I’d love to chat.

Taylor "Machine Gun" Larsen

Sadly, I have very few pictures from the gun show. Here’s the best, though: Taylor working a beast of a machine gun (sitting in the foyer). Not only did you have to unload all weapons before entering the showroom floor, but you also were not allowed to bring in any cameras. Sigh. There was a huge selection of guns available, in all sizes, shapes, and prices. I intentionally, however, came with very little cash and very little money in my bank account, so I prevented myself from buying a rifle. There were quite a few that I would have gladly bought in a moment of weakness had I had the money.

No, I limited myself. I pitched in $5 to get a huge, amazingly good sausage, which we ate part of for lunch. The rest is in the fridge. Admission cost $9, and I spent a few bucks on a Cold Steel knife. It was priced too low to resist, so I got it.

Now it’s time to try and finish the homework that’s due on Monday. Wish me luck.

It's in the center, attached to the Benson on right. Eyring on the left.

Here’s a photo of my building from the outside. I’ll take pictures of the inside tomorrow when I go in to get my hard drive.

The picture’s not as good as I thought it was. Hrm. Maybe I’ll have to shoot in 8MP instead of 5.

Well, Saturday we’re going to the gun show. I’ve promised myself not to buy anything for two reasons. First, I don’t really have money to spend. Second, I get a general bad feeling about it. So, I’ll follow Mom and Dad’s advice and wait until after my mission.

I’ve started my CS236 project – a datalog interpreter. I’m writing it in Ruby, which is unsupported. The TAs can only help with Java. However, I’m given a choice, so I’m using a superior language.

We’ve built a huge cardboard shelf right in the middle of our room. Things are still changing, and we’re going to tear apart a hamper we built and turn it into something else. (It’s too big.) It’s still neat and tidy, however. Almost everything has a place, so it’s no challenge to put it away. I still need hooks for my dartboard, hat, backpack, and maybe a few other things.

I ran into the BYU Astronomical Society Friday night. Apparently they have public access to the deck of the Eyring Science Center every Friday night, so you can go join them and look through a telescope. I don’t think they get to use the observatory, but it’s still neat. I may join them now and again.

Slightly under 8 hours until it’s time to wake up for the gun show, so I’m going to bed. I’ll post photos on Flickr tomorrow. Or maybe Picasa. Or maybe my blog. I’m having issues deciding.