Cat Astrophe

Winter calls rain falls
Cold hands destroy marriages
Frozen toes need warmth

You're welcome.

(Is he going to go on acting like it hasn't been three months since his last post?)

Yes.

Merry Christmas everyone! This is doubling as my Christmas letter. You can stop checking the mail now. I've been off school for a about a week now since my last final was on the 10th. 4.0 this quarter (w00t!). It was a very busy quarter, especially with all the blogging I was doing.

Anyways, it was good that I was able to do so well my first quarter at Cal Poly. What's funny is that my cumulative GPA is pretty much already set in stone. Getting a 4.0 this quarter raised it from 3.535 to 3.564. Dang you BYU Idaho! Dang myself for screwing it up all those years ago. Whatever.

I had several projects that were fun. My favorite class of the quarter was IME 144, Introduction to Design and Manufacturing. I feel like I learned more about engineering from that class than any other. We got hands on experience with Lathes, Mills, CNC machining, etc. I'd make my machinist cousin Chris proud. Maybe.

We had several projects, the coolest was the air motor project. Here's one in action:

In my aerospace fundamentals class, we made a rocket and a glider, the latter we haven't seen in action yet because of the poor weather around launch day. We called the rocket Mustang Heavy, after SpaceX's Falcon Heavy (mainly because our rocket was the heaviest in the competition). Our thrust didn't quite compare to SpaceX's rocket, though. Check it out:

We're hoping the glider will perform much better. Here's a picture to tide you over until we fly it next quarter:

It's supposed to hold as many as 400 pennies, and fly as long as possible. Our wing profile was a little slim for 400 so we did 300 instead. We still have to install the servos for the control surfaces (elevators and rudder, but no ailerons) and their power supply and receiver, but it's otherwise ready for flight.

I was involved in a club, but we haven't really done too much yet so I don't have any pictures to post. We've been learning how use carbon composite materials in preparation for a competition in the Spring. I'll have more to share later. I'll just say for now that it's pretty cool getting to work with stuff that would usually cost thousands of dollars just so you can learn how to use it.

Halloween Pictures

This week, in addition to getting ready for Christmas, I'm also poking around looking for some internship possibilities for the Summer. There was a career fair this quarter. I checked it out but have been so busy with classes that I haven't done much else. At the fair I talked to some of the reps at SpaceX. It totes seems like company with some fun projects to work on. They're definitely a company I'm looking at.

What are your Christmas plans? We have lots of family coming over actually. I guess SLO attracts lots of visitors. We have three single Peterson siblings visiting, and one married with family as well. The family has three kids, so 8 visiting in total. Our one bedroom apartment is a bit small for everyone to sleep over, but we have some neighbors that will be out of town and offered us their place. That was kind.

We've been brainstorming ideas to make it fun, and foods we want to eat. We have a gluten-intolerant person so we're trying to accommodate that too. It should be fun. I'm just hoping that the weather improves. Heavenly Father has answered our prayers for rain so we haven't had the beach paradise that we advertised to the family back when they bought their airline tickets. Oh well. At least everything is green and you can watch movies no matter what weather you have.

We should be able to make it out to Hearst Castle, thanks to my mother-in-law. She's also given everyone the green light to get Legos (they had tons of Legos that burned in the fire). We're going to have some sort of competition with them on Christmas day I think. I'll post the pictures

Have you heard of my amazing wife's Fancy Animal talent? She's finally on Etsy. You should check out her shop here.

Did I tell you about our garden? I should have taken a picture of it at its prime. We do not get enough sun, so the one spot that does get the most sun had some promising looking plants. That was until the bugs came, ate every leaf, and then winter came and withdrew the sun. Oh well. At least we have the dirt for when we move some day.

We're having fun in our Ward as the Wolf Den Leaders. It's cool because we can prepare lessons together, and reconsider having children. I'm just kidding, but we have 9 wolves. That's just a lot I feel even for two people to control. They are all cute kids, even if they do get a bit loud and crazy.

 Hoping everyone has a great Christmas and a happy new year!