Chip-Chip, Hooray!

Hey guys. The winter quarter is over, and that means that it's time for me to finally give everyone an update and talk about the same stuff I always do. You're welcome.

Yesterday, we had a pack meeting for scouts. Merilee and I are still the wolf den leaders, but I've also taken up the role of Cubmaster since the last one moved up to the bay area (to my old stomping grounds of Walnut Creek, actually) with his wife. They didn't end up in my old ward, but they were close.

Anyways, it was pretty fun. We're trying to get the parents more involved and having fun with scouting. Scouting should be fun, right? I forgot to bring the cheer box though. The cheer box is not a box of Cheerios; rather, it is a box that scouts can stick their hands in when it's time for a cheer and they pull out a slip of paper with one of many cheers on it and we learn and perform the cheer. Without the box, Merilee made some up. They were goofy and pretty awesome! One included chipmunk impersonations. She is the cutest.

There are no cats in America

Last quarter ended up going alright. I got three A's and an A- in my English technical writing class. Boo. I hate plus-minus grades for a few reasons, one being that an A+ grade doesn't exist. Anyways, I'm still content with the quarter. One thing that was hard for me about that class was that a lot of things are subjective. Of course, when you're writing a report or making a fact sheet or composing a resume, there are certain things you should or should never do. However, there's still a lot of "I think it would look better if..." which pretty much means that there's no perfect way to do things. Am I venting because that class dropped my Cal Poly GPA down to 3.95? Of course.

I finally went to the doctor for a first visit/physical. It went fine, except when I weighed in at around 200 lbs. What the heck! I'm pretty sure all the weight that mom has lost has gone over to me since I got married (I was 165). I knew weight was just a number and didn't really measure fitness, but since I was fairly certain that I hadn't gained 35 lbs of muscle in the last year and a half, I felt I really needed to start working out again.

So now I'm on week five of P90X for the second time. I did the program last year around this time but then didn't do anything until about a month ago. The first week and a half were so so painful. I also got P90X2 so I have something to do after the program. I could alternate between the two, since I'm sure a three month program will give plenty of time for the muscle-confusion strategy to work. Adding exercise into my schedule was hard. Many people say you don't have time for it, but you have to make time for it. I'm sorry, but when you're married and studying rocket science and have other responsibilities, something has to give. Last week with finals and some assignments due, I had to stay up a few nights and didn't get all my workouts in.

I also am trying to diet. The program comes with a nutrition guide which I'm using to some extent. I'm not following it verbatim because I would need a personal chef in order to follow it exactly. I pretty much look at what they're telling me to have for each meal and snack, and try to match it the best I can. For example, for a typical breakfast they have you eat something like 8 oz 1% cottage cheese and a cup of strawberries. Instead, I get 2% cottage cheese because that's what Costco sells, then have a cup of whatever fruit I have. For a snack I usually have some mixed nuts. I'm also trying to have more soups and veggies with dinner. Mer and I have usually just made main dishes for dinner and skipped sides. It's easier that way but not very balanced. I ended up losing 10 lbs in the first two weeks, but have halted since then. I think I need to add running or something to start losing weight again.

This is the part when I tell you about the classes I have planned for next quarter (which starts on Monday)

I'm pretty psyched about only having 3 classes (still 13 units though). AERO 300 is Aerospace Engineering Analysis. Basically it's advanced engineering mathematics. It's supposed to be the first hard AERO class to see if you can get through everything else, and it's five units. I'm excited for it. AERO 301 is Aerothermodynamics I. I'm also excited for this class (although a lab with it would be cooler) because my physics teacher that covered thermodynamics at community college was brilliant but terrible at teaching. Learning about heat is actually pretty interesting and obviously important.

My third class is LGBT Literature and Media. I usually avoid taking classes about sexuality mainly because I don't feel like they would be very beneficial and I also do not value the opportunity to hear many of my peers' opinions on it. However, I have lots of GE requirements that can all be met with this one class. The first is an upper-division English class. Don't ask me why I have to take an upper-division GE class. To me it sounds like an oxymoron. The second is a United States Cultural Pluralism course, which is some random class having to do with american culture I guess. The last requirement it fulfills is the graduation writing requirement. There's a test you can pay to take once a quarter to fulfill it, or you can take a GWR-approved class. If you take the class option, you don't pay and you get multiple chances with your in-class essays to fulfill the requirement. Because of how crazy registration has been, I barely got into this class, but I'm glad I did. It will be the last GE I ever have to take (knock on wood), and it probably won't hurt to see things from another person's point of view.

The old (crappy) way to make a square beam

Other than that stuff, there's really not too much going on. I am still doing stuff with the composites club on campus, SAMPE. We have another competition in May. Me and a few others in the club have been working with a company down around San Diego to get some new tooling so we can use a better process for lay up and curing for square beams. So, that's exciting. Hopefully we can get it going fast and have better square beams done for the competition. The new process involves laying the carbon into an aluminum mold and inflating the inside with a bladder instead of wrapping layers around a two-by-four and adding pressure from the outside.

Failure somewhere around 2500 pounds