Sé que Soy Hombre Visionario

Hey everyone. I hope you all are doing fantastic. Sorry I don't call. Mer just got a call yesterday from a friend she hasn't spoken to in a while. There's always that guilty feeling you feel when you're the friend being called. Like, "why didn't I care to call during all this time?" Anyways, so that's why I haven't called you - to save you from the guilt. You're welcome.

The spring quarter ended last week. I had two finals and a paper due. Usually people hate having finals on Friday, but I appreciated the extra time to study and work on the paper. It was for the LGBT Literature and Media class (not the math class, surprisingly). I wrote about how a poem we read in class described the experiences of many during the AIDS crisis. It was sad, but also surprising that I hadn't really heard about it until this class. I guess it was at its worst around the early '90s or something, so I would have been really young (I was born the same year as Taylor Swift). I'm glad I survived that class with a B. The class was insightful in many, too many, ways.

I got A's in my other two classes though. It seems like I got through the two weeder classes and will probably be relaxing up a bit on my grades from here on out. Besides being Mer's movie-buddy, I'll have several extracurricular things going on.

1. I'll still be in SAMPE. In fact, next year I'll be the vice president working with my friend, Sam, who is the president.
2. Sam and I are also planning on participating in CPSS, which stands for Cal Poly Space Systems. They're basically Cal Poly's rocketry club.
3. Also with Sam (you'll think we were dating by this point), I'll be working on what I call the Edwina Project. Edwina is the pet name that Mer's given to my Arduino. Basically, the project is a personal project, the goal of which is to launch a rocket with electrical components for data acquisition and possibly other things (such as thrust vectoring, controlled recovery, remote ignition, etc.). It should be fun. I've been thinking about starting a new blog to follow us through the project.

You may remember how last time I mentioned a competition in May. Me and my partner, Anthony, did not place. We finished making the tooling for the project, which was awesome, but didn't have a lot of time afterwards for testing. The first bridge we made came out a little dry (meaning we didn't add enough resin), and we didn't have enough time nor material to make another one. I don't think the resin was the problem, however. It was the air bladder. We had time to finish the aluminum mold, but for next year we need to have an air bladder made to fit the bridge. We tried using a taped piece of vacuum bag material but we couldn't get it past 30 psi without leaks. The bridge broke at 5700 lbs or something.

So this summer, I didn't get any kind of job. I will probably go into Mer's work next week. The call center always hires people, and they have a pretty quick turnover since everyone hates calling people all day to sell stuff. I'm pretty sure I'd hate it, but we could definitely use the money. I'll only do it part time though. Partly for my sanity, but I'm also working on a few projects. CPSS isn't doing anything over the summer, but the Formula SAE team is doing some stuff, so I'll probably work with them to get some experience. I don't know if I'll continue with them into the fall, though. I need to learn more about how to use my Arduino (it's basically a mini computer for controlling things). I also wanted to learn another programming language besides Arduino, probably C++. I wanted to do some more stuff in MATLAB as well, such as finish a program I've been working on that makes a shopping list for you after you select from your list of recipes which ones you're shopping for. That would help us with meal planning because I hate hate hate hate having to look through each cookbook to see how many onions or peppers or whatever I need to buy.

Wife and husband, fresh out of the temple

What else is going on? Since I have more free time without school (obviously), I've been able to start reading the Book of Mormon in the mornings again. Mer and I are in the Old Testament in our reading. We will be there for a very very very long time, so the Book of Mormon is nice. This morning I read the chapters right after Lehi's son's obtain the plates of brass. I was reminded of how a mission companion of mine once humorously interpreted the dialogue of Lehi and Sariah. When she calls him out on being a visionary man, he responds saying "I know that I am a visionary man," then proceeds to tell her what would have happened had he not been. It's an interpretation people might be able to relate to.

Two years later and we're still eating cake

On a more serious note, I found myself relating to Lehi, possibly for the first time. He and I are both husbands. The trek out into the wilderness must have been hard to do. Mer and I haven't even been camping together with our six person tent and queen-sized air mattress. I guess everyone has their unique challenges. For Lehi, he had this great work to do. His marriage was probably a source of joy for him and helped support him as a prophet. However, I don't think that the proportion of Nephi's writings which describe Lehi as a spouse are representative of his dedication to that role which we are both called to fulfill. I mean to say that this wasn't the one and only time he needed to support his wife. But unlike what would happen in today's sitcom I don't see him responding to Sariah with a witty comeback. I see him with a comforting arm around her while he attempts to assure her that everything will end up alright, that God will protect their children, and that beyond the current wilderness there is a promised land.

Tall brothers I could never measure up to (I'm 5' 10")

Mer and I don't have any deserts or oceans to cross, but we are having our own trials. Thankfully, our marriage itself hasn't been one of them. Some A lot of people do mention, even publicly, that their marriage is hard even before children. Of course, we don't have children yet, though that itself has been a challenge. I'd like to blame part of our marital bliss on lessons learned from my parents' marriage, but it's at least 100% due to Mer. She's such a great example of how families should love each other, and how to be cute. My wonderful wife's only desire after a long and hard day at work is to spend time with me. Sometimes I'm so foolish that all I can seem to think about is all the things that need to get done. Merilee, you are my media naranja, eres un cacho de pan, you are so good to me. It's true what they say that we cannot treat our wives good enough.

Like I said at the top, I'm sorry for not calling anyone. I'm trying to pray for more people. Part of that is because I've noticed differences as more people have been praying for us. However, it's hard to know who to pray for since we don't talk. I'm going to start calling people, but in the meantime please include us in your prayers, and give me a call! That way you won't feel guilty when I call you.

Peace (which I heard means peace)

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

Last year until now

Do you like root beer floats? Our Elder’s Quorum has occasional ice cream socials for fellowshipping and good times. Today someone asked if they could bring root beer. I let slip my feelings that root beer floats are a waste of ice cream. It was a funny comment in my head, but it came out differently. Oh well. Hopefully no one leaves the church.

Since we last talked, we had Christmas and New Year’s. We had Merilee’s sister’s family over for 5 days before Christmas, and three of her single siblings stayed an additional week. We also adopted a member of the single’s ward that we met at church (their own church doesn’t meet over the holidays). Her family was in Mexico so she spent most of the holidays with us. We had a total of 10 people and a baby in our one bedroom apartment. Everyone fit during the day, and at night we took advantage of our neighbor’s empty apartment that they let us use so the baby could sleep while the adults continued with the party.

It was an eye opener having to buy/prepare food for 10 people. I guess Mer and I are ready for when she has two sets of quintuplets. Thankfully, we had multiple people helping out with getting and preparing food, so it wasn’t stressful. We ate well and enjoyed lots of quality time. We took a tour at Hearst Castle, saw some sea lions, spotted a zebra, walked on the beach, saw the 3rd hobbit movie, saw many other movies, had bacon waffles, ate lasagna, chilled in the hot tub, skyped with people and a missionary, discovered our garbage garbage disposal was leaking, had a money run (Canute won), slathered fresh homemade bread with butter and homemade lemon curd, made gingerbread houses, hosted a talent show, played soccer, tossed a frisbee, returned a defective piece of furniture, took a tour of our neighbor's doll collection, saw butterflies, and took naps. If I left anything out, let me know.

On New Year's Eve, we left SLO and went to visit my brother's family in Irvine. They were super great to visit. We also got to spend some time with Merilee's cousins and their families. Everyone got homemade toffee (you're welcome). During our time there, we visited an awesome aquarium. Seeing all those amazing creatures just reminds me of what a wonderfully amazing world we live in. We also got to go to Griffiths's Observatory, a place I had only been to previously in GTA San Andreas. We got to celebrate a birthday, visit with friends, checkout downtown Disney, stop by the Lego store, play games, and get our hair done in our nephew's California Hair Salon. It was lots of fun, plus we got to do free laundry.

We had to recover from Christmas pretty fast. Work and school started back up at 8 AM the morning after we drove back. We arrived late Sunday night but luckily had already put most things back in order before we left. This quarter I'm taking 13 units. I have class every morning at 8 this quarter, which sounds horrible every day before I go to bed. But I really don't get up much earlier than last quarter since I used to see Merilee off to work every morning anyways. It's also nice being done Tuesdays and Thursdays by 11 AM. I'm taking Introduction to Aerospace Design, a fun class where we use computers to analyze aerospace problems (my teacher looks kind of like Orlando Bloom). My morning class is Technical Writing for Engineers, a class about writing memos and technical reports and that kind of thing (my teacher is Kiefer Sutherland). I also have Statistical Methods for Engineers, a class about... (Jon Voight).

 My fourth class is the second half of Mechanics of Materials. The teacher is actually my Stake President, Eric Kasper. We've so far only had one stake conference here, and I didn't remember his name but recognized him when he walked into the classroom. I checked the LDS tools app and it was him. So far, all my classes have been really fun. My teachers, especially President Kasper and Jon Voight are pretty energetic and funny lecturers, something that I'm not used to.

Not much else has been going on yet. Mer's birthday is on Tuesday. You should call her or send her a message (but not like the random ones she gets from weird people). Church starts at 11 AM now. We went on a hike yesterday on the Irish Hills (3 minutes' walk away from our apartment). We told ourselves back on labor day that we'd do the hike (but never did), and have been telling ourselves the same thing every Saturday since, so it was good to finally do it.  It was only like 2 miles but we are still sleeping to recover. I was pretty dizzy for some of it but it was still beautiful. I got Bell's Palsy almost a month ago and not all the symptoms have gone away yet. I'm still praying for full recovery, but really I'm still grateful it was this and not a stroke or something. I have double vision when looking left or right, but have learned to close one eye when backing up. The dizziness is more annoying than anything. It hasn't caused me to fall down yet, I just feel clumsy.

Sunday Games

Thank goodness someone brought their table!

In search of the sea lions. They were supposed to be underneath the dock.

Found the sea lions.

Watching sea lions from a distant.

Getting close.

Even closer.

Beautiful sights in the castle.

They decorated for Christmas.

By the pool 

Playing heads up seven up after the tour.

Canute's Stocking bag (Merilee made them out of shirts).

My stocking.

Mer's stocking.

Christian's stocking.

Bonnie's stocking.

Christmas Eve, everything is ready.

Everyone  picked up a bowl to collect their money. There were snowballs for a fight.

The tunnel to the money run.

View from inside the tunnel.

The pre-chaos lineup

The cardboard part of the tunnel lasted 2 seconds. 

Inside the tunnel.

Something that got missed. I spotted it a few days ago.

Hiking in the Irish Hills

We found a bridge

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!

Dang Kids

I hope everyone had a great labor day. Mer and I had some guests in town and we bad a blast. On Saturday, we went to Avila Beach. I can't remember the last time I went swimming in the ocean. The water was really cold when you first got in, but it felt great once you started treading water and riding the waves. We tried to celebrate their birthdays (one last Tuesday, and the other this Monday), but the cake mix we used was probably way expired because it didn't rise much like you would expect, and it was nasty. I ate the frosting though, don't worry.

Also, I have some advice for those of you who could use help making cookies.

Before going to the beach, we made waffles and I went to help with a move. I thought it was the same people we helped move the week before, but it was a sister who was moving stuff from her storage unit. Part of it included moving a king size mattress up two flights of stairs that were so small they reminded me of the apartments in Spain. It was like pushing a giant sponge through a birth canal. Happy birthday, Mattress.

Along for the ride to the move, I met the EQP's son. I think he's two or something. A cute kid for sure, but he had a cold. On Sunday, he and his family sat in front of us at church, and now Mer and I both have colds. I haven't decided on how to exact our revenge yet, but it will come, perhaps years later, when he least expects it.

School doesn't start for another couple weeks. I'm pretty much going crazy without any math/physics/engineering problems to solve. I've resorted to watching MIT lectures on dynamics, since people seem to agree that it's the hardest class on campus (or any other campus) and I'm taking it this quarter. My books should be here in the next couple days, and that should help too. Did I tell you my design and manufacturing class uses pro-engineer, and not solidworks? Well, it uses creo parametric 2.0 (judging by the book for the class), which from what I've been able to gather from the internet is basically the new pro-engineer. Anyways...

I'm only taking 12 units this quarter. I'm taking Engineering Dynamics (ME 212, 3 units), Intro to Design and Manufacturing (IME 144, 4 units), Mechanics of Materials I (CE 204, 3 units), and Aerospace Fundamentals (AERO 121, 2 units).

For Labor day, we had a ward breakfast. It was delicious. We were going to go on a hike later, but it was pretty warm and I was still a little red from Saturday (not hurting though) so we decided we'd go this next Saturday in the morning before it got hot. The trail for the Irish Hills by our place is literally a 15 minute walk away.

These pictures are from a while ago. I got some power tools from the Peterson Fire Relief fund and helped America with some gardening stuff. It was nice to be working outside.

Mer and I are still running. We're probably doing like 3.5 miles or so three times a week. Monday we did part of Ab Ripper X before going out. Today I'm really glad we only did part of it. Treats have been disappearing much slower than before with our new system. Sometimes I open the desert tray and think "it sure has been a while." "A while" is probably like "24 hours." I'm still weighing in between 190 and 195. It's all that darn muscle.

I've been working on solving my Rubik's cube faster (it was a birthday gift from Mer). I did it in one minute and 40 seconds today. I don't know what my best time was on the mission, but I feel like it was faster. I'll keep working on it.

Mer is on week two of work. She says it's pretty boring and is hoping they can get some projects for her. We'll be getting insurance benefits in about a month, which will be nice. I tried signing up for obamacare when we moved down and were out of work, but coveredcalifornia rejected us said we'd be getting medical information or something "soon." I just love our current health system.

So it turns out that this place isn't as quiet as we thought it would be. We don't have nearly as many sirens as we did in Hayward, but some of our neighbors have loud voices. It doesn't help that we have gaping windows on three of the four sides of our unit. The living room has the largest window that opens out to a path that goes from the street to the parking lot on the other side of our unit, passing a few units and their porches or balconies. We've had people singing and playing their guitar after 10 pm, some people just chatting on their porch with really loud voices, and of course, children screaming bloody murder in their game of hide and seek. Yesterday during dinner, we were pleased to hear a man's entire phone conversation as he walked back and forth again and again from in front of his unit to the parking lot, passing both our living room window and our patio area which features a large sliding glass door.

The best was this morning at 2:30 when I wake up to hear two men outside our bedroom window in a somewhat emotional conversation. From the voices, it sounded like an older brother trying to help his younger brother get back on the right track. It sounded a lot like the conversation Paul had with me when I was close to joining that biker gang in Dublin. Anyways, I know they had important things to talk about, but Merilee works at 8 am and we both have colds (and it's like 2:30 in the morning people!). I turned the light on, hoping they would notice it and leave. They didn't, so I went out and politely let them know that we were trying to sleep. Luckily, they weren't drunk and didn't get offended and promptly left. We usually hear people talking by that window since the parking lot is right outside, but most people aren't so loud and they usually don't linger. In this rant, I probably sound like a grumpy grandpa but sometimes you just have to stick your head out the window and shout back.

Since we've been meal planning, I've been making lots of food for Merilee when she comes home. It's a lot of work do cook every day. I'm glad I know how to follow a recipe (don't forget the advice on making cookies). You should have been there when I made Merilee 16 of these burritos. Goats love burritos.