The future decided

After taking the GRE, writing out the application, getting letters of recommendation, and asking several faculty members if it was even possible for a music major to get accepted to the program, it finally became reality. This spring I will be beginning my graduate studies as a Masters Student of Computer Science. I am really excited. To make this even better, the faculty adviser I will be working with is part of the Machine Learning Lab at BYU and does a lot of research into Computational Creativity. While that might not mean much to a lot of people it does mean that my background in music will be very helpful and I will continue to keep music in my studies. Now I just have to get past the last two weeks of school and finals and graduation. One positive side of the whole graduation thing is that I was asked to perform for convocation for the College of Fine Arts. Looks like that will be one of my last performances. Though I still have an itch to do another recital. Maybe at the end of my graduate degree I'll work up something for a "graduate" recital.

The newest member of the family.

Due to the many queries we have received about when our family would start growing, we decided to take matters into our own hands and dive right in, sorta. While having a baby at this time isn't exactly what was on our minds, we took the next best thing. We traveled to a local store and found the perfect fit for the newest and first addition to our family. A kid named Pluto. He is rather dark-skinned with some red around the edges. He loves to swim, eats flakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and likes to be left alone for the most part. On the flip side he is as quiet as a mouse, only needs his room cleaned once a week, and is always happy to see us.

Our new addition is of course, a Betta Fish named Pluto. So far we have been lucky and haven't killed him. Let's hope our luck continues.

The Christmas Bread

Our first Christmas together was a lot of fun. We drove up to Mountain Home on the 24th. The roads were clear and sunny. We were grateful to get there all in one piece. There was snow on the ground with a White Christmas put down as hopeful but not likely. We went to bed that night with great anticipation for the next day. We got up bright and early and made our way down to the glowing Christmas Tree. We had a good time exchanging presents. Tiffany's parents gave us a bread maker that we were excited about. It had been kinda funny that for about a month or so, whenever Bed Bath & Beyond came up, I had said we should use some of the left over gift certificates to get a bread maker and Tiffany kept stalling or saying we should wait for a sale or something. Tiffany was good though and I never suspected we might be receiving on for Christmas. Tiffany got some clothes, gift certificates, bath stuff and jewelry. I got this neat coffee table book on the brain. Tiffany also got me a board game I never suspected she would get for me. Axis & Allies. I also got a pair of my favorite shoes, New Balance.

It was a different experience being away from my own family. I really enjoyed being with Tiffany's family. They were very welcoming, warm, and made me feel at home. I wish I hadn't been sick most of the time. It was great to be there to share in some of their traditions.

Now, the Bread Maker we received was very exciting and inspired visions of freshly baked bread just ever present in our home. I have and always will be a sucker for fresh bread and butter. Sadly we can say that expectations did not quite live up to our dreams. With a lot of hope and excitement I put all the ingredients in for the first loaf and let the machine do its job. What the final result was though was more of a brick than bread. If someone had broken into our apartment at that moment I would have grabbed the loaf and thrown it at the intruders head. It would undoubtedly have caused serious injury.

Round two was only slightly more successful. The loaf came out a tab bit higher and less dense but still not quite the same as what I had imagined. We ate that one though and I thought the taste at least was good, especially with a little butter on it. Loaf number three was a store bought mix in the hope that it was just my bad measuring skills that had doomed the previous attempts. This one fared just slightly better than the second one, and while edible, it still was disappointing in form and size.

Since number three we have allowed our bread maker to rest after all the hard work it put in. If anyone out there was some suggestions for conquering the bread maker we would gladly take them.

Happy Birthday!

Tiffany keeps reminding me that no matter how old she gets, I'll always be older. The 9th of December was her special day to get one year older. She was still not feeling all that great since her appendix liberation just a couple weeks earlier. We had plans of going to Tucanos but she didn't feel well enough to enjoy the food there and so we postponed that trip. She was a good sport though and went to my concert that night. We left as soon as I was done performing. She said she had talked to her friend's and they said to call them if we wanted to do something. Little did Tiffany know that I had already been in touch with them and they were on their way over to our place. When all arrived we enjoyed each other's company along with a Baskin Robin's Ice Cream Cake. Tiffany received a beautiful handmade scarf, some gift certificates to some of her favorite stores, and a long coat to keep her warm. It was fun to be together for the first time on her birthday. She is very special to me and I am lucky to have such a wonderful wife.

Our Eventful Thanksgiving

We were able to celebrate our first Thanksgiving with an interesting turn of events.

We spent the day at an aunt's house in Spanish Fork (15 min from Provo). We enjoyed our time with the family eating dinner and pies , playing games, and watching movies. We were really fortunate to have family close by since I didn't have much time off from work. I was more tired than usual that day, but wrote it off to my weird hours at the hospital. We ended up heading home around 10 pm.

When we got home I started to have stomach pains and thought I was just getting hungry again since it had been several hours since dinner. I ate some leftovers we had taken home and we got ready for bed. At 11pm the pain got much worse and I started to wonder if I had gotten some sort of food poisoning even though Skyler had eaten everything I had and felt fine. I tried everything I could think of to relieve the pain without any success. By 1 am I was really hurting, started vomiting, and was curled up in a ball crying. That continued for the next 3 hours and we were starting to get pretty worried. Around 4 am we weren't sure what to do next. I had gone through all the possible scenarios in my head of what it could be, but was sure it wasn't my appendix. We decided to go into the Emergency Room.
We got there at 5 am and it was pretty slow for a holiday weekend. We got admitted right away and the nurse started an IV, took some blood, gave me some anti-nausea medication and morphine while the doctor came in for the exam. By then the pain had localized in my lower abdomen and the doctor decided to run some tests and do a CT scan. Around an hour later he came back to tell us I had Appendicitis and would be having surgery that morning. I started crying immediately! Even with all that nursing knowledge I was completely scared. I know I'll walk away from this experience a more compassionate nurse having been on the other end of things. Skyler signed the consent for the surgery and we waited for the surgeon. Skyler gave me a kiss and then I didn't remember much after that. I remember waking up in recovery and crying because something in my stomach hurt. I also remember complaining about my oxygen being in my nose and my compression boots being twisted. I'm sure my nurses earned their salary that night. :) Skyler came in and slept in a recliner next to me for the next 4 hours
until I woke up hungry and sore.













The recovery process began that night with walking laps around the hospital and trying to eat anything I could keep down. Skyler kept talking about how this must be preparation for the future event of kids with all the nausea, pain, and walking laps. :) He was so helpful that whole hospital stay running on no sleep. I'm not sure what I would have done without him. We ended up getting discharged the next day. The last few days have been a challenge, but if anything good came out of it I've learned how lucky I am to be married to someone who can still tell me I'm beautiful when I haven't showered, can't keep my food down, and I delirious because of pain meds. :) I am so glad I have him.

Power of the Wasatch

As the football season draws to a close, here is a little about my adventure as a Drum Major for the BYU Cougar Marching Band. This all began back in April as I considered my future with the Marching Band. This would be my 5th year in the Band. Two of which as a regular member, two as Saxophone Section Leader and this year an old dream of mine resurfaced. Back in high school I auditioned for Drum Major for my senior year but was passed by. As I considered my options I remembered how I always wanted to be Drum Major and the time seemed opportune to give it one more go. I got all the audition materials and did my best to prepare. Day of the auditions came and through it all, including some rather intense interviews, in the end I was proud to be one of the newest Drum Majors for the BYU Marching Band. This would be the first time in several years that there would be all male Drum Majors as well as some married Drum Majors. Thus began the exciting adventure of the 2009 Marching Band Season.

The months as Drum Major brought many challenges, new experiences and frustrations. Never have my arms been as tired and sore as the first week of band camp when we worked on two songs I was to conduct. We had to learn the marching drill and I was lucky enough to have to direct the whole time. I thought my arms were going to fall off. Luckily they didn't. The season had a lot in store for us. We did the most exciting show I have ever been a part of here at BYU. Great drill and great music, Malaguena and Spanish Fantasy. It made me a little jealous that I wasn't marching the drill.

We were also able to be part of some memorable events. As tragedy struck the American Fork marching band on a trip back from a competition in Idaho we were able to offer our solace with a rendition of Amazing Grace which we had prepared for a previous show. We were also given the honor of an invitation to perform in exhibition at Bands of American regional competition in St. George. That was a fun quick day trip on the bus and it brought back memories of competitions in high school.


















While we had a couple disappointments with the football team it was great to be part of another exciting nail-biter against Utah that ended in their defeat as Andrew George broke a tackle and ran in the winning touchdown in overtime. The year is coming to a close now with just a bowl game left against Oregon State in Las Vegas. It's time to show the Pac-10 again what we're made of. It will be a great close to a very exciting year as Drum Major of the BYU Cougar Marching Band. It has been a lot of fun to be up there directing the band and doing what I can to represent the university. I definitely have not done everything right and even got yelled at a few times by our director but it has been a great year. Being at the front of a 225 piece ensemble will always be one of the most exhilarating things I have ever done.

Pumpkins!

So I claim sole responsibility for the tardiness of our posts. It has been a rather busy couple of months between Tiffany and her work as well as all the stuff I have been doing for school. Here is a quick recap of some of the things we have been up to and Tiffany will be filling in on the rest of our exciting lives.

What we lacked in costumes for Halloween we made up in carving pumpkins. Tiffany looks rather intense in this one as she carves out her masterpiece. I went for the "traditional" approach and expressed my fidelity to BYU and the Cougars. We went to all the hard work of scooping out the seeds, then we dried them out for several days. Sadly however, on Halloween night I made the mistake of leaving them in a little too long and they burned. It was a tragic event. Luckily I love being with my wife and I still enjoyed the evening with her while watching "The ghost and Mr. Chicken." It was a cute little movie. Next year for sure we'll have to get some matching costumes and crash lots of parties. Any ideas?