The Haggard Herald

Which is it?  It's looks like a sunset picture, but its not.  Alicia, Kimmy, Dad and I went to Fort DeSoto last Friday and these are some of the pictures I took of the sunrise with the Skyway Bridge.  These pictures were made possible in part by the following: Alicia's determination to go (I wouldn't have gotten up that early by myself), Dad for coming (because I might have left Alicia and Kimmy to go by themselves, again because of the early hour), Dad's camera (because I left mine in Utah), the sun (for coming up every day), and to the one who created it. And here's a fun picture of Alicia in the photography zone.  Thanks for going Alicia.  

This is my default song that I start to hum when I'm not thinking about anything else (at any time of the year).  I've probably hummed the first 3 or 4 measures hundreds of times over the past few years.  I should ask Jamie.  :)   

I just watched this video.  I didn't think I would watch it all the way through because its 9 minutes long; but once I started I wanted to watch it all the way through.  I can endorse youtube videos like this--this little girl is entertaining as a storyteller and she has a good story to tell.

This riddle was on plastic tombstones outside of the ORCA office during October.  I think it's pretty clever, but I like chemistry... "Willie is a chemist Willie is no more  What Willie thought was H20 was H2SO4." Happy Halloween.  :)  Pictures will be forthcoming of the armchair costume. P.S. 23 days until Thanksgiving. 

So, when I try to understand politics, everyone seems to be very biased one way or the other.  Hennessey is clearly a republican but is less biased from many other people and I think he writes/explains political and economic ideas clearly and better than other people I've listened to or read. His blog is keithhennessey.com.   

Lab work was done on Tuesday.  Physical at the BYU Health Center is scheduled for tomorrow.  Mom took in the dental form to Dr. Delisle today.  Hopefully I can have my last interview with Bishop Milesoe in the next week or so.  :)

This morning I went for a drive with my friend, Dan Hill.  We drove through Hobble Creek Canyon and got out at different spots to practice using our cameras and get good autumn shots.  These are some of my favorites that I took. There was a little pond that we found these two swans in.  It was the perfect photographic moment.  Click on the picture so you can see them better.   And last but not least, we saw this cool little stream and I caught a leaf floating down it.  

Here is the l ink to the highlights from General Conference .  It is about 15 minutes long and is a great summary of the talks that will be printed in the Ensign next month.  I love General Conference because of the blessings I get from watching it: I always feel Heavenly Father's love for me, receive insights about my life and what I need to do, and just in general have a clearer, more-optimistic perspective.  This time I watched it in my apt with some of my roommates and friends; Kim came over for a session too. Obviously we can learn from what old prophets have given for us to read as well.  I'm studying the Old Testament at school this semester in addition to Sunday School this year.  (And I get to teach about it in Sunday School.)  It's a great book.  I was reading in Genesis this morning about Lot and it reminded me of a talk by Elder Holland entitled, "Remember Lot's Wife."  It's a great talk and worth reading or rereading.  I partic...

We all have so much to be grateful for, but especially me.  I love my classes.  I love working with ORCA.  I love teaching my 14 sixth graders several days a week.  I have wonderful roommates.  I feel at home here.  I have a wonderful family, who individually and collectively support and encourage me to do good things and be a good person.   I have wonderful weather to be grateful for.  I get to see Gramma Meyers this weekend and play tennis with her and Kimmy.  I get to study at BYU.  I have great teachers and great friends who care about me.  General conference was this past weekend (and who isn't cheered up and motivated after that).  There is so much to be grateful for.  

How many people can legitimately claim that an inanimate object gives inspirational ideas to its owner?  Okay, so my BYU planner doesn't have any special power but whoever is responsible for putting it together has really good taste in quotes.  Here's a couple for this week to think about: "The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves." -Helen Keller. "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being." -Goethe. The people with access to read this are individually and collectively already a good example to me of both of these principles.  Keep up the good work, people.  I love you.

BYU vs. AF in Colorado Springs.  Saturday, Sept 11, 2010.  2pm MT.   Look for Kristel Goff, Chante King, Kimmy Meyers, and myself.  (There's another car caravaning with us.)  Go BYU!

Lest you think I am jumping the gun by changing my template to an Autumn theme, the high in P-town yesterday was 70 degrees Fahrenheit and the low was 54.  We had a ward FHE up in Rock Canyon park where I played Frisbee.  I kept my BYU sweatshirt on the whole time I was running around and never got hot. I told my teammates that I felt like singing Christmas songs because that's the kind of weather we have around Christmas in Florida.  It's a safe bet that I'm a little strange in my affinity for Christmas music.  But seriously here folks, there's something about the first cool weather after a hot summer that just makes me want to put the twinkle lights on and all the other lights off and enjoy the change.   I love Autumn!

I really like watching the Mormon Message videos that the church produces.  Here are a few good ones. You can find more on youtube or the new church website, beta.lds.org .    A new feature that I like about beta.lds.org is that you can create your own study journal; it allows you to highlight, make notes, and cross reference the scriptures with conference talks, articles, and other church publications.  I started several study folders by topic.  I really like using it! 

Last Saturday I got to go on the maiden voyage of the summer milk-jug raft.  It was quite exciting and it floated really well.  Back in May or June, I was talking one day with a few friends and we were brainstorming what kinds of things we wanted to accomplish this summer.  One suggestion was to get airborne.  My suggestion was to make something sea-worthy.  And then it happened--the vision of a milk-jug raft came to my mind and we decided we would make it happen.  By mid-July we had maybe 15 or 20 gallon jugs collected.  When I got to Utah at the beginning of August, Ked Hamblin, pictured in front of me on the milk jug raft, had collected about 90 more.  He did the washing and storing and Trevor helped with the construction. A look at the construction.  A close-up of the construction. I was a little nervous because the river moves pretty swiftly even though there aren't any rapids.  It turned out just fine though and I loved the sh...

Do you ever wonder what the definition of a word is but you're too lazy to look it up or you "don't have the time" to look it up (I think that's silly but I think it too). Well, Google has the solution for you!  First, you need to start using Google Chrome as your web broswer (instead of explorer or firefox).  Download Chrome here .  Once you're using Chrome, go here  to download a dictionary extension.  You can double click on any word on any web page and a little box will pop up with the definition.  It's great!

http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/home.aspx Hi folks, Trevor shared this link with me a few weeks ago and I thought I'd pass it along.  It's a declaration written by  prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars in defense of the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty.  It's kind of like the family proclamation, except it's longer, and it's not a revelation...  But it has similar ideas to the FP as well as Elder Oaks' devotional address at BYU-I this past year about religious freedom and Elder Nelson's address to young adults in Massachusetts last month about the connection between church and state .  Read through it and see what you think.  Could be a good conversation topic with your friends who belong do different churches. PS- Elder Wickman addressed the J. Reuben Clark Law School Society back in February about religion in the public square as well.  Just came across it.  

Hi folks, In case you haven't heard, I'm coming home again.  Dad and I worked out the travel arrangements yesterday and so I will be home from July 15th to August 2nd.  I'm looking forward to it! Also noteworthy and calendar-worthy is that Wendy will be coming while I'm home.  She's going to Aunt Charmaine's house the weekend that I get to FL and then she will be coming to Seminole for the following week.  I don't remember what day she's planning on leaving... Also, Jimmy and Missy and Todd are going to be visiting.  At least that was the last that I heard from Wendy.  They're coming about a week after I get there. Start thinking of what you want to do while I'm home.  I can give tennis lessons to Joseph or programming lessons to Michael.  :)  Just kidding guys, but if either of you want to mentor me in those things I'd be up for it.  Al--I hope my newest nephew has heard good things about his aunt in Utah.  I'm excited to see him a...

I've officially finished my first round of swimming lessons this summer.  I taught levels 1, 2, and 3 and I particularly liked my level 3 classes because they really starting to getting the strokes down and were able to swim extended distances. Our last day was my favorite day because, instead of having lesson plans, all the swim instructors took their classes all around the aquatic center and just played together.  (There is a lazy river, slide, and zero-depth entry pool in addition to the lap pool.)  All of my levels wanted to go down the slide, so I probably went down it 30 times that day.  There were other popular pool activities that we did a lot on our last day: the younger kids liked being able to get out and jump back in as much as they wanted (that was their favorite skill to learn--jumping in).  The older kids liked racing; so we practiced the front and back strokes and dolphin kicks around the lazy river.  I scratched my hand on the side during o...

I happened to switch to my old memory card a few days ago and when I went to download the pictures I found a bunch of photos that I took with my old camera (this memory card was from my old camera).  I thought you might enjoy taking a look at them.     My friend Lindsey Hall and I from my freshman year.  On her birthday, Woodhead and I filled her dorm room with balloons.  She liked it a lot.  Lindsey's getting married this Saturday.   My really short hair... remember that?  This was when it grew out long enough to get it cut to look like it was supposed to be short instead of being an accident (like it was right before I left for school).   Graduation day.  That was fun.  :)  Who is that pretty lady in the middle?  :)  I liked this one of you, Mom.   Awww.  Aren't they cute?  This was during the Yellowstone trip after J&J's wedding.   Same trip.  This was our little cabin in Yellowstone wh...

I need to try and get some good silver lining pictures with my own camera.  Until then, here's one for you to try and top.  Seriously, lets have a contest who can take the best silver lining picture! www.enzeecommunity.com/. ../SilverLining.jpg

Mentor: a. trusted counselor or teacher.  b.  (in   the   Odyssey   )  a   loyal   adviser   of   Odysseus   entrusted   with   the  care   and   education   of   Telemachus. c.  involves communication and is relationship based.         Who has thoughts and ideas on the subject of mentorship?   I think of a mentor as someone who loves me and wants me to succeed and so therefore teaches me the attributes and skills necessary for success and happiness.  To me, mentoring is rooted in love and inspires progression and learning.  Lastly, a key aspect of mentoring is that although one has more experience or wisdom than another, they feel like equals and are both seeking more light and truth than they each currently possess.  (i.e. the teacher is both a teacher and a learner; the learner is both a learner and a teacher.)  This summer I'm working with ...

What do you think of my new blog look?  Trevor showed me how to customize it more and so I'm trying new things.  Let me know on a scale of 1-10 what you think of this one.  I may be trying some other looks soon anyways.

I was looking at songs to suggest for the pool playlist this summer and while I was searching on i tunes I found a song that I think you all will enjoy.  It's called "Good Problem to Have" by Donovan Chapman.  It's worth the 99 cents to download it.

Kind of a clever title, don't you think? I enjoyed being on the temple grounds with Kimmy, Sadie and baby Joseph.  Here are some pictures from our time together outside.  

Soon to be added are my pictures from being home.  I have some great pictures of baby Joseph and Sadie outside of the temple.  :)  I'll also post soon about my summer job and maybe post a picture or two from Jamie's wedding weekend also.  My apologies for being delinquent in updating my blog this last month.  

My "final" for music composition is to write a quartet for the following instruments: soprano sax, bass clarinet, viola, and vibraphone. That's a pretty diverse group of instruments. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to organize my piece. Do you have any ideas for me? Check out the following website to learn about the instruments. Thank you in advance for your input! "The Orchestra: A User's Manual"— http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/~ahugill/manual/intro.html Examples of what you could make suggestions about: who gets the melody, or the order of who plays melody at different times key signature? time signature? what kind of feeling or idea to try and create? slow or fast or a mix, what order to put it in? (e.g. slow first, gradually speed up, really fast and then go back to a slower steady pace) use one or more of the instruments in an unusual way (e.g. make it a percussion instrument, play only the mouth piece of the clarinet or sax, pluck the viola ...

In honor of her impending graduation and wedding, this post is dedicated to Jamie.   This was taken at her bridal shower a couple weeks ago up in Bountiful.   This is a common site in 213.  Jamie studying, eating carrots and peanut butter with her water bottle near by.  Here we on a Sunday evening a couple weeks ago.  We were matching: green shirts and white skirts.  Great minds think a like.  It surprises me how often people match.  Jamie and I match quite a bit and it seems like whenever I'm home I usually match Alicia or Kimmy, especially on Sundays.  I don't know why, but its fun.   I bought milk yesterday and the "best by" date is Jamie's wedding day.  I decorated the milk jug to attract attention to it.  She laughed at me when she saw it.  :)  This is our closet.  We have lots of shoes and very little space to put them.  We also have lots of scarves, mostly due to generous families we both have that gi...

In school this semester I've had the opportunity to meet with some little kids to either get a language sample to analyze or to do standardized language tests with them. Neither sound like much fun but it's actually been a lot of fun. I met with a little boy this morning who is almost three years old. We played with his toy tractors and blocks. He also showed me his Buzz Lightyear toy and told me about what he likes to do when he visits his grandma and grandpa. He has a great family and it was fun to hear him talk about them from his 2-year-old point of view. A few weeks ago I met with another little boy who is four years old. My class partner and I took turns doing different parts of the Goldman-Fristoe test of Articulation. It was pretty fun too. For my part I told him a story (there were pictures to look and point at) and then he got to tell it back to me and point at the pictures. I was trying to get him to say target words but he thought I was being silly. He wo...

Happy birthday Joseph!

I bit the bullet and did it. I stopped working my grounds job. The reasons why it was hard to quit are the following: I liked working for my foreman; our crew is great; our location can't be beat; and working outside is just the best--sunshine, soil, a mountain backdrop, the smells, the sense of accomplishment after manual labor... I have many sweet memories. I talked to dad about quitting a couple weeks ago because I am so busy with school this semester. He thought it was a good idea. It took me a week to finally tell Mike, my foreman though. On Friday we had a big barb-e-cue with 4 or 5 other crews. It was a fun way to finish. As much as I liked working, I really liked being able sleep in this morning and have a productive morning at home. I studied for a couple hours, worked on biology stuff for a couple hours, went running, ate a good lunch at home, did laundry, de-junked my closet, and then went to class at 3:30. Not a bad day.

Today's been an eventful day. To begin with, I donated blood at a Red Cross blood drive on campus. They got more than they bargained for though; in addition to my blood I gave them about 10 seconds of my consciousness and my lunch from an hour before. Not a good experience. I managed to make it to the snack table before the sequence of events unfolded. There's no major damage, I was bothered more by the awkwardness of the situation when I woke up and then got sick than I was about actually passing out or getting sick. I guess humility can come in a variety of ways. Next, I've been reading Keith Hennessey's blog over the past couple of days in order to learn more about health care reform (Joseph I hope you are proud of me). My new interest on the subject was spurred by hearing something in the news over the weekend about a reconciliation bill; I didn't know what that meant and so I decided I should learn. I don't have any new ideas to contribute to the t...

Last week I wrote a choral piece. (It was more like an exercise to see how well I'm understanding my speech science class actually.) My music class performed it today and I think it was pretty successful. Here's what I did: Background information first: So when you record your voice and look at it in an analysis program you discover that there's a ton a frequencies all combined together. There's obviously the fundamental frequency (the loudest and most noticeable one that is the actual frequency your vocal folds are resonating at) and the harmonics of the fundamental frequency are more prominent too. But then when all of that sound moves through your vocal tract some frequencies are amplified and others are attenuated. The ones that are made big are called formants. (more background info)Formants are very important. They carry the information that allows us to distinguish an /a/ from /u/. Trust me, its important. So I looked at the fundamental frequ...

Two of my roommates and I eat dinner together several times a week. All six of us used to do it but we had a change in two of our roommates between semesters and the other is home more than she is at our apartment. Anyways, Jamie and Ellen and I were eating dinner last night and one of our new roommates, Olya, was in the living room laughing about something or other with her boyfriend; the laughter lasted at least 5 minutes. We weren't sure what was so funny but Ellen suggested we join in on the laughter. I said "okay I'll start" and then immediately started the most convincing fake laugh of my life. It was so surprisingly realistic that all three of us had a nice long legitimate laugh to follow. :) Ah, college life--there's always something interesting to keep you going.

Some people say the darnedest things. My speech science teacher is one of them. He tends to think that most students in my major don't like the sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy & physiology, etc. That may be true. Many of my classmates prefer learning how kids learn to talk, how communication happens, sending/receiving information if you will. That's cool, but science is really where the fun is at. Dr. Dromey has at least one fan in speech science and that's me. Hopefully some of the quotes I've written down over the past month can give you an idea of just how funny this guy is. "Computers can be devious little things... you just have to act relaxed around it." -Dr. Dromey "It's alright I don't bite audiologists... unless provoked." -Dr. Dromey (in communication disorders all potential audiologists get put with all of us potential speech pathologists... they are sort of related but really entirely different fields......

I know you are so curious about what I'm learning in school and how I'm putting Mom and Dad's generous tuition payments to use. I know you all are anxious to learn and broaden your horizons also. Well this post is just for you--it's in the form of Q&A about some of the things I've learned and want to share with you. Q&A regarding the science of speech: What is pitch? It's how high or low a sound is (e.g. different notes on a keyboard represent different pitches) What is frequency? The same thing as pitch. It's measured in Hertz (Hz). (e.g. A above middle C on a keyboard is 440 Hz) How do you measure how loud something is? by it's intensity, in decibels (dB) What causes sound? movement, something has to create an vibration. that's what sound waves are... vibrations What makes speech sound? people's vocal chords. little muscles in your voice box make the vocal chords stretch so that when air gets blown through your wind pipe the ...

I tend to like the commercials during the Olympics. Some are inspiring and others are humorous (the two best kinds). Below is my favorite commercial from the opening ceremonies last night. Hope you like it!

This semester I'm living with two girls from Russia, Olya and Zhenya. I've actually been their visiting teacher at different times over the past few years and so we've gotten to know each other pretty well already. Zhenya is studying organ performance and she promised to take me to play the bells in the bell tower on campus. I'm looking forward to it! Olya is teaching English at the ESL center. She's usually busy making lesson plans and grading. They make great food. I should get some of their recipes and post them on yumbb. Julie and Sarah, maybe we can make Russian/Ukrainian food together next time I'm home. :) Zhenya is teaching me Russian. Today I learned most of the alphabet so that I can read and write. She wrote down some words that she already taught me to speak; I like it! She also wrote down English words using the Russian alphabet which was a fun practice as well. At the end she left me an encrypted message (Russian alphabet but English ...