New Years Resolutions

Tradition has it that at the beginning of each year we make goals. These goals can be anything from spiritual, physical or emotional. Everyone makes goals in the hopes that they will acheive them and have a better life. I, like many people, set these goals, work on them for a few weeks and then forget all about them until the following New Years.

This year, I have decided to do something a little different and use this blog to help. I will set a few goals that are important to me. Each month, on the first, I will write a post as an update on how I have been doing on accomplishing these goals. I figure this way my goals will be constantly on my mind. By posting how I am doing on these goals, it will make me accountable to myself, as well as to you. It will keep me on my toes!

My goals for 2010:
1. Read the Book of Mormon cover to cover
2. Exercise at least 4 times a week
3. Graduate college
4. Eat dinner at home at least 4 nights a week

These are only a handful of the goals that I would like to acheive but I know that the more goals I set the less I will be able to accomplish. I will focus my attentions and efforts on these four goals this year and add more in the coming years. I certainly hope that through this method I will actually be able to acheive my goals.

A new year is a fresh start. I hope that all of you will take advantage of this opportunity to set goals and make 2010 an even better year than 2009. I have greatly appreciated everyone's kindness and friendship this past year. I would not have been able to make it through with out you! I love you all and will see you next year!

"I'm Gonna Text Judy On My Zipit..."

A couple months ago I received a call from my Father. He was blabbing on, all excited about something he had seen on Hak 5. (some nerdy tech show) On this show, the people hacked a hand-held instant messaging device and converted it to a little mini computer. I asked my Dad what the name of the device was. He couldn't remember at first but I instantly thought Zipit. "Zipit?" I say. "Why yes!" he exclaims. I got excited at this point because one of my favorite YouTube personalities, Fred, has a Zipit and promotes it. Fred has many videos and YOU should watch them. So funny!



So today, I awake to the sound of my phone ringing. I groggily answer, "Hello?" "Katie, get out bed and get your butt in here!" My Dad had called to wake me up. I stumble into his room and he says, "Today is the day!" "What?" I say. He merely says "Zipit," and I know what he is thinking. I settle down on his bed and we start watching the episode so that I know what to do. I begin to follow along as I watch. I struggled to find the proper downloads to load on the miniSD card that I would put in the Zipit.

Everything was going swimmingly until I loaded the Linux image on the miniSD. The driver I had installed to allow me to access the Linux files from my Windows machine was not working properly. I could not open the card and put on the additional needed files.

The next step was to try and access them from a Linux machine. So we installed a Virtual Machine of Ubuntu Linux on my Dad's laptop. We tried opening the card on there but did not know all the proper commands to open the card. PAIN IN THE BUTT! My Dad kept going on about how great it was that I was getting this learning experience. Not so much. I was bitter that it wasn't working and may have sworn quite a few times.

We still have not gotten it working which is extremely frustrating because Hak 5 made it look so easy! I guess I will have to work on it some more tomorrow... lame! I hate the work portion. I just want to have a cool little mini computer. I mean, come on... who doesn't? Hopefully I will have it working tomorrow and can look SUPER cool on my Zipit... just like Fred!

SEX has a Price Tag

Today is my mother's birthday. She is an amazing woman whom I revere. I could wax eloquent on her many virtues but my sister had beat me to the punch. Rather than compete with her beautiful words, I will let her blog post stand as a representative for what I would have written. (To see Kristi's post on our wonderful mother click here.)

Instead I would like to describe the entertaining evening that we had celebrating the day my Mom deigned it time to come down and live among us lowly humans. (haha... now she sounds like an alien or something... maybe she is... but that is another blog post all together) Our neighbor Sara-Lynn came over, as well as my aunt Amy and cousin Heather. We had several games to choose from. (and snacks! SO many snacks!) We settled on Encore. A game that Heather had brought over.

I was very skeptical of Encore at first. The basic gist of the game is to be able to sing at least 6 words of a song that has to do with the topic or contains a specific word. The first team to run out of songs loses. Now I have a VERY difficult time remembering tunes of songs if it isn't playing at the time or if there is any other noise... and remembering lyrics? haha... yeah right! So lets just say when it came down to the other team choosing a player from our team for the player vs. player section... I was likely to be chosen for my poor lyrical skills. As Heather so kindly put it, "We need to pick their worst player. KATIE!" Thanks a bunch Heather, you couldn't even pretend to have a difficult time choosing?

The game continued on, my team making up many new lyrics and even new songs! Kristi forgot it wasn't her teams turn and started singing a song that she had worked so hard to remember... poor, poor Kristi. My team held no sympathy for her and stole her song. (Cool dance moves included.) I must admit though, the highlight of this game for me was when we all burst out singing "I am Proud to be an American" at the top of our lungs. We even stood up and threw our arms up in the air and danced around. We all got the chorus down just fine... however were unable to remember the part with the word that we actually needed... haha... oh well.

I am not really sure how we got on the topic, but then we started talking about this video that my Mom had shown for a Youth Fireside. It is entitled "SEX has a Price Tag" featuring Pam Stenzel. So of course we then put it in and watched the whole hour long video. It was very informative, if not somewhat terrifying. You should have seen the faces of these kids. They looked an awful lot like this.



That Pam Stenzel really knows her stuff. Either that or she is a great horror writer. Most of what she was saying was enough to turn anyone off from sex. Seriously, I survived scary movie month with only a few lingering scares but this video will haunt me forever. Don't believe me? Watch it yourself. I love this video, Pam is pretty funny, but don't count on the comedy to lesson the horrors to be heard. Make sure to have your blankie and favorite stuffed animal close at hand- and your boyfriend FAR FAR AWAY!

Mr. White Volvo Man

Although my family has moved to Clovis, my Dad still works in San Jose. So every week we have to pack up and travel the 3 hours up to San Jose. I LOVE San Jose, I really do, but I HATE the constant traveling back and forth. I hate having to pack up my crap, load it in the car, drive up there, work pretty much non-stop for 2 days and then drive back. It is miserable but I try not to complain about it too much because my Dad enjoys working and it allows him the opportunity to still support his family despite his disease.

But what REALLY gets my goat are the other drivers on the road. I realize that I am not the best driver. I even have a letter from the DMV to prove it! ("You may think you are a good driver but...") These other yahoos on the road though just blow my mind. Here I am just happily driving along, rocking out to Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers, when this guy in a white Volvo zooms in right behind me from the other lane, totally cutting off the car that had been just behind me.

I speed up a little so that I can get over to the other lane and let the idiot in the Volvo pass me. Apparently, I wasn't going fast enough for Mr. White Volvo Man. He was right on top of me. Which was really brave for him, as I was driving a giant Expedition. I keep checking my rearview mirror to see if he is backing off at all... but NO. There is no where for me to go, the other lane is packed full of cars. I am not about to speed up any more. Visibility was low due to fog and rain. We were in a very windy pass and I was already going 5 over the speed limit.

I check my rearview mirror one more time; just in time to see Mr. White Volvo Man throw his hands up in the air as if to say, "What the heck?" I normally am a very calm person but this just infuriated me. We are not all as suicidal as you, Mr. White Volvo Man. I found myself thinking spiteful things about him.

Who did this guy think he was? His time was no more important than anyone elses and the way he was driving he was going to cause an accident. Why did he think he was so cool? Sure he did have a Volvo like Edward Cullen... but his Volvo was definitely not silver. It was a wannabe Edward Cullen car! I finally get over to the other lane, this whole thing had taken place in less than a minute. As soon as I get over, Mr. White Volvo Man zips by going about 90 miles an hour.

I was relieved to have Mr. White Volvo Man out of the way and continued on my way. Belting out the Hoedown Throwdown, my anger already diminishing. Moral of the story: If you are going to buy a Volvo and drive up right behind people... at least get a silver one. That way people think you are Edward Cullen in a rush to save Bella... again.

ANOTHER Slideshow? Really?

I awoke to the sound of my father's voice this morning. "Hey Katie, can you come help me?" I groan and roll over, hoping that it is just a dream. "Katie, I need help with my lesson." I begrudgingly extricate myself from the warmth of my bed. I walk into the kitchen, wiping sleep from my eyes, "What do you need me to do?" He asked me to make a presentation of pictures depicting Christ's life. He wanted it to be about 4 minutes in length.

Funny thing is, I had already created just such a presentation about 5 years ago. For my Laurel project I spent weeks gathering pictures and assembling them into a 4 minute presentation. I then prepared a fireside with several speakers and played my presentation. I suggested we just use the same one. Unfortunately, we could not find it.

I had to create the same presentation that had taken me several weeks in an hour. It went a lot quicker this time because I had a better program and I knew how to find pictures more quickly. I was able to pull it off! It turned out great! I kept teasing my Dad that I could have put any pictures in the slideshow as long as it had decent music he would never know. I told my Dad that the slideshow was full of pictures of me holding the "thumbs up" pose.



My Dad was very excited to have the presentation for his lesson. Sadly though, he didn't get to use it! The DVD player in the room we were in did not have a remote and we were unable to access the beautiful presentation. Also, he wasn't able to use the bulk of what he had planned for his lesson because of this DVD player debacle. He did pretty good despite this through the great input of his class. Also, he is just plain awesome... like me!

Haaaave you met Ted?

Have you ever been set up out of the blue? Having a lovely evening when *BOOM* someone says, "Hey, have you met so-and-so?" I seem to be getting a lot of that recently. It seems that I just give off the "I am single and desperate" vibe. It seems to be a common experience for me lately. I can't ever come home without someone attempting to find me that special someone.

Just tonight, we had some family over. Uncle Frank walks up to me and says, "When can you come meet Ted?" Then my Aunt Jemima gets excited and says, "He is the Bishop's son. He is your age and still single. How great is that?" I kind of laugh thinking that this is a big joke. But no, Aunt Jemima was DEAD serious.

She went on to describe why the situation was perfect. Ted is in a different ward than I am and he goes to a different school. This is perfect because if things go bad we will never run into each other. If things go well, I can see him when I am home.(Oh goody!) I just smile and nod politely, and laugh some more before quickly changing the subject.

I am only 22 years old. It is totally fine that I am not married yet. I am in no hurry. I am not offended that everyone keeps telling me that they have found the "perfect" man for me. I know that they just care about me and want me to be happy. I am happy and perfectly content with where I am at this point in my life. But I do enjoy hearing about all the "perfect" men to be found in Fresno. So keep it coming!

My family could definitely give Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother a lesson on being a wingman. "Haaaave you met Ted?"





**Names have been changed for confidentiality

Wallwork Family Photos

My Dad recently had a really strong desire to assemble a slideshow for his father. As my Dad is blind, the fulfillment of this desire was placed on the shoulders of my sister and I. At first we complained a little, saying there were other things we would rather be doing, but it became kind of fun in the end. There were many steps to be taken to get this project off the ground.

Step One: Gathering Photos
We knew that our Grandpa had been scanning the old photo albums and storing the photos on his home computer. In order to gain access to these, Kristi and I geared up in our very best ninja costumes and waited for the dead of night. We scaled the side of our grandparent's home and dropped in to their computer room from the ceiling. We had underestimated the security of their home and Kristi almost lost an arm to a laser beam. Luckily, I was able to disarm the lasers pretty easily. (Never buy your laser beam security system from WalMart!) After that, it was a simple hack into their mainframe to gain access to the precious pictures. We made our quick escape back up through the ceiling and drove back to home base.

Step Two: Inserting Photos into Slideshow
There was a MASSIVE amount of photos! Some so old and yellowed that we couldn't even tell who was in the photo. I was given the task of putting the pictures into the slideshow and going through and getting rid of the photos that were duplicates or too difficult to see. This was a daunting task as there were over 1700 photos! Me, being the supremely lazy person that I am, or as I like to call it, "efficient," just clicked through the photos quickly checking for duplicates. Surprisingly, my foolproof method missed a few of copycats. Looks like I will have to go back and do battle with the duplicates once more!

Step Three: Picking the Soundtrack
I didn't have much to do with portion. (Thank goodness!) I merely showed Kristi how to work the program and let her loose! Usually I would love to be the one choosing the songs but with that many pictures the slideshow came out to be almost 2 hours!! That requires quite a few songs! No way I could handle that pressure, especially with my Dad breathing down my neck. (The breath is one thing but his impatience is another!) Kudos to Kristi for pulling it off... or almost. She came so close but miscalculated the length of the presentation and the music cut off about a minute before the end. OOPS!

Step Four: Burning to a DVD
I first had to render the slideshow file to an .avi file. This was extremely simple and just done with the click of a button. Unfortunately it took forever for the slideshow to render. Then I simply brought the .avi file to my Mom and she cast some magic spells over it and BOOM! we had a DVD version of the slideshow!

Step Five: Presenting the Slideshow
We were all exchanging gifts at my aunt Amy's house. My Dad kept saying, "Where is Grandpa?" "Is he in the room?" Like I said earlier, my Dad is blind, so he was unable to see that his father was just a couple chairs away from him. He had my uncle Dave put the DVD in the projector and the familiar slideshow began to play. Everyone loved it! It was so fun learning more about my family's past through the old photos. We mentioned in the beginning that the slideshow was almost 2 hours long and that everyone may not want to watch the whole thing... but we did.

Step Six: Further Editing
Everyone wants a copy of the slideshow! Before we burn more copies though, I think I will go through and remove the duplicate slides. That should also solve the music issue!

This was a great project and it came at the right time of year, when all the family is together and we can all enjoy it. It has helped me feel closer to my family and brought back many fond memories. Below are some of the pictures found in the slideshow!

A picture of my grandparents. I just love them!

All of my Dad's brothers and sisters. My Dad is the big guy in red!

My mom with her awesome crimped hair... and my Grandma in the background.

My cousins, Spencer and Steven, and I on Halloween!


Hanging out at Grandmas! Ian, Spencer, Me and Kristi!