Tensai no Monogatari

I forgot to mention in my previous post that Erin and I nearly died last night, and I've come to realize that nothing really ever prepares you for hearing the smoke detectors go off in your house when you're not expecting it. I mean, its one thing to hear them go off when you're cooking up some katsudon and the frying pan catches on fire. Its completely different when your sleeping soundly at 1AM and you get jolted awake by a piercingly sharp siren, completely unaware of what could possibly be causing it. Erin informs me that the first thing I did was start yelling at her to get out of the apartment. I don't really remember that, I was still trying to stand up straight. But after being dazed for a few seconds we both realized that, there was no fire, there was no smoke, there was nothing. The detector apparently just decided to be mean and wake us up in the middle of the night. The alarm stopped after about 10-20 seconds on its own. We double checked everything in the apartment, wires, computers, ovens, just to make sure we hadn't set it off accidentally, but there was nothing. Eventually we went back to bed and I fell asleep planning my escape route past my pants/wallet/keys and outside in case we really were burning down. Fortunately it never went off again, and we still don't know why it happened in the first place. Weird eh?

What did we learn from this?

First: Its hard to react quickly when you're asleep. You should definitely know before hand what you need to grab on your way out the door.

Second: Keep things you may want to save, vital records, photo albums, etc. in a central spot so that you can possibly get to them quickly and then continue getting out.

Third: Don't live in apartments where your neighbors could burn your house down without your prior consent.

Fourth: Paul and Erin like to stay asleep once they've fallen asleep.

We actually already knew that last one, but this little ordeal just reaffirmed that fact. I'd rather die peacefully in my sleep than be jolted awake and painfully burn to death. How's that for logic?

Who would have ever thought that things would work out? I ran into my supervisor yesterday while walking back to my office after taking a break from staring at the Google home page. I've really only talked to him maybe four times since I started (he's usually gone on business trips or busy with wrapping up some of the other projects) so I was surprised when he stopped and waited for me in the hall. He asked if I had time to begin looking into a new project for him... long story short... I have a new project!

Crazy eh? I thought so too. Anyway, I guess its something they've wanted to do for a while, but it hasn't really been technically feasible until just recently. It feels great to have something to focus on at work, something my mind can think about while I sleep, something to stop thinking about when I go home. And it didn't even take a full thousand years, life is good again.

What else... I've invited a couple of friends over to Elder Bednar's fireside on Sunday. They seemed to be somewhat interested but Sunday night may be busy so we'll see what happens. Also, Erin and I are headed to San Antonio tonight to go to the temple again. We're attending the 8pm session so we'll see the temple all lit up at night. Erin is bringing her camera so we can share the experience with others.

I talked to mom on the phone on Sunday and she again reminded me that I haven't been posting anything on my blog. So I logged in today to see if my brain generated any thoughts that might be of general interest to anyone and I suppose I have a few.

First, I have to apologize for the long delay in posting. I originally stated that this blog would be dedicated to my thoughts and opinions on the world and happenings around me. I do occasionally have thoughts and opinions, so I suppose I should start posting them. Also, while there isn't a whole lot to write about here in Austin, there are a few things which some people may like to know. I'll try to do better from here on out.

Just to make sure sure everyone is up to speed I'll do a brief review of my little world since the last time I posted on April 1, 2008. It is noteworthy that it has been nearly three months since then. Three months! Why didn't time go by this quickly when I was in school?

Erin's mother came to stay with us for about three weeks while Erin's father was working on their house. It was good to have family over and I'm happy that Erin was able to spend so much time with her mom. I understand that the house was not completely finished by the time she returned home and she had to leave again to go spend time with Sean and Candice in Albuquerque. I hear in the recent days Erin's dad has enlisted Megan as hired labor to assist in finishing the remaining tasks.

Our soccer team managed to go undefeated for the remainder of the spring season after Erin and I joined the team. I know what you're thinking and it wasn't completely Erin's amazing soccer skills that helped us achieve victory after victory. The rest of the team is really a great group of people and many of them are very good at soccer. The whole team worked very hard and we narrowly pulled off a first place finish. That means that we'll be starting next season in Division 3, rather than Division 4. I look forward to a little bit tougher competition, though I know that Erin is a little bit nervous. She really did do an excellent job for her first season of soccer. I did not sign up for a summer season or indoor soccer. Outdoor soccer is just too hot and indoor is incredibly expensive. Not to mention the fact that indoor teams have to frequently play on Sundays. In the mean time however, I'm playing pickup games with a bunch of guys from ARL. We play every Tuesday night after work... every Tuesday when Erin and I aren't dancing that is.

That's right, Erin and I took a dance class throughout May. It was a lot of fun. Who knew that Erin and I had so much rhythm together... oh right... I did. We're planning on taking the next level of classes sometime in the near future. Go us!

Some time in here we also saw a live performance of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. We got to sit on a blanket at a park, eat strawberries and watch a play. Good times... except for the ants.

We made our first visit to the San Antonio Temple. Its about and hour and a half drive from our apartment, which means that this is the closest we've lived to a temple since we've been married. The temple is noticeably smaller than pretty much any other temple we've ever been to. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in sheer wow..ness. It really is a beautiful temple. Stained glass, marble floors, beautiful woodwork. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and plan to go back again soon.

Gas hit $4 per gallon. I've nearly given up hope of ever owning a truck.

Erin received several compliments about being a great team member and an uplifting person to work with at work. She definitely misses working at the Fire Department in Laramie, but I think she'll be ok at TEA. As long as she can say that its only temporary.

My friend Nathaniel from high school came to visit for a few days 6/13-6/15. He's stationed in Wichita Falls, TX for a few months going through some training for the Air Force. It was good to hang out for a couple of days, get caught up on the past few years, and reminisce about... things. We decided to go mountain biking on Saturday morning. We weren't on the trail for five minutes when my front tire went flat and I took a dive off the side of the trail into some trees. The fall wasn't bad at all except for the fact that I had already scraped up my knee at soccer earlier in the week and landed on it in the exact same spot. I got blood all over my shorts and we had to go home to clean up and fix my tire. Never fear though, we managed to make it back out on the trail and still get some good biking in that day.

Erin and I are preparing to start looking at houses. We've done our fair share of driving around and looking at what is for sale in Austin. There certainly is plenty to choose from. But with gas prices shooting up, driving and looking isn't as easy as it used to be. We've really resorted to the internet for checking up on current prospects. We figure we'll go talk to a real-estate agent and get the ball rolling sometime in July/August.

Work at ARL is going... nowhere. Over the past months I have been given several small "this will keep you busy" projects. One of them took about three weeks, but most others haven't taken any more than a day or two to finish. All of these projects have involved writing small bits and pieces of firmware code which is then appended to other code written by other people. When I don't have anything else to do I read text books, or wait. I've been doing a lot of waiting lately. I've been given a lot of reasons why it is that I don't have my own long-term project to work on. These reasons include...

- They were waiting for me to get my final clearance. (I did get my final clearance in late April.)

- They are waiting to assign me to a new project which I will have from the very beginning. As opposed to giving me an assignment in the middle of an on-going project.

- Several big projects are coming due in the next few weeks. While those are being finished new projects are on hold.

There have been a few others but those seem to be the recurring ones. However, about three weeks ago ARL hired another Electrical Engineer from UW named Rob. Rob finished his BS in EE this last May. Now... I would expect Rob's experience here to be very similar to what mine had been. But that hasn't been the case. Within three days of starting Rob had been assigned a long-term project which includes designing new circuit boards, writing an extensive amount of firmware consisting of new technologies not yet implemented in this lab, and integrating these new circuit boards and firmware into new versions of ARL projects. Good for Rob! I'm glad he's got a great project to work on and I'm sure he'll learn a lot while doing it. In the mean time, I'm still waiting.

I had a very hard time accepting this job offer. I had other offers, they had the own sets of pro's and con's, but they were really very good offers. As most of you know, my interview experience down here was not what I had expected it to be. I left Austin after my interview absolutely positive that there was no way I would ever accept this job. In fact, if I judged by the interviews themselves, any one of my other offers would have been far superior to this one. It felt like I interviewed for a job I never wanted. I told them I'd like to work as an embedded systems developer or firmware programmer. I interviewed for a signal processing engineer's position. When they made me an offer it felt like they were saying, "You're not who we are looking for, but we'll try to make space for you somewhere." It felt like I wasn't really needed here, but they'd already gone through all the trouble to fly me down for interviews, so they were going to make me an offer anyway. Over time though, as we prayed about it. I felt that this job was the right choice. Despite the distance from family, despite my immediate decision to not come back to ARL... ever, we honestly felt this was the right choice. Now I'm starting to second-guess myself. Maybe living in the middle of the Mojave Desert wouldn't have been so bad. At least there I would feel like I was needed, or at least being useful. Maybe an ultra-repetitive job in Broomfield, CO wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world. At least there I would be busy during the days. Either way though... this is where we are. I have no idea why we're here. I have no idea what I could do differently. But here I am, waiting.

Elder Bednar is coming to our ward meetings next week and will hold a stake fireside later on Sunday evening. We're supposed to think of questions to ask him at the fireside. Maybe I should ask him if there is an average waiting period before you find out exactly why you were instructed to go somewhere or do something. Waiting on answers to prayers is nothing new for either me or Erin. Don't get me wrong, I know from many personal experiences that prayers are definitely answered. I have no doubts about that. But I also know that they are answered according to the Lord's time. And lately I've been remembering that a thousand years is but a day to the Lord, and the answers may not come until tomorrow.

That was really depressing. Sorry about that. I did warn you though that this would be place a for my thoughts about what is going on, and those are my thoughts for right now. I'm going to end this post now. I don't know if/when anyone will read this. I expect that most people have given up on my ever updating it. I'll do better though and keep this more up-to-date.

And thus it is.

My third post! This blog thing is great! I can keep everyone updated as to what is happening by typing up a simple post in one central place. The problem with the blog? Nothing is really happening to report about...

Josh and Melissa were here 3/19-3/2... whatever. Good times were definitely had by all. Well, more good times by some than others (mostly due to the fact that I had to work all day Thursday and Friday while they played) but Saturday was pretty awesome! Sea-World and the San Antonio River-walk were really cool. There is so much to do/see here that just wasn't an option in Wyoming. Not that Wyoming wasn't fun. I definitely miss the mountains, real mountains- not 200 foot high rolling hills, and some days the humidity here is like breathing through a wet sponge. But if you distract yourself with other things you hardly notice the fact that you start sprouting gills after only a few weeks.

Anyway... what's new? I've been given a new project at work, sort of. Its another "this will keep you busy until we have something substantial to give you" project. But at this point, I'm happy to work on anything. Too much time with nothing but my thoughts to keep me busy is a slightly disturbing experience. Not that my thoughts are disturbing, but I can only spend so much time per day reading text books on signal processing and verilog coding. Once my mind gives up on that I start getting ideas... and thinking... and next thing you know I've decided to tint the car windows, ordered a new 42" TV and the media PC that I spec'ed out six months ago, and decided that we're getting a dog. Erin only has slight objections to the first 3 of those 4 ideas, so I guess thinking isn't a total waste. Only a 75% waste, which is still kinda crappy.

Oh yeah. I've nearly got the "new" linux server configured exactly how I want it. Web, FTP, File Sharing, etc are all up and running. I originally promised to get the new www.denson.cc website up by today. That obviously didn't happen. Not that I didn't want to. Its just that by the time I get home, I've spent so much time trying to keep myself occupied, that I just want to turn my brain off and let the rest of the day quickly and quietly fade away. Unreal Tournament usually facilitates that process by effectively closing off the rest of the world. I'm really hoping that having something to do at work will make my day a little more busy and help me feel like I should use my time at home for more productive activities. I'll let you know how that goes.

With that, I've just eaten my 4th cadburry creame egg for the day and I'm about to start having seizures, so I better close this post before I lose control of my hands. Wait! One last thing I wanted to say, Netflix is definitely worth $10 a month. That's all.

Congratulations are in order. Last Friday afternoon Erin officially accepted a new position at the Texas Education Agency. She starts her new job on Monday 3/24/2008. This morning she had a test drive during rush hour traffic and found that it takes just less than 45 minutes to drive from our apartment to her new office in downtown Austin. Once she got there and found the parking garage she turned back around. It apparently only took about 20 minutes to make the return trip since most traffic is heading into the city, and not much back out.

Congratulations Erin!

PS - Happy St. Patrick's Day!