10/03 - 12/01

Weeks #6-14

Stuff.

9/28/09 - 10/02/09

Week #5

Class Attendence Percentage: 100%

• • Construction Scheduling: EXAM 1 / concealing amount of float days from subcontractors is important to reduce delays between activities
  • Construction Law: When using custom contracts if question of ambiguity arises the courts will construe against party who created contract.
  • Commercial Real Estate: Tenant Cycle
  • FPM Technologies: Tour of BYU/LDS Server Rooms
  • Public Assembly Facilities: Tour of Marriot Center - Risk Mgmt noone allowed on catwalk as soon as event has opened doors to public
  • Human & Environmental Mngmt: Fire Extinguisher Training. Classifications of Extinguishers A,B,C,D,K or solids, liquids, electrical, metal, food products. Most are ABC and will lose pressure after 8 -16yrs

9/07/09 - 9/11/09

Week #2

Class Attendence Percentage: 75%

• Construction Scheduling: Foundation walls need 3 days before back fill. However compression loads i.e. framing can be installed the next day.

• Construction Law: Both Federal and State courts have an appellate levels where no new testimony or evidence is presented

• Commercial Real Esate: NO CLASS
• FPM Technologies: A hub, switch, and router are all the same thing but have increasing levels of intelligence
• Public Assembly Facilities: Quiz and stuff
• Human & Environmental Mngmt: NO CLASS

This Week in LEARNING

For my own amusement/benefit I've decided to start this new segment as a way of answer the common question, "So what did you learn in school this week?" Which is actually harder to verbalize that I initially thought; but thinking is the name of the game in 45 of the lower 48 states, so there you have it.

Week #1 AUG 31 - SEPT 4

Class Attendence Percentage: 59%

• Construction Scheduling: Scheduling provides a visual goal for all of your subcontractors and project managers creating urgency for every part of the project. Technical Level - 2

• Construction Law: Unless I get an MBA or JD or both I'll be pigeonholed into a job with a glass ceiling in the corporate world. Importance Level - 8

• Commercial Real Esate: Increasing the Net Operating Income by $1 = $200 value increase to the property given NOI/Cap Rate = Present Value Applicable Level - 9
• FPM Technologies: I skipped to go have a late lunch with a friend. Value Level: 1
• Public Assembly Facilities: This class is all about my old job at the FBG Event Center
• Human & Environmental Mngmt: Different municipalities use different codes, be familiar with your region.

The Life and Times of Forrest Gump

It doesn't take a lot to get me all nostalgic and glazy eyed thinking and pondering about years past. Tonight it was watching Forrest Gump that got me. In 1994 I was 12 years old when I went with the family to see the academy award nominated film, old enough to get the plot, humor, and message of the story, and yet 14 years later it things I missed are now better understood or rather understood as only the passing of time can explain. Everything that happens in the film happens in the world before my time. A thirty year collection of snapshots and pop culture references to an America that I've only seen in books, on television, or in the stories of those who lived through it. It is because of this that we who were not a part of its making can only sympathize with the often bias or incomplete interpretations delivered to us by the mentioned sources. We'll never remember where we were when JFK was shot, when Armstrong walked to moon, or what any of the other iconic moments or periods of those distinct decades of the 50s, 60s, and 70s were truly like. Now that's not to say that history is dead, that we are not living through what will one day be regarded as pivotal , groundbreaking, or the distinguishing events of our time. But, there is a bitterness that lingers on the realization that that which was will never be a part of who we, the generation born after, are made from. Already, the effects of time can be seen as that which we 80s babies take for common knowledge is lost on the youth. They have no remembrance of a cold war, of the first Persian gulf war, or a world without Internet and cell phones. Even a mention of 9-11 is only a date in history books and brings no direct and personal emotional impact on those who were too young in the Fall of 2001 to remember it. Like Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" the march of time pushes our birth year farther into the past, laying ground for the new crop. And like the song and the film everyone is trying to find purpose and meaning to their meager 30,000 days in this world; to make it mean something, even if that means only to themselves.
But Gump, in his simpleness, found purpose and meaning without all the weight and burden a more developed mind might have bogged him down with. An illustrious college football career was followed by a tour to Vietnam, where at least three men, who would have died - some say needlessly - lived thanks to him. Upon returning home his peculiar talent of ping pong ball prowess allowed him to afford his first shrimp boat that later led to a multimillion dollar business, brought Bubba's family out of poverty through his generosity, and restored self worth and peace to the suicidal and bitter Lt. Dan. And who could forget the prodigal daughter Jenny? After years of sowing wild oats, she comes home to the one man who was constant and safe in her life. But sick with terminal illness she must leave behind her son with his father because she knows he'll be as good to little Forrest has he was to her. At her graveside, Forrest shares the simple and profound wisdom that the movie (book) are based on, "I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time."
Like the feather that is the prologue and epilogue to the movie, seemingly carried on a wind without thought or reason Forrest has found his way into the lives of numerous people whose fates may have been drastically altered if not for a chain of seemingly random coincidences. I guess Sally Field really was right about life and that damned box of chocolates.
What I'm getting at, I can't say for certain. Maybe it's about the realization of divinity in our daily lives or service to our fellow man, or how we should stop and embrace the present because one day it, like the twentieth century and all her days, will be gone; and all the while, worry less about the future and regret less what has passed. For now I'd like to think that its about how it's OK not to have things figured out entirely and embrace that which beyond our control. But it's 1:00 AM now, so in the words of my esteemed subject of topic, "that's all I have to say about that."

Camping half-cocked = 400 mile road trip

Follow the markers. They tell the tale.

ViewHalf-Cocked Camping in a larger map

Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow

The Subway Blunder

Wednesday. The last day of tests. Two taken. Real Estate at 2pm in the testing center, Drafting and Design at 5:45pm in class. I escape the testing center's talons a litte before 4 and the waiting line has grown from a modest trickle to a Ho Chi Minh trail of croc-footed underclassmen that is wrapped all the way from the Testing Center downstairs door, beyond the JSB, and almost all the way towards the Eyring science center (about 200m). I look upon the hundreds of faces with both pity and a condescending sense of "i told you so". What did they expect waiting until the afternoon of the last day of finals? I stop thinking about the test waiting line about the time that I'm in another line, consequently, looking at sandwich options. I narrow my choice down to "The Feast" whose salami, black forest ham, and pepperoni call out to me as a bounteous reward for my labors of the day. I decide to go with the six inch, no need to overkill, plus it would be like $10 for the footlong. As the salivation begins the Vegetable Guy takes the sandwich and asks with an air of impatience "whose sandwich is this?" while looking at me. I give him my requests - a hearty list of condiments and greens. Then he moves the sandwich aside and pulls up the next sandwich and asks his monotone monotonous question he's programmed to ask. I look down and this new sandwich, the one with no vegetables on it, is mine. My heart collapses into my stomach, I've just ruined someone else's sandwich with my copious collection of customized chiles. He keeps calling out for the owner of this new sandwich, but I'm dedicated to not responding. I can't, the words betray me, I quickly debate the pros and cons of pulling a 180 and leaving the scene of the crime, but there are too many witnesses, I'll be caught for sure and I'll still be hungry. So I stay, awaiting exposure and judgement, and the guy in front of me comes back to see his precious FOOTLONG veggie delight saturated in creamy southwest chipotle sauce and onions - the witch hunt and subsequent trial has begun.  Surrendering, I have to explain to both Vegetable Man and Veggie Delight Boy, that I, by proxy, ordered for his sandwich. They look at me like I've set a kitten on fire and can't comprehend what kind of monster would do such a thing. In the lingering confusion, Bread Girl comes over and explains that a new sandwich must be made to atone for the sins of the first sandwich, which must now be cast down into outer trashness where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth and probably mold. Sheepishly, I apologize to Veggie Boy as I pass him in line, but he's clearly not even going to humor me with a faux acceptance of apology. Oh well, at least now I can sulk away to the corners of the cougar eat and consume my tasty and guilt ridden "Feast". 

The End.

Bored

English: I'm bored
Latvian: Man ir garlaicīgi or Es garlaikojos (I spend time being bored / doing boring things)
Russian: Мне скучно
Spanish: Estoy aburrido
German: Mir ist es langweilig
Czech: Nudím se
Portuguese: Estou entediado
Dutch: Ik verveel me
Chinese: 我很无聊
Japanese: つまらないな
Thai: buồn thấy mẹ
Arabic: انا زهقت
African: Click clack clock
French: I'm gay
Swedish: jag är uttråkad
Finnish: minua kyllästyttää
Serbian: Досадно ми је
Greek: Βαριέμαι Πλήττω

Fruits of my Labor

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Turning Frowns upside down (and then rightside up)

I got the following email this morning from my Real Estate teacher.

I hope all of you felt great after finding out that you scored 100% on the exam. The testing center made an error when they gave you the immediate report for your exam scores. I was informed that the error will be corrected, and you will be able to view your final scores on the T/F and M/Choice portion tomorrow. It will take them a day to post the new/correct information.

I hope you all enjoyed your "day in the sun." And the testing center is "really sorry."

There was about 5 seconds after taking that exam when i was looking up at the scoreboard and thinking to myself, "Hey, I'm pretty smart, you know I studied and everything and all my work has paid off. Yay for ME!". And then Uncle Reason paid a visit to my brain and reminded me of how I've NEVER gotten a 100 on a BYU testing center exam, and for that to happen today on one of my most difficult classes I've had to date was unlikely at best, nigh impossible.

But it was a good five seconds, all the same.