Fun Life

So, I've been meaning to get up here and post some stuff on my blog. So let me give you a couple quick bursts of information, with more detail to come in later posts (I'll get back to regular posting, I promise):

• My wife and mother got together and did some extremely high qualilty catering for a wedding. They made petit fors, strawberry flowers and some other goodies. The food was amazing, and the lady was very impressed. My mom hopes to spend more time in catering, so please let us know if you'd like to talk to her about potential work for any event that you may be having soon. We have the pictures and recommendations to prove it. Not only that, but the prices are reasonable. Seriously.
  
• Lindsay and I have a wonderful Friday night activity: Willow Glen Frozen Yogurt Company. It's down the street from our home, and it's amazing and cheap. It only takes cash, but if you live in San Jose, you owe it to yourself. Their wow cow (one different flavor a day) has only 9 calories per ounce. Love.
• A project that I was working on at work was extremely well received and the CFO of the company is excited about what I produced. No more details than that, but I was/am well pleased.
• I recently went on a diet, the flat belly diet. I did it before, during the summer last year, and lost 22 pounds in a mere 6 weeks. It was very effective, and I went down by 6 inches on my pants and stomach. Since I've gone back up in weight, I need to take care of myself. So I am.
• Matt Holliday hit a towering home run today. Bout time. His first of the year, and I'm sure first of many to come. My dad and I went to a game on this past Saturday, got Holliday jerseys, and sat fifth row on the ground from right field. It was an awesome game. Giambi hit his first homer of the year and the A's stomped all over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. It was so, so much fun. Baseball season is in full swing, and while the A's haven't been the best so far, things are starting to look up for them.
• We want a dog. But still don't know if that'll happen. But we'll keep you guys informed.

Much love to everyone. Leave me a comment to let me know you are reading. I'd love to hear from you.

I'm going to be posting more.

Till next time.

I'm Nuts

 

To those of you who know me, this may not come as a surprise. I'm nuts. I'm a little looney. I have some strange tendencies, and sometimes my thought processes only seem to make sense to me. It's weird. And a touch hard. But hey, that's how I am. Something's gotta keep me conscious.

Therefore, when I sit in my audit staff 101 training (NO, I am not audit staff. I'm advisory staff. But as advisory, I'll be doing some auditing, so it is invaluable to speak the lingo and know at least the theory behind an audit) that all I can think about when I am sitting there are control weaknesses. They present a business process, a software suite, an account, a flowchart, anything, and I can think only of the ways to break it. The ways to find exceptions. The ways to circumvent. That's my mindset when it comes to these things. That's how I know I'm in the right place: I think like an auditor. I think like a security guy. I think like the person who is trying o break the controls. Therefore, being able to audit and check them is a very valuable part of my job.

I think I'm good at business process redesign as well. Why would I say that? I like it. Is that weird? I like looking at an overall process and finding the problems with it. I like analyzing them, comparing them to best practices, and redesigning them to be more efficient. Adding in technology, teaming, and all the other considerations only heightens my excitement. I'm weird. I really am.

The other thing I think about: Diet Coke. Hey, a guy has got to stay up, right?

So, it would appear that I'm in the right profession. Congrats to me.

My bachelor's degree posted today. Hopefully my Master's will post tomorrow.

I have a great life.

OH YEA! And I have a new couch. It's awesome.

Until next time.

It's Been too Long ...

So much has been going on in my life over the last 6 weeks or so, and I've been so limited on my time to get online and write some good posts. So, I'm back, and better than ever.

I'm broadcasting from a new home now, and find myself located in the wonderful Silicon Valley in California. I live just a little south of downtown San Jose, and find myself in an excellent location for my future job and the traveling that I will have to do with my new job. My wife and i moved in officially on the 20th of December, but have been all around the bay area and central valley since we moved in. We came back for good as of January 2nd. I need to run down some of the activities that we did.

December 19 -- The movers arrived at our apartment in Provo, UT and moved us out. As the movers arrived, the snow did as well. It snowed like crazy, and resulted in "white-out" (meaning that visibility is essentially zero) for a while.We planned to move out to California that day, however, we just knew that we couldn't. It was weird though, because the people moving into our apartment after us arrived as our movers were finishing up, and were going to stay. We had paid up through January, and needed one more night. They were nice -- they said we could all stay there together. (/sarcasm) Not a good situation. The landlady was behind us, but the new tenants couldn't really take a hint. So we slept with my sister and brother-in-law that night and then moved out to California on the 20th.

December 21 -- Checked into our new apartment. Beautiful, close, and fun. We were really excited about it.

December 24-25 -- Christmas with the Ozbirns. That's my wife's family. It was a lot of fun spending time with them. Her brother, who recently joined the army rangers, was home for the break, and it was nice to finally meet him. That's right, I hadn't met him until then. But we all had a wonderful time, and we really enjoyed waking up in the morning and spending some great time with the family. I really do love my in-laws, and am truly enjoying spending time with them. It was very much fun.

December 25-28 -- With my parent in Santa Rosa. We had a fun time on Saturday for McKenna's baptism as a member of the church, and then we also had an "open house", more of a holiday party that people could drop in and see us. it was a lot of fun, and we had a good time meeting people and learning more about those people that truly love us. It's really thrilling and we are glad that we can be there and have these people that really care about us.

December 28 - Jan 2 -- Honeymoon in the Napa Valley. My parents kindly lent us their timeshare in the napa valley, a 850 square foot 1 bedroom suite with two televisions, and a two person in-room whirlpool. Oh yea, the showerhead had 5 heads. It was seriously amazing. Helped me design my future shower in my home. On Tuesday, we drove into the city and had a wonderful dinner at Scoma's in San Francisco. Believe me, it's as good as it sounds. We then went to the Orpheum Theater on Market Street, and watched an incredible rendition of Phantom of the Opera from the second row. Lindsay even saw the tag on the Phantom's cape. It was really fun. On Thursday, we went to dinner at the Celadon restaurant, where I got the "kobe flat iron steak with yukon gold potato gratin, broccoli rabe and blackberry sauce". IT WAS AMAZING! I loved it. I recommend this restaurant to anyone, just remember to call for a reservation first.

Anyway, that's the last couple weeks in a nutshell.

We are almost moved in completely, and we just bought a new couch. Photos will be coming your way soon.

I'll be back frequently now.

P.S. I start work tomorrow. Work at 8 a.m. Sigh. More news later!

The Wonderful World of Santa Clara

So, I moved to the south bay today. I'm going to be spending the last bit of my summer here, working for Ernst and Young's Risk Advisory Services here in the tech center of the universe. I'm pretty excited about it. I don't know if I should be, but I am. I'm looking forward to learning, and growing, but most of all -- looking forward to a REAL paycheck. I know it doesn't come for a couple weeks, but it will. And I'm looking forward to that.

You know how you can tell? I left this:

Any questions?

Oh California, why did I ever leave?

Your Friendly Neighborhood ChaCha Guide

So, while I might not be quite as cool as Spiderman, I still have some good powers that I am now granting to the world.

I am an internet nerd. I love it. I search it. I even know advanced search operators for Google, and that makes me an efficient searcher. The fun part is that I can now get paid for it! For those of you (most of you) that haven't heard of ChaCha, let me introduce you. It is a human powered search engine that allows you to text any question you may have to ChaCha (242242) and get an answer from someone on the other side. Most of the guides take less than 3 minutes to find the answer to any inquiry. While things like directory listings are still faster from google, it's hard for Google to answer "What's the closest Mexican restaurant to the paradise hills golf course?" However, as a ChaCha guide, that's what I do. Find answers to ridiculous questions!

It's fun. I stay logged on and at $0.20 per answer, I'm making some money in doing this. And it's fun. You learn plenty of things. For example:

1. The symptoms to syphilis
2. The distance from LA Art Institute to FIDU
3. Numbers for various people in Utah

And many other things.

If you spend as much time on the internet at work as I do, I recommend giving it a whirl. Check out their website.

Comments go where they go.

The Benefits of Doing Nothing

I have a job where I work at a computer lab on BYU campus. It's a challenge, really. I don't mean that in the I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-what-a-hard-job type of way but more in the I-have-nothing-to-do-and-I'm-here-for-10-hours kind of way. Yea, that's right, this is my long, 10-hour day working at the computer lab. I'll tell you, spring/summer is not my favorite time of year here in the lab. You may think that it is nice to do very little, surf the web, and look outside. Well, I'm in a basement. No windows. The computer gives you a headache after you look around for too long. And I have very little cell phone service. I'm telling you -- 10 hours can seem like forever when you are stuck in the basement of the JKB on BYU campus.

Luckily,I'm a clever computer nerd, and I have an assortment of websites that I frequent during these times. Examples include:

• IGN PS3
• Rotten Tomatoes
• Lifehacker
• Digg
• Slashdot
• Gamespot
• Google

And plenty of others. However, just refreshing these sites all day long can get repetitive. So, I do my best to entertain myself by reading. I've been working 40 hours a week for the last two weeks, with 4 10-hour shifts so far; I've read 5 books. And not some 100 page nothing novels, but 600-800 page novels covering many different topics. So, I am averaging about 1400 pages a week. I don't have the money to support that habit. So, what can I really do? Not much. but that's why my blog will be getting more attention!

Any ideas or websites you'd have me scan? Let me know in the comments!