Sisters

This is a conversation Brian had yesterday with his boss, Robert.  His boss came to our wedding reception and invited us over one evening for dinner, so he's seen me a handful of times.

Robert:  Does Sarah have any sisters?
Brian:  Yes.
Robert:  Here at BYU?
Brian:  Yes, she has one sister here at BYU.
Robert:  Is she a runner?
Brian:  Yeah, she is really into running.
Robert:  I saw her running down on University Avenue by the football stadium this morning, a little after 8:00.  I could see the resemblance.

What resemblance is he talking about? And Janet, did you run on University Avenue Thursday morning?

New BYU Broadcasting Building

So, Sarah's been bugging me to make my first blog post on our family blog...so here it goes. I hope this isn't too long!

I guess the thing I spend most of my time doing is working full-time, so, here's a little background on my work.

I am a production engineer for BYU Broadcasting. This entails maintaining, configuring and fixing professional broadcast equipment. I also often do this for live events around campus, such as sporting events, music concerts, studio shows, and anything else that could appear on BYUtv or BYUtv International. When I work a live event, or as-if-live event, I'm in charge of supervising and ensuring that everything technical is setup correctly and working properly.

Many of you have probably heard that BYU's football team is going independent next year. Part of what helped push BYU into making that decision was the caliber and potential of our broadcasting department. Last March, we began using our brand-new HD TV truck and started filming many sports and other shows in high definition. We haven't been able to transmit those shows yet in HD, because all of our infrastructure was for standard definition television. However, this December our new broadcast building comes online and will allow us to transmit in HD. If all goes according to plan, we will transmit BYUtv and KBYU in HD starting December 1.

I used to be assigned to our SD TV truck, but have been temporarily reassigned to helping configure a lot of the brand-new equipment in the new building. The actual construction of the building is like 99% done, but to get all of the equipment inside of it up and running smoothly will take a couple of months--that's why it won't be completely ready until December 1. It's amazing how much equipment, cabling and stuff is going into this new building. I've heard that there is about 50 miles of cabling inside the building (but I bet that is quite an understatement). The backup generators are powerful enough to equivalently power 125 homes.

The following three sketches show the new building, with the fourth being an actual picture.

And to finish it out, here's a short video article about the new building, made last year right after the ground breaking (http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/72429).

Trick-or-treat nostalgia

Last week on a walk through the bookstore I had a craving for those delicious-yet-gross peanut butter taffies.  Janet found some free ones, and they brought back some memories of trick-or-treating in the good ol' days.  There are certain candies that always remind me of trick-or-treating.  

(I loved these!)

When we went trick-or-treating in Rachel's new neighborhood (the rich neighborhood) we got these:

Of course, there were the non-conformists like the Bushongs who gave out dimes attached to some church card, or the weird people that gave out fruit.  If you were cute enough, the neighbors would have you come inside so their family could look at you and they would give you good food.  For some reason that happened less and less the older I got.  Although my trick-or-treating days are long gone, I have fond memories of it, especially the gorging that went on after.

Schutzenfest 2010

A few weeks I got the urge to run a race, so looked around for a 5k to run in and found one in Midway called Schutzenfest.  I really wanted to do it because you got a long-sleeved t-shirt instead of the normal one.  I bribed Janet into running it with me (it wasn't hard, she was in her post marathon depression stage) so we registered.  I looked at past results to see how competitive this race was, and I was happy to find out that last year there were only six runners in my age category, and the fastest time was 22 minutes.  I was sure I could place, seeing that after the first place, the times were mostly in the 30 minute range, which is slower than I've ever run a 5k.  I've always wanted to place in a race, but here in Provo it's near impossible.

The morning of the race we got up and drove to Midway.  The race was at a bed and breakfast at the bottom of a small mountain.  We lined up for the race, and the organizer explained the course:  you have to run a little on this road, and then take that trail that splits off up there.  The trail goes up over the mountain, and then you'll run into a road on the other side that will bring you back around to the finish.  The race was up a mountain!  Janet was fine, but I almost died trying to run up that mountain.  When the runners near me walked up the steep parts, I was glad to be near them so I could walk too.  I made up a lot of time on the downhill because I have such long legs, but near the finish line Janet (who had finished like 6 minutes earlier) had to run with me so I wouldn't stop to walk.  I finished with my worst 5k time ever, but I placed 3rd in my age group!  Janet had gotten first place, and in those 7 minutes or so between us, some other 20-24 year old snuck in between us.

We attended the awards ceremony where we received ribbons and beer mugs (Yes!)  for placing.  We were also both fortunate enough to win "drawings"  for Blue Boar Inn t-shirts, size large. Really the organizer just looked at a list of the registered runners and shouted out bib numbers until all the prizes were gone.  We were pretty happy with our loot, but after almost dying on my way up the mountain, I'm not sure if I'll do that race again next year.  If you want a Blue Boar Inn t-shirt, let me know.  Brian doesn't want the one I won for him, and I'm not sure what Janet is doing with hers.

Updates II

More things happened in the Wood family.  

Brian has been on a one year contract with BYU Broadcasting.  His boss told him in July that they were starting the paperwork to see if they could make his position permanent administrative, even though BYU is still on a hiring freeze.  We finally heard back last week, and...he got the promotion!  Yay!  

Yesterday was my birthday.  I received many lovely gifts, including a pencil from the Testing Center that says, "Happy Birthday from the Testing Center."  If I had known that you get pencils for taking tests on your birthday, I would have done that every year.  

I took my second biochemistry test.  I feel like I did much better.  I probably won't know my score for another two weeks.  

The check engine light came on in the Sentra not even a week after we bought it.  We took it in and the diagnosis was that the swirl valve chip needed to be reprogrammed.  We got the car back the same day, but we're minus a few hundred dollars for the repair.

Updates

1.  We bought a second car.  Trying to find an appropriate car in our budget was not fun, but we're happy with what we got.  It's a 2005 Nissan Sentra with 50,000 miles on it.  It needs a few things to get it into top shape (new windshield wipers, floor mats, oil change, tires aligned).  I am already thinking of possible names.

( This is not our actual car.  It just looks like it minus the front license plate bracket and plus a couple scratches on the side.)

2.  It is the time of year for visiting teaching interviews in our ward.  Since I don't have an assignment, I happily passed along the interview sign-up sheet without signing up.  I got a call yesterday from the RS secretary to set up a time.  When I assured her I didn't need to go because I am not a visiting teacher, she let me know that actually I do have a visiting teaching assignment.  Nobody had bothered to tell me, and my companion never contacted me (if she knew she had an assignment.)  The secretary told me I could still have the interview so the presidency could get to know me better.

3.  We went to Kaysville Saturday afternoon and came back Sunday evening.  Brian's mom and I did some crafting projects while Brian and his dad worked on the pool and went to priesthood session.  Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the crafts, but some of you may be seeing one of the projects.  Here is the current state of the pool.

4.  I have been pondering what the plural of Twix is.  Is it Twices?

5.  School is rolling along.  I wish it were over already, but then I wouldn't have time to bring my biochemistry grade up enough to pass the class and graduate.  I better go study that now.

Food Nanny

Since getting married, I have watched a lot more BYUtv than ever before.  I used to think that all they ever had on was Book of Mormon discussions and BYU sports.  I still think that's mostly what's on BYUtv, but there are some other pretty cool shows on there once in awhile. One of my favorites is the Food Nanny.

The show is obviously a spin-off of Super Nanny, but about family dinner.  No Dad, it's not voyeurism TV.  It shows the Food Nanny (who is pretty crazy, but endearing) helping families who are having trouble with their family dinner--Dad lost his job and the food budget got drastically cut; the kids are terrible and won't sit down for a family meal; Mom has to go back to work, and Dad doesn't know how to cook, etc.  Food Nanny's basic tenets are to make a two week dinner plan with a theme for each night, like Italian food on Tuesdays, or meatless meals on Wednesdays.  Then you use the menu to make your shopping list.  Supposedly, then you are going to the grocery store once every two weeks, and that saves you money.  Then you have your meals planned for two weeks, and the ingredients to make them, and all you have to do is cook and have a nice sit-down meal with the family.

One of the great parts, is that the Food Nanny has a website! There's a cool feature where you can make your own Nanny Plan to follow.  You can search for recipes or put in your own.  Here's the menu I designed using the Nanny Plan (beta).

You should definitely go try it out and watch the show.

P.S.  This is not paid advertising for BYU Broadcasting