It's that time again! UPDATED!

Yes, it's almost Christmas, but that is not what I am referring to. It's time for Dave's monthly update! First of all, I am finished with my first semester at the University of Utah. By the way, for all of my teachers at SRJC that said courses there were just as challenging as any other 4 year college, I say unto you YEAH RIGHT!!!! From dropping one of my classes, barely understanding the material from another, and working till all hours of the night to pull off an A in my design class, the JC was a cakewalk. Even with the high degree of difficulty, I still thoroughly enjoyed my maiden voyage at the U, especially my design workshop class. If this class is just the tip of the iceberg, aka the architecture program, I am super excited to start that journey. The final project, done in groups, was to choose a site on the campus and build a human scale structure that emphasized the feeling our group experienced on that site without taking away from that feeling. Our teacher said that this would be near impossible to successfully complete and we had only 3 weeks. Here are some pictures that show the project's progression:

This is the site we chose

(a small grouping of 5 trees that made a natural canopy)

This is me explaining my conceptual model that attempts

to portray the feelings our group experienced at our site.

My model had pictures of trees on the outside

and pictures of paned windows on the inside to try to convey

the feeling of being able to see out through the branches

but not being noticed from the outside.

My group built a series of wooden frames out of weathered 2x4's

to enhance the feeling of being walled in by the layered branches

yet still being able to see through them.

The effect was much cooler than what these pictures show.

In the final presentation, we presented in front of the class, our teacher, the TA and 3 other professors in the architecture program. It was a little intense. Our group got an A and I got an A for my part in the group and the paper I wrote at the end. This is what my teacher had to say:

"Fun with teammates! Your maturity was evident here again in this last assignment. You showed up fully and were a driving force in the group. Your 3D conceptual piece was neatly done (much appreciated) and your final paper showed a very good integration of the principles presented as well as the process we engaged in over the whole semester. And your paper is well written, which I also very much appreciate."

Needless to say, my confidence was very much boosted.

In other news, with the wintry weather we have been experiencing in Utah, there has been something that Brook had never seen in real life: Icicles. Due to us living on the top floor, we have icicles above our back patio that Brook has enjoyed watching grow and shrink according to the temperature. She was worried that they were dangerous, but I told her not to worry as I had no near death experiences with icicles when I lived in Ohio. To reassure her, I googled "death by icicle" and was surprised to find that there were instances of icy death, with one article referring to icicles as "cataclysmic death spears". Most of these accidents were either in Russia or by skyscrapers, so we are in the clear, but still cautious.



Recently, we have been reading some "Christmasy" books to Carter at bedtime. One of them is the book Carter's great-grandma gave him for Christmas last year (before he was born), "The Life of Our Lord" by Charles Dickens. In addition, we have also been reading a book titled "Santa's Twin" by Dean Koontz. Yes, that is the same author that writes suspense, mystery, and horror novels, of which I am a big fan. In his book "Mr. Murder", the main character is an author who is pursued by his doppelganger. To comfort his two daughters, he comes up with a story about Santa being captured by his evil twin, who poses as Santa in order to ruin Christmas. The twin is eventually taken over by two sisters that have the same names as the daughters in the novel. Dean Koontz decided to actually write the story of Santa's twin, and there you have it.


Other than that, its just been life as usual. Carter is growing like crazy and will probably be crawling before the end of the year. Brook likes her job and is making new friends, just like I told her she would. I am having fun being out of school and watching Carter while Brook is at work. Hopefully I will find a job in the next couple weeks so we can be a little less stressed. I would like to wish all our devoted readers a wonderful holiday season and may all your christmas's be white (like ours will most likely be).