A Bet Gone Really Wrong.

Many, if not all of you are aware of my peanut allergy. Many of you are also aware of my aversion to peanuts and any peanut containing concoction. Well, I have recently learned the history of how peanuts have come to be a food item. It began long ago as a bet. Centuries ago, there was a tribe of people that lived in a region where peanuts would grow wild. One day, one of the children of this tribe bet another child that he would not eat a peanut. You see, long before this, the peanut was periodically eaten when there was nothing else to eat, but when a chieftain ate one and died, they were seen as the devil's food. (they are grown beneath the ground anyways) So, a bet to eat a peanut was quite the bet. Well, this child decided to take his friend up on the bet, ate one, and did not die. So, this practice of eating peanuts became a show of strength and the lack of fear. Those with a peanut allergy would die, those without it would survive. From that point it became more and more extravagant, having to grind up the peanut and eat the paste, or mixing it with other equally deadly foods. Later when explorers saw this, they tasted the peanuts, and peanut butter, and due to the fact that they were delirious from their adventures so far, they recognized it for the protein it contained and convince themselves that it actually tasted good, and from there it was all history. So the next time you sit down to eat anything containing peanuts, remember that you are eating the devils food that is only food because of a bet gone wrong!

One more barrier passed!!

So, I recently found out that I passed my fifth cumulative exam. As a graduate student in chemistry at Texas A&M, you are required to pass 5 cumulative exams. These exams are given the second saturday of each month, and there are test from each division of chemistry. (organic, inorganic, analytical, physical, biological, and sometimes nuclear) You have your choice of which to take, and so you can look them over, and take one of them. Granted, once you are there looking at the tests, you have to take one. Generally, people will take the one from the division that they are in, but it is not required by any means.

Well, the professors write them, and hence have to grade them, so it tends to take a long time to get results back from a cume, but just the other week, I found out that I have passed my fifth. You are allowed to take 15, and you have to finish by the time you have been able to take 20. Yeah, kinda strange, but that is how it works. Well, due to the fact that I was gone one semester, I had until February to pass five. I passed my fourth in september, but the cumes from Oct. and Nov. where just not my cup of tea, or perhaps they were cups of tea, and I just prefer hot chocolate, I am not quite sure. But alas, the cume from December was a good one, and perfectly suited for someone from my research group. Needless to say, I Aced it like a mad fiend! It was a good feeling to not only be done, but to finish it out with a good solid A.

Since we got back from our christmas vacation though, it seems as if we haven't stopped. The few nights we don't have anything going on already, we plan nights with friends. While in the end this means that we don't really have any free nights these days, we are sure having alot of fun. In fact, the other day, the Moores came over and we had a rematch game of squabble seen it. It is one of the many versions of the poplular game Seen It. Yeah, the movie game. This one is basically guys vs. girls, or as the box states, Chick Flicks vs. Guy Picks. The first time we played it was a couple of weeks ago, and the guys won. And in the rematch, we won yet again. Plus to top it all off, we won by shouting out The Princess Bride before the girls could get it. (nice work Paul) Needless to say, we have been having a blast.

I have also started a new D&D gaming session with a few people I know from school. In fact, there are two guys that I know from chemistry, and then their significant others. Sadly one lives in San Antonio, so she can not often come to play, but the rest of us have alot of fun. I hope it continues to be as fun as it is now. We stopped playing for some time because it was no longer fun, but hey, people change, and your life changes. It can't be helped, and even if it could be helped, I am not sure I would want it to.

Rachelle has also picked up quite the project. You see, there are quite a number of dancing groups here on campus, and so they decided to get together, and do their own little 'So You Think You Can Dance' competition. Granted it is just each group showing off their own style, and then doing one of the other styles also. Well, Jackie, one of the older students in our lab is in a group that does traditional mexican dances. They happened to draw ballroom out of the hat, so Jackie asked Rachelle is she would choreograph a number for them, so she is. She worked with them on Sunday and will work with them more tonight and thursday night, and then the competition is on Friday. She has had alot of fun putting the number together, and I had some fun with this fun little program called audacity. It is a freeware music editing program that I found, ans so far I really like it. I took the song that Rachelle is using (Short Skirt, Long Jacket by Cake) and cut it down to about 2 minutes, and slowed it down by about 10% or so. It was alot of fun doing it, and plus it is now perfect for the number. I hope the routine works out like Rachelle wants it to.

Well, there is much more I could talk about, but I am out of time, so until I post again, I hope you all have a freakin awesome January (and February as will if it comes to that)

You Say Slacking, I say effectivly doing other things!

ok, so perhaps I have slacked a little. My posting has gone from ever other month, to every third. Will it improve? you ask, perhaps it will now that we actually have internet at home now. Oh, how I really love having the internet at home, and oh how I have missed the glory of the great information age. Granted I have had internet at school, but how much do you think I do at school, that isn't school? I would answer that question, but that would give far to much away, and allow the mocking to begin.

So, what have I been doing you ask? Well, school really. My life is research. I could talk for quite some time about the success and failure of my reactions and the direction of my projects, but I see little point in doing so. That is the monotony of life, and I revel in the excitement of life, which exists on a number of different levels. The highest level is home. I love being home with Rachelle. We talk, watch TV, work of projects, and clean. No matter what, the house never actually seems like it stays clean for more than a day or two. Rachelle really has been pushing for us to keep it cleaner, but what can I say, we both hate cleaning. The great thing is that I love to have people over to visit, so that forces us to clean before they get there. Oh well, clean or not, I love our house.

We also have alot of projects that we do, particularly me. I love projects. One of the more recent ones would be the stump. What is the stump you ask, well, it is just that, a stump. It was cut about to the level of the ground, but not quite. So, when Rachelle was being so kind as to mow the lawn when I had to come to work on saturday, she ran over the stump, and it fought back. Sadly the lawnmower was the one that lost. A bent crank, and a new engine later (again, thanks Paul for hauling my lawnmower to and from the repair shop) and I decided I needed to dig out the stump. When I say dig out, I mean with a shovel, an axe and way to much sweat. It is now sitting in a hole with a mote around it due to the rain we have gotten, and I can't manage to get out there to finish digging it out. I think next time I will wait for the fourth of July and just use a few M80's on the thing.

I have to also say, that Rachelle does the most amazing job of making our house look festive. She really like decorating for pretty much every holiday, and I love it. We don't have much in the way of Thanksgiving stuff, but she is working on it. But, now that it is the Christmas season, the house is just full of christmas stuff, and I love it. On my next post, which may be later tonight, I will put up pics of the cool christmas tree and what not. Life rocks, and so I hope you all dig it as much as I do.

Progress? Well, I am still alive, is that progress?

The semester has again begun, and the dread of having a much fuller schedule has fallen upon me, but suprisingly enough, I am not as stressed as I expected. Life is quite good, and chemistry is ever progressing. If you really want to know more about my chemistry though, you will have to come to my group meeting. It is thrilling each and every week.

So, life. What should I say. Rachelle and I own a house now. Yes, you all know that, but I am still excited about it. Plus I feel that I have neglected you all in telling you what owning a house is like for us. Well, I get to mow the lawn, which is a very gratifying thing for me. It is my yard. Don't get me wrong, I "loved" mowing the lawn for my parents growing up, but this is OUR lawn. Oh the glory.

Plus, we finally painted our front room. It is awesome! Actually, we painted it, and then sponged it with a darker color. The base is a light blueish gray color, and then we sponged to opposite walls with a really cool dark blue. Man I love it. It really makes our family room feel like home. We still have alot of work to do on the bathrooms especially. They have really bad wallpaper, and worse wallpaper underneath. Oh well, the glory of owning a house is also all the work you get to do to make it better, and make it your own.

So, more important things must be mentioned. I will post pics of the house at some point, just not yet. But I have to say, our new ward (well, kinda new, we have been here a few months) is awesome!!! Don't get me wrong, our old ward here in the area was great, but the Bryan Ward is just cool.

We have neighbors for the next year, roughly, Mike and Mindy Williams. They just had an adorable little girl. It is quite exciting. It is really nice to have someone in the ward so close, the only sad thing is that Mike will be getting his Degree in Mechanical engineering in May, and they will be running away, but we still love them.

Not long after we moved into the ward, there was another couple that moved into the ward, Paul and Joni Moore. We also hang out with them fairly often. In fact I happen to have a pic of the four of us, on the phoof of course.

Actually, you can see the pimped out superawesomecool paint job if you look behind us. Man that looks good!

Needless to say, this pic was taken a while ago, and I told the Moores that I would put it up, and I finally have. Sorry about the whole taking forever thing, not to mention the whole not bloggina for 2 months. Man I suck. We shall see if I can get better at that.

"Potter Stinks"

However sad it may be, I have considered getting a badge like unto that made by the slytherins a few years ago that reads "Potter Stinks".

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the fictional character of Harry Potter, but the latest installment in the series that came out in the theaters not long ago deserves a good amount of criticism. In reality, I am somewhat of a Harry Potter fan. I started listening to the books a few years ago when I had to do alot of driving, and was sucked in rather quickly. I have each of the current six books in mp3 format on my computer, one I actually payed full price.

Despite the fact that I am not always a fan of the way J.K Rowling writes, and I feel that she showed quite a bit of her lack of experience in the first two books, her characters have not been the only ones to grow. She has grown a lot as a writer over the course of this series, and I am awaiting the final installment with bated breath.

The movies on the other had have serious issues. The changing of the castle grounds bothered me in the third movie, but I dig the new grounds. Also, the changing directors is driving me crazy. They all have to have their own vision, and hench have a tendency to change things that aren't broken. I would complain about the new Dumbledore, but the is kinda a pointless argument.

This brings me to the newest Harry Potter movie. I give it zero stars, two thumbs down, and rate it around 1 on a scale from 1-10. Needless to say I did not like it.

**NOTICE**
If you have not yet seen the newest Harry Potter movie, and wish
for me not to ruin anything, stop reading now!!!!!

Well, what can I say. It was only two and a half hours long, shorter than many of the "epic" type movies coming out these days. This is not in and of itself a problem, but the movie was lacking, and putting in a few extra things might have helped. Which brings up the next point; if you have read the book, the movie was lacking, and if you haven't much of it was ambiguous, and the story progression seemed to be more of an amorphis blob than a flow. Key characters were left out, which is going to make the next book, and more than likely seven, completely confusing as if it wasn't already.

Ok, so my major issues with the movie are:
The dementors both don't fly, and they are cloaked
Aunt Petunia did not receive the howler that she should have
There wasn't enough of Tonks
Dumbledore did not make Harry take oclamency the day he saw Aurthor Weasley hurt
It is O.W.L. not owl (like the nocturnal bird)
Fred and George would never disturb the actual O.W.L's(they don't care about grades, but they know others do)
Fred and George would never even leave unless quidditch was taken from them, which wasn't mentioned
Umbrage did not make the entire class write with their own blood
The final fight scene was absolute crap
It did not show any of the side rooms in the department of mysteries
Neither the Death-eaters, nor the order of the Phoenix turn into a crazy mist to fly around, and if they did, why didn't the Death-eaters just fly by Harry and take the prophecy?
Sirius was hit with a stunning spell, and fell into the archway, not the killing curse
The fountain of magical brethren took no part in the final fight with Voldemort
Ministry officials just randomly started showing up and happened to see Voldemort


Ok, that is enough. There are more issues, but I have not the time nor the patience to continue enumerating them. I am sufficiently frustrated as it is.

Needless to say, I love the Harry Potter books, and a very excited to get my pre-ordered copy of book seven, but I may not even see the next two movies, it was just that painful. So I guess I should change my badge and make it say "Warner Brothers Stinks"

Oven Door Pasta

I made a new dinner the other night for my dear wife. We had been having a great day of relaxing, after all, it was Sunday. A lazy Sunday afternoon, is there anything better? I contest that there are few things that are. Well, it was one of those Sunday afternoons, but the afternoon was receding, and the evening was soon approaching. I decided that my wife should get the chance to relax, so I would make dinner. It had been a long week.

So, I went to the kitchen, and soon decided on a frozen pasta that we had purchased from Sam's Club. We would have purchased it as Cosco, which we both prefer, but the nearest one is far to long of a drive. So, I took the pasta out of the oven, and read the instructions. Two hours in the oven. ok. "Hey sweetie, how hungry are you? Not very? Could you wait two hours until dinner? Ok, then I will bake this pasta."


The baking began. Periodically I checked on the pasta, and it all seemed to be going ok. The time was drawing nigh, and I suddenly realized that I was supposed to take the foil off the top when there was ten minutes left for it to bake. I quickly went into the kitchen, and started to try and get the foil off. I apperently did a very good job of getting it on when I put it is the oven, so I slid the cookie sheet that the pasta was on out a bit so I could get a better grip. The foil was infact attached far to well for my purposes, but the added tug I gave the foil was sufficent to change the center of gravity of the cookie sheet. Yeah, you guessed it, the whole thing came spilling down onto the oven door. I saved what I could for dinner, but my emotional state was beyond repair by anything but time.

So, from hence forth and forever, lasagna will no longer be called by that name in my home, It will be called Oven Door Pasta.

Getting a little High

There is nothing better about owning your home than making changes. It not only makes it feel more your own, but you can do whatever you want with out asking anyone, well, except your spouse.

So this past weekend we painted in our new house. We painted the master bedroom a really nice tan color that brings out the brown in our comforter, which is really awesome. We also painted the bedroom that is going to be our den. That we painted a really cool chocolate brown that has mahogany undertones. It is the most calming color ever, and it is going to make for the perfect den. Now all we need to do is get rid of our old trashed desks, and get some that will actually look good in a great brown den. I can not tell you how high I was by the time we finished. In the middle of painting, I had to run to the school for a review session, and I got a headache because I left. Man, withdrawals after only 5 hours of painting!

The house looks great, and we are starting to decorate a little bit. We don't move in until this saturday, but we have already moved a lot of stuff. In fact, we are finding it hard to make lunch in our apartment because we have moved most of our kitchen supplies, and a good portion of our food. But as of today, we are having lunch at our house too. I can not tell you how excited I am to be living in our new house. It is just the greatest feeling. Granted that means that I have a lot of projects that need to be done, including wiring the house for surround sound, mowing the yard, removal of about 10 old tree stumps, and a whole lot more. Eventually I will get them all done, hopefully before I graduate, and we leave Bryan forever.