So here is the complete list of completely random things Kyle did today:

Number 1: Served a Subpoena on a woman in American Fork.

That is all.

I also found it interesting that one serves a subpoena "on" someone rather than "to" someone. Of course, the strangest part is that my only role was to physically hand the subpoena to the woman, and then fill out the record declaring I did so. The lawyer did all the talking, but apparently the involved lawyer isn't actually allowed to serve the subpoena.

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So while this past week has been fairly long and boring, today was a good day. I spent the week working mostly. I'm almost done translating jAudio from Java to Python and will soon be able to start on my own code that will interact with the feature extractors. One thing about digging through source code while translating is that you find bugs. I sent at least 3 emails to the developers of jAudio describing bugs that I found that they have now fixed, so that kind of feels good. After work each day I've spent working on the Board. I am currently building the future on top of the Drupal Content Management System. So that's been a lot of work.

But then the week ended and I got to use my hours doing whatever I wanted. So I got up this morning and went to Kiwanis Park and played Ultimate for about 2.5 hours and picked up a little bit of a sunburn. I played last week as well, and I want to keep going each week, it feels good to get out and run around. Then I came home and relaxed for a bit. I recently found that I was tired of the music on my iPod, so I cleared it all off and started loading up a bunch of music that I am currently listening to. I watched some TV, ate lunch, got a haircut, and showered. Then I went and talked to Lynette for a bit, at which point I came home and got ready to go to dinner. I took Coralee's friend Jana to Bangkok Grill in Orem for some excellent Thai food, it went quite well. I got to wear the new shirt I bought from American Eagle a couple weeks ago, which looks great. I kind of want the weather to get colder again so that I can wear the sweet jackets I've bought for dirt cheap over the summer.

Anyways, after dinner I came home and a big group of us went up to Rock Canyon Park and went "ice-blocking". It was my first experience with said event, and it was actually quite enjoyable. For those of you not in the know, ice-blocking is when you buy a block of ice (duh) and then put a towel on it and slide down a hill while sitting or laying on the towel. It's basically sledding for warm weather. As we were sitting resting on the hill some random guy lit off an illegal firework, and then ran from the cops who started chasing him. Apparently someone knew this firework lighting was going to take place because the cops had just barely arrived and were standing by the edge of the field waiting for it. So I guess this guy told the wrong people, or one of his friends decided to hate him. After the cops caught the guy they started wandering around the field with their flashlights looking for something. Turns out one of them dropped a loaded magazine to his gun when he started running, so we all went down to try and help, but failed in finding it.

After giving up the search we came back to our place and sat around listening to music and eating ice cream for a bit. All in all it was a long, but quite enjoyable day.

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Let's see, what's been going on over the last week or so. Last Saturday I drove to Salt Lake and bought a car on behalf of my parents. They've been searching for something they could buy that they'd be able to drive when they're in town, and to be available for Megan at BYU Idaho in case she needs to get somewhere. So I went up to look at a 1995 Subaru wagon. It seemed to be in decent condition, and just as other lookers were showing up we decided to buy it. After having Erin and Bryce come up to pay the remaining balance after I had emptied my checking account I drove into the city to the Gateway. I bought tickets for Josh, Christine, Brady, and myself to see the Harry Potter movie, then as they were arriving I walked around and did some shopping. I always enjoy watching movies at the Gateway. The theaters are still pretty much brand new, and are kept clean. On top of that, the screens use digital projectors which means that the movie looks perfect every time, and you don't end up with dust, hair, or artifacts after the film has been run 100 times. The sound is also very good, and the whole theater experience is actually worth it.

This past week I've spent continuing my translation of audio feature extraction code from Java to Python. I've finished a majority of it at this point, and soon I'll be able to start some preliminary testing of where I want to go with my work. The middle of the week is when things got hectic. I was visiting a friend when Bryce called around 7:30 to have me come up to the Timpanogos Hospital to take Will off his hands. Erin was going into labor, but because she was still a few weeks early the doctor was trying to give her drugs to suppress the labor. So I took Will home and babysat until about 11, when Erin and Bryce came home. I went home and got ready for bed, about 30 seconds after I had turned out the light my cell phone rang. It was Bryce saying they were going back to the hospital. So I drove back over to their place to keep an eye on Will. Luckily for me they had already gotten him asleep. I grabbed a pillow and a blanket and fell asleep on the floor upstairs, to make sure I'd be able to hear him. I got a couple of phone calls during the night to keep me updated on the situation (Erin had her baby somewhere around 2-2:30). The little boy shall henceforth be known as Sawyer.

I went and visited Erin and Sawyer on Thursday after Bryce came home for a bit. On Friday I drove up to the airport to pick up mom. Then we drove down to the hospital and visited for a bit before getting lunch and stopping to see Will. At which point I dropped mom off at grandma's and went to make copies of the key for the previously mentioned vehicle. That evening a big group of us went bowling. I came in third of seven with a score of 104 or something. Josh edged out Lynette for first place in the last frame scoring 127 and 119 respectively. After bowling we swung by Borders to see the spectacle of people hanging around for the Harry Potter book. Being almost midnight, and we being hungry we went to IHOP for some late dinner. Upon being seated we felt the need to switch to the large booth, and upon Josh shattering a glass somehow, we moved to another booth.

Saturday was a good day. I got up and went over to Kiwanis park and joined a pickup game of Ultimate. I haven't played in over a year now, so I'm fairly out of shape, but I had a lot of fun playing. After returning home to shower and such I met up with Jessica for an action packed afternoon of completing adventures in the Utah Valley Adventure Passport. We went up to Lehi to see the Roller Mills, we were hoping for some kind of tour, but sadly that's not possible; so instead Jessica bought an apron and pancake mix, and I bought Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie mix from the store. Having expected more, we decided we better go to Cabela's as well, which is just a couple of exits further up I-15. Oddly, we sort of treated the entire store like some museum exhibit, rather than a store. We looked at the fish in the aquarium, and the many, many, many stuffed animals being displayed. We stopped at the restaurant for some lunch. We decided to try something from the deli, I had the ostrich, and Jessica had the elk. Yup, ostrich and elk sandwiches for lunch. We swapped halves so we could both try each. They were actually pretty good. And now I can say I've eaten ostrich meat. We also visited the arcade style shooting gallery, where you can get 22 shots for 2 tokens.

Feeling like the afternoon was still young we decided to visit the Springville Art Museum Quilt Show which started today. There were a lot of quilts there, each of which probably took many, many hours to complete. We managed to get 4 adventures done today (Cabela's counted as two), but we still have about 20 to go.

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I received a box in the mail today, hand delivered by the mailman. I knew its purpose. It was to provide me with my new phone. But, it's a larger box than required for just a phone. Also, it's a USPS Flat Rate box, which means my mom feels it a waste to send without cramming everything she can possibly find in there. So when you get a flat rate box from my mom you know it's going to have some fairly random things in it. This box, in addition to the requisite phone, contained a bag of "Old Fashioned Chocolate Chip Cookies" mix ($1.99 courtesy of Ocean State Job Lot). Oddly enough the manufacturer (Millcreek harvest) is Salt Lake City based. So this poor bag of mix was probably made about 30 minutes north of here somewhere, shipped to Connecticut, unable to be sold, sold in bulk to Ocean State Job Lot, purchased and then shipped back to Utah.

Also within the box packed like Mary Poppins: A box of Pop-Secret Homestyle microwave popcorn (with real butter!). You may think it can't get much stranger than these 2 entries, but wait, there's more. We also have a #3 Phillips head screwdriver measuring 10 inches long. But that's not all, just for good measure we also have a straight mute for trombone and a book. You never thought so much could fit inside a 11" x 8.5" x 5.5" box.

Ok, I'm going to go mess with my new phone now.

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This weekend was excellent. Josh, Brady, Lynette, Christine, and I drove down to Cedar City on Friday evening and met Brant, Coralee, and Steve down there. We stayed at Coralee's grandmother's house which is usually unoccupied. Saturday morning we woke up early and drove to Zion National Park. After parking at the visitor's center we took the park shuttle to the Temple Sinawava sight and proceeded down the Riverside Trail. At the end of the Riverside Trail is the mouth of The Narrows. If you're unfamiliar with the location, it is a canyon, mostly sandstone, that was cut out by the river there. The walls are about 300 feet high, and the floor is the river. The water level is usually around knee height, though varies a lot in a few places. You can hike straight up the river and enjoy the canyon. We hiked in and took a branch to see a waterfall and then turned around and went back. It took us 4 or 5 hours, and was probably a few miles. I'll get some of the pictures from Josh and Brady and hopefully put some up here before too long.


We drove back this afternoon. We left Cedar City around 2, and made it up to mile 111 on I-15, at which point we were the first in line to be forced off the highway. I-15 was being closed for about 100 miles due to the crazy big wildfire that has been happening for the last bit. Apparently, the crews working couldn't contain it and it jumped the highway. So we had to back track to mile 95 and follow SR-20 to US-89 and follow that up until it hooked on to I-70, then we followed that East until Salina, and then took US-50 back to I-15. Luckily we were near the front of the line that had to take the detour so we managed to keep ahead of the worst of the traffic. It only added about an hour and 15 minutes to our trip. I kind of wanted to see the burn, but all we saw was a lot of smoke settling into the valley in which we were driving. On the way down, Friday, we saw the fire off in the distance, so it really cruised across the brush to get over the highway by Sunday.

Here's a picture, courtesy of the KSL article linked above:


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I woke up early on Wednesday to see the hot air balloons. I woke up at 6, and hadn't received any information from the people I was planning to go with, so I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't sleep, therefore I got up and went by myself. Too bad they take off in the middle of the city, it makes it really hard to get good pictures without a bunch of ugly buildings.




While watching the balloons I saw the sun come up over the mountain and took this shot.


After the balloons I went and saw the parade. I ran into Erin, Bryce, and Will on my way to meet Jessica; with whom I walked down to center street. We then walked around the little fair-like stuff. We got free Coldstone Creamery ice-cream, and then I took a nap. Later we went back to get funnel cake and twisted taters. Upon arriving home I watched some Lord of the Rings and did laundry. Josh, Lynette and I went do Red Robin for dinner, and then went to watch the fireworks from Stadium of Fire. So a long, tiring, but fun day all around.



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