September 4, 2014

     There has been no drama this week at work; therefore, I am not going to write about it. I have some adventures to write about, a YSA one and one with Eve. Work was crazy yesterday, and it inspired me to become something that I have been thinking about. My REVIT update is another weak one. I have been focusing more on preparing for my cross country team, running more, experimenting with a new content feed style for the Mormon YSA Blog Spot, and going to Institute.
     My adventures are impressive in my eyes. I befriended a girl in my new YSA Ward on Facebook, and I asked her if I could sit with her at church. Her name is Kesha Richardson, and she was sitting with Hannah Johannson. They are really cool. I asked Kesha how her week was, and she said something about work. I asked about what she does, and she works at a bakery. When that topic came up, Hannah asked if she would like to come over to help bake cupcakes for a marriage occasion. I asked if I can help them bake, and they were down with that. We were having a hard time deciding on a time. I like making things happen because there is always another way, and we figured it out.
     When we met, we were deciding between chocolate or vanilla. I said that we should do vanilla because it is more original than chocolate. Chocolate is too common. Hannah’s father is a retired chef, and he gave Hannah actual vanilla beans for Christmas or her birthday with a lifetime supply of vanilla extract. She probably got a liter of the extract. We first made the frosting, which was a surprisingly simple recipe; a whole thing of cream cheese and a whole thing of butter, a good guess on the amount of powdered sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla. A machine mixed it up, and it came out glorious. I love it when a food is so dense in nutrition that it goes through a series of flavors. I can't describe the order, but it was great. Do you understand the recipe?
     The batter recipe was cool to. Hannah cut open a vanilla bean for this one, and this recipe was not simple. She put the beans in the batter. It didn't taste like it had a series of tastes. I think that it tasted like normal cake batter.
     One thing that I discovered when I was playing with Eve and Ezra is that I could swing Eve in a circle on a rope swing, and I could let go of the ground. Eve and Ezra enjoy watching fun videos that I find on Facebook, and she wanted to make a fun video. She tried to think of some ideas, but they were lame. I thought that our discovery is pretty cool, so I suggested maybe we can make a video of it. She said that she will be gone all weekend, so I might not see her until next Friday. School for me starts next week, so I figured that I should issue a challenge that I thought of. Since I thought that the video was creative, I wanted to invite my friends and family to join in the fun. I issued the challenge last night, giving them a week like I gave myself the week to make the video. I call it the "Do Something Creative With Your Family Challenge," and I would like to invite you to join us, making creative videos. You have one week, and you should challenge other people too. The video is kind of funny because my head is cut off. I tried to have Ezra hold the camera, but he is only three. We had to set the camera on a swing. The first take of the movie was good, but the sound was too soft, and I was pulling Eve around too slowly.

     Work has not been difficult this week, which was nice. Yesterday was a day that blew my mind. I was palletizing the stone, coming off the line, and the last stone that we were working with looked like they were acrylic paintings. I was palletizing acrylic paintings, but it was stone. The colors were amazing. Every color was coming off the line with beautiful designs. I imagined that God painted the Bear Mountains, since that is the name of the stone. I was saving the scraps with all the different colors; yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, light blue. My coworker saw that I had a big stash, and he threw it all away. This stone inspired me to do something that I was thinking to do this past week.
     I have been thinking about how to reduce the waste of the company and be more profitable, since the waste goes into a pile after we cut off the veneer of the stone. I was thinking about making clay out of the silt and other products out of the scrap. I spoke to my general manager, and he said that the silt is basically worthless. Silt is stone fragments more than half the size of sand but more than double the size of clay. I don't think that we have the technology yet to grind silt into clay. I already looked it up. I was thinking of organising a salvaging crew to make additional products for Delta Stone Product, but my general manager said that business is a balancing act of time and resources to be profitable.
     I thought to myself one week that modern art is so terrible nowadays that the veneer looks more impressive. I was thinking of buying a big sheet of veneer and hanging it on my wall as art. I figured that I could make art out of the scraps. The Bear Mountain stone looks amazing. My coworker suggested that I get it polished at the small shop, so the image can be preserved. I started working on making myself art after I was enchanted by the Bear Mountain veneer. I took a picture of what I found, but it is nothing compared to the natural veneer off the machine. You can get a hint of the bright colors.

     Working on designing my cousin's house on REVIT, I was pointed out some things by my cousin that I didn't understand in the floor plan. The floor plans has a hall type area next to the master bedroom. I thought that it was a hall, leading to a deck or outside. The floor plans of the house is shaped kind of like a 'V,' and there is pool/fountain type area in between. That hall is actually a closet, making the master bedroom a little more private than I initially thought. Since that hall is a closet, it means that it is part of the 250 square feet. This is a first decision to reduce the square footage of the house, and it made a big difference. It changed the scale of the house, and now the approximate square footage is 5200 feet compared to 10000. I now need to completely change the house, which might take a while.
     I am preparing for the cross country season in advance. The team wants a good fellowship, so I am organising some team bonding activities. On the first weekend we will make team shirts. On the second week we will try to run up Table Rock. On the third week we will make shirts for the runners that completed the goal of jogging up the 7 mile trail. Fourth week: We will have a picnic at the haunted swing. I don't think that I should plan the entire season because I don't even know my team yet, and I should take into account the team members' personalities. I still need to design a shirt for the Table Rock event. I have a simple idea. I am thinking of making it a panoramic image with the saying "Would you dare run up Table Rock? I did and did it."

     I have been getting more miles of running in. I like the Heber Valley. I have been telling people that I love the valley better than living next to the beach. I have hills to run to in all directions, and there is no place not to explore. I love running hills and the challenge. I found a trail early this week, and it forked into three trails. I ran to the bank today, and I was talking to Jesse Kaupert about getting back to school. I told him that I was at the bank deciding which way to run next. I said to him "Maybe I will just run to the nearest hills," and I did that. I ran to the hill, and there were two houses in my way. I went to a neighbor, and I asked how to get up to a trail pronounced in the hill. He was nice, and he told me that it was private property. There was a way to get on the hill, and I only had to run a few more blocks. I made it up to the trails, and I took a picture. When I was heading back, I saw another trail that I could run, and I thought why not. Not long into it, I ran into a leg of a deer, which looks like it was eaten. I have never seen such a scene before in all my years of running. I was a little apprehensive about continuing, so I ran home.

     The way that I am exploring serving people at the Mormon YSA Blog Spot has changed a lot this past week. I used to share about 5 posts in the morning, and some in the evening; then, I changed to sharing blog posts every hour in the day and pictures every hour on the half hour. I am currently exploring, sharing blog articles throughout the entire day, so I can serve more people around the world; plus, I am not bombarding my followers through out the day. I now have slowed down my feed to sharing something about every hour of the day, but, since it is every hour of the day rather than just the day, I share the same amount of content letting me expand my service too. I use to share 5 articles in the morning to give my followers a variety of articles to choose from, but I figured expanding my service is more important.