Food experiments and such

I made a random pizza crust out of chicken, flax and an egg, plus some spices for dinner last week and her is the recipe from http://yourlighterside.com/2012/02/easy-pizza-crust/

1 packed cup cooked, minced chicken breast

1 cup packed mozzarella, shredded (we used 1 egg and 1/4 cup flax seed meal instead)

1 Tbsp parsley, dried (I think it was too much, a tsp or 2 would probably be fine, depends on thickness of crust)

1tsp basil

1/2 tsp onion powder (we didn't have any, still turned out good)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

(Replace cheese with the flax and egg)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Process chicken and cheese together. Mixture will resemble a meal/thick, dense crumb consistency.
3. Press chicken/cheese mixture on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
4. Top with parsley, basil, onion and garlic powder.
5. Bake for 12 minutes.
6. Let cool for five minutes.
7. Top with sauce, cheese, and then toppings.
8. Bake for 6-8 minutes more, or until toppings are melted.
9. Let cool for five minutes.
10. Slice and serve.

Makes an entire 12-14″ pizza.

Allison then made a crust straight from chicken, she used a mallet to flatten it then cook it up.... She took out all her anger from me leaving the office messy while finding things to sell on eBay

Allison and I went to the Rec Center again, I kinda just rock climbed the whole time... and I got a flapper.  It's healed since, but secretly... I really like the look of my hands taped up after climbing, shhh don't tell

This past week I was also asked to do some drawings at the library for a display about the author Brandon Sanderson.  I'm a big fan and really like his writing style.  I don't read much fantasy or sci-fi (I don't READ that much when it come to novels, actually) but I do love sci-fi and fantasy.  I'm more of a visual guy and like my comics and graphic novels... and cartoons.... love me a good animation.

So, these pictures aren't the best to show off my drawings, but I like how the display turned out and even threw in a few original ideas based off the "chalklings" in his book illustrated by Ben McSweeny

I would love to have a shot at adapting one of his books into a comic...

Preferably The Alloy of Law, I love that one

He is coming to the Provo Library June 3rd at 7pm, free tickets may or may not still be available at the Library reference desk, and there is a standby line the night of, just sayin.

While out for a Sunday stroll, we came across this house with a vehicle with an attached snow-plow (not that unusual in Utah).... I started to point it out to Allison, and mid-sentence I stopped myself and changed topic to Ronald McDonald waving from behind the plow.... It was odd, but one of those things that make you happy that you saw it.

Not that much new has happened in the past week, but we have been busy.  Allison is racing through books like no other before she starts classes up again in a few weeks and I am mid-way through my Digital Illustration class.  We will be having a small art show in the HFAC on BYU campus sometime this summer... I think it will be my third that I have been in on campus. I'll keep you posted as it gets closer.

Great Time to Be in Provo

I’ve been in Provo, Utah off and on since August 2006, and I feel like with everything that’s going on this year, there has never been a better time to live in Provo. Google Fiber is coming, the new state of the art Recreation Center opened its doors last week, and new trails and park features are opening up as well! Provo is so amazing!

(Granted, I’m not a fan of the climate… but Provo has a lot of great things going for it.)

Google street view of our old place, with my car out front!

I’m so excited about the new Recreation Center (here's a KSL article about it with some pictures)! Way back when Ezra and I first heard about the new Recreation Center and where it was going to be located, we were stoked. We lived about two blocks away! Then we moved from our amazingly cheap and perfectly located 4-plex (with out of control mold and landlords who didn’t care about the property), to a little cottage on the outskirts of Provo (with absolutely lovely landlords who make sure everything is perfect and who give us free eggs). Nevertheless, we’re still in Provo and thus will reap the benefits of Google Fiber and easy access to the Recreation Center (which we would get regardless because we’re city employees, another reason I love Provo!).

A photo I took just now of our current place! Sooo much nicer.

On Monday while Ezra was at work, I took a walk down to the Recreation Center and registered my employee badge. I wasn’t dressed to work out so I wandered around and checked everything out. Best. Place. Ever! It’s huge, and gorgeous, with brand new state of the art equipment. I’m a fan of the Biggest Loser, and our new Recreation Center could seriously give the Biggest Loser gym a run for its money. It’s that awesome.

Thursday after work Ezra and I ran in and activated his card, and then I showed him around. Friday morning we actually went to work out. It was great. I had a lot of fun, and really feel like it lives up to all the hype. This morning I spent a few hours there while Ezra was working and just had a grand old time.

 Even if we didn’t get in for free (city employee perk), I honestly think it would be worth the membership. I try to be pretty frugal, but oh my goodness, that is the best work out facility I have ever seen. We will be there often!

Digital Woes or: How I learned to stop worrying and embrace first world problems

This is a semi conclusion to last weeks post from Allison.

This has been one of those weeks that as it is happening you feel frustrated, confused and all-together lost.... AS IT IS HAPPENING.... after the fact, it becomes ridiculous and silly and almost un-eventful.

Allison and I both had cell phone issues recently.  She mentioned her's last week and her new one came in sooner than expected, which rightfully distracted her from her papers for awhile. But she ultimately finished her papers and felt good about how they turned out.  She loves her freedom for the next couple of weeks but wasn't exactly knowing what to do with all her extra free time that suddenly appeared.  Luckily, being a librarian, she found books to read. Her phone on the other hand caused her to buy her first ever app so that she could easily transfer over data and such from her old phone.  Not having the soft keys respond to touch was causing her much misery. Everything in the end worked out fine, and she is happier now with her new phone.

We had a few good days with no real troubles, but then my phone had some issues on Sunday, the screen went pixelated and couldn't work properly.  Now, I enter into the land of the troubled phone.  I had to get a replacement phone and lost all my texts and a few other things, but it is kinda nice and refreshing to have a clean phone that runs smoother and has a battery that lasts longer. It is funny how much we rely on modern technology.  There are so many things that 5 years ago we didn't have to worry about and now for a fair number of us, say 55%, have a smartphone and somewhere around 87% of us have a cell phone in general.  These numbers keep growing and so does our dependence on technology.

Don't get me wrong, I love where we are heading in terms of technology and the future looks bright. If I was better at math I would have stayed an engineer instead of focusing on art, I still dabble in technology and making things though.  I just can't wait until we get hover boards and holograms. Simpler days weren't that long ago. Back when I had to worry about weather or not my mom made corn for dinner or if I was going to be able to earn enough money painting fences to buy a new video game and a new bunch of comic books. Ah, the good old days when I used to record tv shows with my vhs player... now we have the internet and channels broadcast their shows and save them online, and I have a job where I get regular money every two weeks, and a phone that is faster and more reliable than my computer was when I was in high school.

Last Saturday our car randomly shut off at a stop light on the way home.  It has never done that before, We had to push it into a parking lot and then called Allison's dad.  While talking to him we tried turning it back on and it did start up.  It hasn't done it again and we are hoping that it won't again.

Ah Technology

This past week was an interesting one. We got some new upstairs neighbors and they were able to get the internet figured out and back up and running on Monday. So we were without internet for about a week. Thankfully we had our smartphones which we were able to use instead.

Sort of.

My phone has decided it hates me (not really). For the past couple weeks I’d noticed it doing some weird things. For example, it would take screen shots in the middle of the night, I would wake up and see that it was searching for people, and this morning it turned my alarm off a split second after it started ringing, as it was flipping through different app panels. It’s possessed. Not cool. Thankfully it’s still under the one year warranty (barely) so I’ve got a new phone that should be shipped out today and arrive sometime around Friday.

Aside from being possessed, the phone isn’t dead, definitely still usable; the soft keys have just become really unresponsive, which makes navigating through my phone really difficult and aggravating. Oh well, I can survive a few more days.

On Friday we went to a coworker’s house and had dinner and played board games. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed getting to chat outside of work.

On Saturday after work we got together with our new upstairs neighbors and had dinner and played games also. It’s really nice having great neighbors, and they definitely fit the bill. They seem like really fun people to just hang out with, so there will probably be more of that in the future.

That’s all the news for this past week. Ezra’s started his spring class and this is the last week I have class until June. I’ve got two major papers to write, but I’ve got 100% in one class and 97-98% in the other class, so I’m not too worried. I just have to do it.

Later!

This week got forgotten about

I got super caught up in the week and forgot to post last Sunday. We also didn't have internet for a few days and that was tragic.  Allison and I started teaching Primary at church, CTR 4 class, cute little four-year-olds running around.  Last week was our 1st week and it was great once we started teaching, even though I was mostly the helper and just drew on the board most of the time. It was a great experience and we feel like we are starting to fit in now.

We have started hiking around the mountains out our back door.  It is really nice to be able to walk a few blocks and then start down a trail. On Friday the 26th, last week we ended up hiking over 6 miles and it was a blast.  I brought a sketchbook and drew as we went while listening to music and Allison listened to an audio book.

We also went to a co-worker's/friend's house for a BBQ.  It was fun visiting and seeing our friends outside of work. As well as seeing some of our old co-workers that don't currently work with us.

I'm tired and need to go to bed so, bye for now.  I'm sure Allison will post tomorrow a most excellent post as she usually does.

Exciting Week

Ezra finished classes this week and totally rocked his finals! On Friday (the first day of finals) he went to take his New Testament final. Our agreement was that if he got an A, we could rent a movie with one of our Red
Box promo codes. 95%!! Woohoo! So we got Life of Pi and watched that. It was one of the most visually beautiful movies I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely one that we’ll add to our collection when we get the chance.

I’ve still got classes until midway through May. Then I get a short break before I start my summer class. Final projects/research papers have started for me so I’ve been busy getting that done. I’ve randomly had a handful of people ask me this past week what I actually do/learn in library school. What’s the point? So this week you get a double blog post. For information about what I’m learning in library school, go to this post.

I finally got the first part of my garden planted this past Monday. It seems like every time I’ve planned on planting either it’s snowed or we’ve had to take a trip up to Salt Lake City. I planted something like eight pea seeds and ten spinach seeds. I’m hoping that as the peas come up they’ll shade the spinach since I got it planted so late. We’ll see how it goes.

Wednesday there was an “epic announcement” from Provo’s Mayor, John Curtis. Provo, Utah will be the third city nationwide to get Google Fiber! If you don’t know what that is, it’s super fast internet through fiber optic cables. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this! Basic broadband with 5mbs will be free for at least the first seven years with a onetime installation fee of $30 (I sound like an ad). They’re planning on starting to put it in homes before the end of the current year. I’m sooo happy we’re still living in Provo!

As Ezra mentioned last week, we’ve started using MyFitnessPal (I’m about to sound like an ad again). There is a phone app that we use, but it’s also available online. I hate calorie counting. I hate it hate it hate it, but this app makes it super easy. You give the app some information about yourself and your goals, and then it gives you a daily calorie budget. Food you eat takes calories out of the budget, and exercise is like a deposit, putting calories back into your budget. Yes, this is calorie counting, but the app makes it super easy. For packaged foods you just scan the barcode and tell the app how many servings you had, and then it adjusts your budget for you. For homemade foods you enter in the ingredients, tell the app how many servings are in the final product, and it does all of the math for you. Oh, did I mention that it also calculates nutritional information? Yeah, it’s a pretty awesome app and it’s made us a lot more aware of what we eat.

What my summary looked like at the end of the day on Thursday.

The only thing I've entered so far today is my breakfast.

My nutritional information summary at the end of the day Friday.

It’s also given us motivation to work out a bit more often. There is a trail right next to our house that we’ve been hiking on, and the other day we took a walk through our neighborhood, just so we could burn a few extra calories so that we could have a bit of extra chocolate.

We were excited to pass an intersection of streets with the names of our home states.

To end this past week, we finally got a calling in our new church ward! We will be Primary teachers, teaching the four-year-olds at church. In our church, Primary is where children go after Sacrament Meeting. They have gospel lessons and activities appropriate to their age group. I’ve never attended Primary because I joined the LDS church when I was eighteen, and Ezra’s family wasn’t very active in the church when he was younger, so Primary will be new to both of us. We’re really excited and have already started planning out how we will present next week’s lesson. It’s going to be great!

All about Library School

This past week I’ve had a few people ask me about library school. What do I do? What do I learn? What’s the point? Is it worth it?

Let’s start with, “what’s the point?” I want to be the best librarian I can, which means learning as much as I can. For example, in my Information Retrieval class I’ve learned a lot about databases, classification, controlled vocabularies, and how to make things findable. So the next time you search/browse for something (book, movie, journal article, online shopping, etc.) in ANY database or catalog, remember that an information scientist made it possible for you to find it. That’s what I’m learning to do.

In my Information and Society class we’ve talked about things like library ethics, patron privacy, copyright, and perceptions about libraries (which tend to be poor). There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes at libraries that most people don’t even realize. I didn’t realize it until I started working for the library. Since starting school I’ve learned even more and the “whys” behind things. When I know something, I can better assist patrons with their questions and concerns.

“Is it worth it?” To me it is, but it’s not for everyone. The skills I’m learning as a librarian will help me throughout my life, and it helps me assist patrons who are trying to better their own lives. Not to mention the fact that having an MLIS is a bump up on the pay scale and it will open up doors for me in the future. When I was deciding if an MLIS was something I wanted to pursue, I realized that getting the degree is something I would never regret, but I might regret not getting it. I don’t want to live with regret.

For the “What do I do/learn?” questions I’ve included my academic plan for grad school. These are the classes I plan on taking and the course descriptions for each class. The classes with an * are required.

• 2013 
• Spring 
• *200 – Information and Society Explores the complex and interrelated historical, social, economic, cultural, political, and technological influences that shape information and society. Emphasis is on the various roles and responsibilities of information organizations and the values and ethics of information professionals. 
• *202 – Information Retrieval Principles of information retrieval and their application to information systems and services. Emphasizing models of user information seeking behavior, human information processing and their relationship to retrieval models in information systems.
• *203 – Online Social Networking: Technology and Tools This course introduces students to a variety of new and emerging technologies used in today's online environment. It covers various social networking platforms, content and learning management tools, web conferencing, immersive environments, and other trends in social computing. 
• Summer
• *204 – Information Organizations and Management Identifying distinguishing characteristics, culture and relationships of information organizations. Emphasizes theories examining the interaction between human beings and the organizations in which they work. 
• Fall
• *285 – Research Methods in Library and Information Science Covers fundamental principles, processes, values and roles of research for professional application in information organizations. Students will become critical consumers of research products and learn the basic skills of evaluating, planning, designing, executing, and applying research. In addition to a general research methods class, which examines a variety of research methodologies, SLIS offers a number of applied or specialized sections of LIBR 285 for students to choose from.
• 266 – Collection Management Study of collection management in all types of libraries and information centers. Includes analysis of information needs, criteria for selection, collection use evaluation, and resources for collection development.
• 2014 
• Spring 
• 210 – Reference and Information Services A process-oriented examination of how information professionals answer reference questions. The interpersonal skills required for effective question negotiation and the sources with which questions are answered are stressed.
• 251 – Web Usability Through examination of theory, methodologies, and real-life cases, LIBR 251 offers a framework for developing user-friendly interfaces for use in information systems. Students will learn the principles of user-centric design and style for particular circumstances and populations. 
• Summer 
• 248 – Beginning Cataloging and Classification Theory and practice of bibliographic control including the study of representative cataloging using descriptive cataloging standards, machine-based representation using MARC format and other standards, subject analysis and classification using LCSH, Dewey, and LCC.
• Fall 
• 265 – Materials for Young Adults This course will allow students to take an in depth look at materials in a variety of formats for teens, including fiction, popular nonfiction, graphic novels, movies, computer games, websites, other media, and determine how they can meet developmental needs. 
• 261A – Programming and Services for Young Adults Administration and delivery of professional library and information services with multi-cultural young adult populations: features critical youth studies cultural/historical research, resources, policy, threats, tools, methods, service philosophies and management skills necessary for a comprehensive profile of YA library services. 
• 2015 
• Spring 
• 283 – Marketing of Information Products and Services Applications of marketing concepts to library and information services. Market analysis, use surveys, market targeting and introduction of services will be featured. 
• 232 – Issues in Public Libraries Investigation of current issues that impact the functioning of the public library. Topics covered include issues related to social and political environments, clientele, services, collections, physical settings, financing and staffing, and future trends in the public library sector. 
• Summer 
• 282 – Seminar in Library Management Application of management theory to specific problems. Readings and discussions of the development of effective strategies for planning and implementing organizational change. Specific content of the course changes each time it is offered. Examples of topics studied include: Advocacy, Conflict Management, Digital Assets Management, Financial Management, Human Resources Management, Leadership, Managing Information Technology, Grant Writing. 
• Fall 
• *289 – Advanced Topics in Library and Information Science Advanced independent creation of an electronic portfolio demonstrating mastery of all student learning outcomes (core competencies) for the MLIS degree. Must be completed in final or next-to-final semester.