Temple Square

We decided to take the kids up to Temple Square on the day after Thanksgiving, the first day they do the Christmas lights. It sure was crowded.

We told the kids that we were taking them for a surprise about a week ago, but we didn't tell them where. We all piled into the van wearing wintery clothing, and headed to the Sandy Trax station. I pointed out the prison just past point of the mountain, and told them that was the surprise and that we were turning around. Cam yelled angrily "That was the dumbest surprise ever!"

We got to the train, and that made up for the teasing. We rode it all the way from Sandy to Temple Square, got off, and walked a block to the temple grounds. There were lots of pretty lights and statues. While we were walking through, some high school students doing a project asked if our kids would like to be on camera telling what they think Christmas is. Bailey was the only once brave enough to talk, but wouldn't speak up past a whisper. I was standing right next to her and couldn't hear her. If you see her around our house, you'd think she only had one volume, but apparently she can also be quiet when she needs to be loud.

We had a fun time, no one got lost, the trip was a success.

Back home a few days ago...

Sorry Mom.


I got back on Monday.

I won my first round match, and then lost the second to the eventual champion. They did random seedings, and all of the better players were in my half of the bracket.

I'll get around to posting more pictures someday, but for now, I'm not going to. I had a fun time, but by the time it was over, I was really ready to go home and see Jenn and the kids.

Palace Tour

We took a very small tour of Seoul today. It appears to be a very clean city for how large it is. It is actually quite pretty. It was really gloomy outside today, and it drizzled on us quite a few times today.

These pictures are from the Kyung-Bok Palace in Seoul. It is at the very edge of town, with mountains surrounding one side, and skyscrapers on the other. It was built centuries ago, but burned down during the Korean civil war. What is in it's place now is a replica.

There was also a museum very close by which we went inside. There wasn't as much to see there, but I did get to take a picture of myself under the sign.

Anyways, it's been a long day, and I am ready for bed.

I'm a Seoul Man

It's kind of early in the morning here, and I'm wide awake.

There is a continental breakfast or something downstairs, but between the language barrier and not liking to be alone in public places, I'm waiting until later.

I tried to go up on the roof of my hotel to take some pictures, but the roof exit was classified as emergency use only. I did take some dark shots of the view from my room, but you can still see some reflections from the window.

The other picture is Lake Tahoe, which I flew over on my way to San Fransisco from Salt Lake. I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane to get a good picture of the Golden Gate bridge as we flew over it.

Today, the gaming people have set up some sort of tour for us. The competition is tomorrow. Maybe I'll stick on a few more pictures later tonight.

Call me Diamond Chase...

So, I just got through with my first day at the new job. It looks like it's going to be pretty interesting and rewarding.

I met a friend there who I worked with at Micron about 7-8 years ago. He's been working at US Synthetic for about 2 years now, and he says its a great place to work. They've got good benefits (I'll find out in about 6 months I guess) and they pay well, both in wages and in bonuses. They've got a lot more control over how much they can sell their product for, unlike the commodity memory market.

So I'm trying to learn everything I can and be a good employee. I should be able to learn lots of valuable skills that will get me a good paycheck from them or somewhere else if it comes down to it, but after 1 day, I kind of hope it doesn't.

They subsidize the lunches for everyone there, I ate 2 big steak fajita tacos with fresh guacamole yesterday. It cost me 3 bucks. The plant is right across the street from the BlendTec factory. My employer bought one of their commercial smoothie makers, and set it up in the employee lounge. You put a cup in the machine, press a button for what flavor you want, and it spits out a freshly blended smoothie for free. The best way to get my loyalty is usually thought cheap or free food, so I think I'll be staying as long as I can :)

New Blog Title

So....


Yes, it's a little stupid, but I had to outdo the last name.

I decided that since I just got tested with 23% bodyfat, I didn't want to be the sandwich eater. I want to get that number down to about 12-15%.

Since I'm in the diamond making business now, I figured that this was an appropriate, and chintzy name to use.

Snow, New Job, and Korea

I got off work last night and was welcomed by a low grade blizzard. I was caught wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, and it was pretty cold while I scraped 2 inches of snow off my car and then waited for the heater to kick in. Cameron complained all morning that he wanted to go out and play in it, even though it was freezing outside at 7:30 am. Addie has been sick for about a week, she missed wearing her costume to school on Halloween, and the first major snowfall of the year. She is not doing a good job being sick, she's always running around the house, making her asthma worse. I don't know if anyone has seen the halloween picture this year. Jenn went all out on the costumes. If anyone asks, I was an occupied bed for halloween.

I will be starting a new job shortly, at US Synthetic in Orem. They compress stuff into diamond crystals, and then bond those crystals with drill bits and such. I'll be learning a lot more about industrial electricity, and making diamonds sounds like a much cooler job than making flash memory. My current employer decided to promote the worst and most hated technician supervisors to engineering positions within the department. Now they're complaining that no one gets along with them or respects what they are trying to do. We were recently told at a team member meeting by upper management that the company was seriously considering whether or not they should even be in business anymore given the current economic environment. So, crappy work environment working for morally bankrupt people + low pay + possible layoff in 1 year = Chase finds a better job. I'm really looking forward to expanding my job skills. There's not really that many things to do on semiconductor tools anymore besides swapping out stuff that doesn't work for stuff that does.

One last newsflash. I am being flown to Korea next week to play some video game golf. I will be playing against 11 other people for a chance at $5,000 , $3,000 , or $1,000. The airfare and accomodations are paid for. It should be pretty fun. I hadn't originally qualified to go, but was given a chance to go after those who did were unable to get passports in time.

So, you can see we've got quite a bit going on. I'm sure I'll have something to post about once I get home.