The Book of Mormon

I just finished reading the Book of Mormon.

This time I read it with a different mindset. I wasn't reading with the normal Book of Mormon goal:

 I was reading with the question "What in the book of Mormon is true?"

It was a really fun read and I noticed things that I hadn't before. There were things in the Book of Mormon that I cannot verify as true like the location of Nephite and Lamanite cities. But, based on all the truth that I can verify I am going to say that the Book of Mormon is true.

This time reading was similar to how I read a physics textbook. I can verify certain things based of my experience with the world, and there are certain things that I am going to have to take on faith because I am not going to do the experiment myself.

I am not going to go on an archaeological dig to find some buried Nephite city, I will just assume they are there.

for quin

Some things I wish I knew about when I started at byui.
1. The craze has unlimited laser tag for 7.50 on Wednesday nights,
2. Just say no to boys if you don't want to date them. Don't go on pity dates.
3. Avoid dating your the brothers. It just make things awkward for everyone if things don't work out.
4. Live close to campus and use the ride board your first couple years. Cars are expensive to own.

Chicken dance

Pirate Knight

Here is my idea for a pirate. I got so excited I just had to draw it. His armor is not made of metal because if he fell in the water he would drown. He has an eye patch under his helmet. One of his arms is a mace. He is wearing a dead British captain coat.

Wolves and Saber-tooth cats

Thought I'd write a post about how art-life is going right now. The Big Project of the year is a graphic novel--which is basically a comic book that doesn't end on a cliffhanger; it stands by itself as a complete story. They're commonly published as web-comics first, and this one will be no exception. It's a long-term payoff plan project: I think it'll eventually be something I can sell at conventions and such, as web-comics tend to generate a following and attention over time. So, it's part boot-camp for me (600-700 drawings will make anyone get better at something) and part marketing ploy to stand out a little more. (Hey, look over here, I made something!) I'm 25% done with the pencil pages, out of a planned 112 total.

The second thing going on right now is an attempt to get my work in front of the art director of a company called Wizards of the Coast. Hokey name, but they're kind of a big player in the world of fantasy art, which is where I want to end up in the long term. They've seen a few pieces of my work and basically asked 'Can you do it again, but more painterly? Oh, and by the way: people.' so I'm taking a few weeks to bang out two or three fresh pieces to see if my style will work for them--they like more realistic work, and right now my portfolio has a lot of children's book style stuff in it. This is the current one, which is slated for color this week:

I'm thinking of doing a pirate one next, since I already have some reference shots of piratey poses from a while ago that I never used. Any suggestions, what kind of pirate would you like to see? What's the coolest pirate thing you can think of?

Student teaching

Student teaching is AMAZING! 

I'm teaching English right now at Roy High School. I'm teaching 11th and 12th grade. 

The first day I taught, I realized that I had chosen the right major in college. Teaching is definitely my calling in life (well, as far as jobs go...).

I haven't really had a day yet where I come home and just complain about my job. 

Every day is awesome. Sometimes, I am disappointed in the students' work, but they're cool enough that it's worth trying again the next day. 

So, if I had to sum up student teaching so far, it would basically be like any inspirational teaching movie. Roy's kinda sketchy with some kids that have made some really bad decisions in life. I've done a lot of crazy teaching techniques to get them to learn, and so far it's worked out great. 

So pick a movie: Freedom Writers, Coach Carter, the works. That should give you a good idea of life at Roy High. 

Life is good at the Harker home, though. 

There's your update for now!

I am excited for Christmas

So Sarah, Miranda, and I are going to Utah for Christmas. We are so excited. We have been wanting to do this for about 2 years. Last Christmas kind of got destroyed by the qualifying exam.

It will have been about a year and a half absence when we get to Utah in December. I wonder what will be different.

What kind of activities are we going to do?


What is everyone excited for?
I am excited for free babysitters. Miranda is going to have a blast in the house. So many things to explore.

My dream

I haven't really thought about retirement until recently. Sarah and I occasionally talk about what we would do if we suddenly made $500,000. 

If I ever make a lot of money. I would like to own a dude ranch for myself. It wouldn't be for making money; more like a cabin thing. I wouldn't try to make it a business, but it could be a place for family reunions and stuff. 

I really like riding horses, dogs, BBQ, wide open spaces, shooting guns, and working on man projects. 

It could be a vacation spot or home if I can convince Sarah, most likely a vacation spot.  So I guess I would like to be a cowboy after I am done being a physicist.

Work 2Fly

I work at jetBlue in the Interline and Distribution Support Team. We are open 24/7. Its a fairly new group at jetBlue. We are expanding our services and working with more travel agencies and getting new partner airlines all the time.

Basically what we do in our small team at jetBlue airlines is work with other partner airlines (usually international) fixing problems that people have becasue of their own error - like wrong name, date, spelling errors in a name... or because of an airline or system error - like a misconnect, cancellation, or computer error.

Our team also assists in GDS or travel agent bookings, government fares and corporate accounts. Occasionally we talk to irate customers experiencing air travel difficulty thru their own error, system errors or travel agent errors or any other number of problems they are having. We generally work on any problem that most of the other teams are unfamiliar with or are not allowed to work on because of the complexity of the issues. It is a lot to learn and a great challenge. I really like it.

I have been with jetBlue since fall of 2007 and have worked in reservations, Crew Support and now this department.

I really like it as I can work from home and its kind of a fun challenge to solve the problems we are presented although occasionally stressful as people's travel is often in jeoprady as they encounter problems at the airport.

I also work at home cleaning, cooking, organizing, projects, gardening, coordinating other jobs and and any other house related work. I like this job to.. and I singed up for it a long time ago.

Occasionally I get to plan special events with delicious food and playing of games.

Worki'n and Worki'n

Work right now for me is on two fronts. My 'real' job is working at Exelis, which is two exits after the airport, and, for the most part, makes aerospace composite stuff: like the outer covering of airplane wings, vacuum pressure poop-tanks (not their official name...), helicopter tail blades, etc. Anything lightweight and strong. My department is called Bearclaw, and we make plugs for geological oil fracturing.

This is an older model, so it's not exactly what we're building anymore, but it's close enough:

I just got promoted to Lead a few weeks ago, which is nice. I haven't noticed much of a change in duties though, which, is also nice? I guess? I was expecting more responsibility or something, but no complaints here for a raise with no extra work so far.

Second front is doing freelance art. Last year was a bit busier for me on the freelance field, with a bunch of educational images and super-tight-deadline-kids-books that were fun but not really what I wanted to be doing forever. That's cooled down a bit, so I've been tackling a large personal project in the form of a graphic novel. (A graphic novel is basically a comic that has a beginning and an end in one volume, not 'to be continued.') That project entails a heinous amout of work, but it's my own storyline, so I enjoy it more, and any proceeds from it are all mine, so I'm hoping it does all right. I update my regular erikastudio blog with that occasionally, but, for the most part, I'm saving it until it's done to release periodically next year with the whole book on sale on the side. I've also had some interest from Wizards of the Coast, which is a card game that buys a lot of fantasy art, so I'm hoping to get a chance to work with them--as that's more the type of art I want to be doing in the long run.

I almost made this our blog picture

Science rules!

For those of us who grew up in the 90's.

So, I have landed in the research group I am going to be in for the next 4ish years. I just got a desk in the office of the research team. They even gave me my own computer!

The physics I do is atom cooling with lasers. Here is the basic concept: 

Using the Doppler effect, we can shoot atoms with laser light that will only hit the atoms that are moving in the direction opposite the photons. 

It's like you are running around and you keep getting hit in the chest with pillows. Eventually you will start to slow down. 

This cools the atoms down so much that they almost stop moving. Once this happens, we can see some pretty interesting quantum effects. One of them is scale invariance. This means that our little cloud of atoms in the lab will behave the same way as a black hole or a neutron star, the size doesn't matter. 

If you click on the link, you can see some pictures of the lab.

Lab website. (My picture is under the people tab.)

My job in the lab right now is basically to lock the laser to different frequencies and then pipe it into the vacuum chamber with fiber optics. 

What Miranda Thinks I Do While She is Sleeping

What Miranda thinks I do while she is sleeping:

1. Throwing parties.
2. Eating delicious foods that she is missing out on.
3. Playing with all of her toys.
4. Watching all of her favorite shows.

What I actually do while Miranda is sleeping:

1. Write grant proposals for East Wake Academy charter school in Zebulon, North Carolina (about 30 minutes away from where we live). I work with the headmasters (Yes, the school calls them “headmasters” just like Hogwarts!) and teachers on getting the things they need at their school. I've written two grants for them so far. One was for getting supplementary materials for a reading program they have at the school. The other I just finished was a grant for chemistry lab equipment. 
2. Write grants for L.I.O.N.S. for Christ Youth Ministries, a nonprofit organization in Bakersfield, California. I just finished writing a letter of inquiry (which is like a mini grant proposal) for a grant to help their organization purchase a larger facility. 
3. Work as an Internet Assessor (yes, I assess the internet) for a company called Lionbridge. Basically, I help improve the quality of search engine results. I just barely got hired on, so I am going through lots of training right now. 

I feel really blessed to have the opportunity to work and stay at home with Miranda. I couldn't have asked for a better setup!

Zoie pointed this out.

Look at the picture on top of the blog. Notice anything?

I'll have to fix that, and Photoshop Miranda in there too.

The church

I don't think anyone knows how close I was to quitting the church. Sarah might.

It started my last year at BYUI. To make this post short I will summarize my church experience then as "not so good."

A few unfriendly ward members and some experiences that I choose to take offense at left me with a different view of Mormons. After a discussion with Mom and Dad I decided that I wouldn't quit going to Elders Quorum. 

In hindsight, this was a good decision; However, there were corrosive ideas in my head that had not been neutralized. These ideas ate away many of the views of the church that I had grown up with. I moved out to North Carolina and my religious views continued to dissolve. 

Last month only two things really remained. 

I still believed in God. 

I wanted to find out what the truth was. 

I would have become a Muslim if I believed it were true. There were a couple days where I read the Koran and did some research on Islam. I went to a couple atheist web pages but concluded that I was definitely not an atheist. Sarah and I considered trying out different churches. 

At this time I tried to think about religion from a scientific method. I would make some axioms and build a foundation to experiment on which religion was true. 

I spent a couple of days formulating these axioms. 

Here is the definition of axiom from Wikipedia: An axiom, or postulate, is a premise or starting point of reasoning. As classically conceived, an axiom is a premise so evident as to be accepted as true without controversy.

After writing down several axioms and discussing them with Sarah I rejected them all but one. 

There can only be one true religion.

The true religion must have existed for all time.

If people are willing to die or suffer for their religion then it might be true.

A true religion cannot be wrong.

Lets just say it didn't really narrow the search down. 

After pondering this list for a while I came to the conclusion that a true religion cannot be discovered through logic or theory. So, I decided that no other church or philosophy had anything more concrete than what I already had in the Mormon church. 

I guess that's why it's called faith. I just need to pick a religion or idea and go with it. This conclusion gives me a different view of other people. Baptists, Muslims, Atheists and Deists are all religions that I could have ended up in. I believe Lincoln said this about the confederates "Don't criticize them, they are just what we would be under similar circumstances."  

I have decided to be a Mormon. It is my faith.

Lorin

Purpose

Because we are so spread out I thought it would be a good idea to make a place where we can share our thoughts.

I am the administrator of the blog but I hope I am not going to be the main author. I will write on here occasionally about things that I am thinking about or doing.

When you want to be part of the discussion, send me an email with your post. I will post it on the blog with no edits.

Here are some subjects I intent to write about and share:

Books I have read
Religion
Politics
Exciting science in layman's terms
Miranda
Money
Guns
Vacations
School
Movies that I really liked
Work
Friends and people you may know


I hope you will share about these topics and others things like:
Achievements
Things that make you really mad, sad, happy, confused...
Things you are excited for
Things that we would find out about if we still lived in the same house
(boyfriends, dances, embarrassing stories...)

I intend to be deep and honest about some things and immature about others. I hope you will do the same.