Cool Article on Dark Matter and Energy

I was reading a post over at the Bad Astronomy Blog where Phil mentioned that some pretty cool developments have occurred in the area of dark matter and energy.  He referenced a very good article on the new developments at the CosmicVariance site.  It is pretty compelling and well explained. 

Fear

Julie and I were discussing how interesting it is to watch kids begin to learn fear.  Up until a few weeks ago Nate wasn't afraid of anything.  Now every once in a while something will freak him out for no reason that we can see. 
The other day Nate was playing with some toys that his great grandma gave him.  One is like a sink with a dishwasher and the sink had a spray hose.  So he was playing and having a great time when I decided to pull out the spray hose.  For some reason this just freaked him out like crazy!  So I picked him up and put the spray hose down.  I wanted to see if that was really what was going on so I pulled out the spray house again and he started to freak out once again!



Nate is also practically fearless when it comes to climbing things.  It has been so interesting to watch him learn that things can hurt him and that he needs to be careful. 

17

I was going through some photographs and found this AWESOME picture of Rob at his Junior Prom in 1997. It's such a great picture and I just laughed. So I thought I'd post a comparison picture of me at the same age (17). Do we look like we belong together? Even back then?

Humble Dwelling on Lifou

I will be posting some pictures from my mission the next few weeks. A lot of strange and interesting things happened to me while I was serving in New Caledonia.

In March of 2000 another missionary and I reopened the Loyalty Island of Lifou. The local government was basically organized in tribes with a great chief over the entire island. When we arrived we stayed with a local family while looking for a place to live.

This is a picture of our humble abode. As you can see it is not exactly the Marroitt. The floor is concrete with a loose roll of linoleum spread over it. We laid a couple of mats down under our 3 inch mattresses and I of course installed the mosquito netting! Or clothes were hung on a wire that we nailed into the window frames. Nobody had glass windows here, it was either open to the air of covered in plywood! The family trash pit was located 2 feet away from our front door as you can see in the picture below!

In spite of how difficult the living conditions were I had many amazing experinces while serving on Lifou and I hope to share some of that here. Here are some other pictures.

New Pictures from July

I have just uploaded a ton of new pictures for you enjoyment. There are some really cute pictures of Nate! See the gallery here.

Nate News

We want to share some of the cool things that nate has been doing. We noticed that he recognized his name for the first time today! We were at the beach where he was playing with the sand and when we used his name he looked at us and smiled and when we used other words and names he just kept playing in the sand. We were so happy! He now has two teeth and is scooting around like crazy and even tries to catch countess! He likes to wrestle with his shamu stuffed animal and open the TV stand and pull out all the DVD's! He likes to make noise on the piano and especially jump in his bouncer! It is so fun to see him learn and develop. We see something new almost every day. What a crazy experience!

Long Time Away

So it has been a really long time since I have done much by way of blogging. We have just been so busy over here. But I'm taking a couple minutes from my thesis work to share a couple cool things I came across today. If you have ever wanted to digitally sign your emails, you can do it now for free at the comodogroup website. I got two of them for the two email address I use the most. If you get a message from me in the future you should see my digital ID attached. Also I saw a really funny video at youtube.com. It is about Darth Vadar's Kid brother - Chad - who is not quite as cool. Check it out!

Gross

So one day at church while walking Nate in the halls listening to sacrament meeting I saw something that almost made me puke. In the Foyer of the church some 20-year old girl was clipping her toenails! Never before have I seen something like that! Clipping your toenails in the privacy of your own home is bad enough, but please do not do it in public!!!!! It's freaking nasty!!! So I will never be able put Nate on the floor in another church foyer without worrying about him eating toenails!!!!! I'm ruined for life!

Blue Porch

Some of you know that I've been playing with a new band - Blue Porch - over the last few months. Our website is coming up now and I just thought that I would make you all aware of it. Let me know what you think of it. The music that plays in the background was all recorded before I joined the band just so you know. Enjoy!

We are Settling in

Our move on Wednesday night was successful. We had a ton of help and are so grateful for all the people who took time out of there week to come get us moved. It took until this morning for us to get our internet connection going. It was a long weekend without the internet. So Julie and I got a new bed and are currently shopping for some new cherry wood blinds. Nate has his own bedroom once again and has his own bathroom too! I set up the grill that Julie and Nate got me for father's day and we grilled some cheeseburgers! I'm grilling some New York strip steaks tomorrow! It has also been really fun setting up shelves in the garage and finally having a garage for the car. We'll take some pictures soon and get them posted for you to see.