Let's Talk!

So as you may have noticed... Rochelle and I are getting ready to take off here in a few days. Rochelle leaves on Monday... and I leave on Tuesday. I get back on June 19th, Rochelle on the 20th. My travel itinerary was scheduled to match up with hers. So, now that we are going to be scattered across the face of the earth, how do we keep from loosing contact with each other? Well, we are going to do be using a couple of voice chat programs.

Google Talk: http://www.google.com/talk/
Skype: http://www.skype.com/download/

The two programs are pretty similar in functionality. They both allow you to chat over the internet for free (you just need a headset with a mic, or speakers and a separate mic, although the headset is preferred). Although both Rochelle and I have both programs installed, we kinda favor talk over skype, even though we tried this first on skype (it's the one that I use at work to talk with my boss). Google Talk seems to be a little easier to set up and configure, and well... I'm a google fan. Anyways, you don't need a gmail account for Google Talk, but you do need a "Google" account, and it will help you set one up if that's the one you prefer. Skype also needs an account. Just please don't pay skype any money. You don't need to (although I'm sure they wouldn't mind it), all the features you need are free. They just want you to buy extra features. I should say also, that skype allows you to see our pretty faces on the webcam, although we will not be able to see yours if you do not have one. If you look to the right, you will see a series of world clocks. And just above that, a link that shows a time chart for the 4 different time zones. Rochelle and I haven't figured out when we are going to be able to talk to each other yet. We don't know what our schedules will be like yet. But when we do, we will let you all know, and try to say 'hi' as often as we are able. We are also going to try to keep the blog updated. Ron and Sue have a headset and are set up, and so does Quin and Cindy, and so we will be able to talk with them as time allows. But because we aren't calling on the traditional telephone, if the computer is off, there is no way for us to get a hold of you. At that point, we can only blog and email. I'm sure I'll be at work a lot, and so you might be able to get a hold of me fairly easily at certain times. Rochelle doesn't know when she will be available yet. My skype account is beeg_98, by google account is taylors2004, Rochelle's skype is rochellerct, and her google account is rochellectaylor. We will welcome your calls!

Love you all!

Tulip Festival

Today, Mom, Dad, Rochelle and I went to take some pictures at the tulip festival. It was a lot of fun. I'll let mom and dad showcase their own work, but here are some of Rochelle's and mine. Just click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/taylors2004/TulipFestival
That's all for now... have a lovely day!
BJ

Ta ta for now

I'm going to India. I'll be gone roughly during the same time Rochelle is gone. I'll be staying in Pune, a place well known for technical outsourcing. I'll be helping with training, and organization. Dave my boss will be there with me. I'll tell you all more when I know more.
BJ

Goings On

Well, Finals time is just around the corner. It has been a good semester, my busiest yet. I have been able to spend time in clinicals in pediatrics, mother/ baby, and labor and delivery (which I loved- I wish my time there had not been cut short!). I am signed up for classes next fall already. I will be doing ICU and psych nursing. I don't know how I feel about that, but I have heard that ICU is great.
I am here for only 22 more days before I leave for Argentina- isn't that crazy!? It really crept up fast! I am excited, and yet a little apprehensive, and of course, sad that I won't be able to share it all with BJ. He says he will be fine and will take care of him self ok, and I'm sure he will. I just hope he doesn't get too lonely. I am sure he will be visiting around! I will be working Mondays through Thursdays in the hospital, and one of those days I also work in the community in the comedores (where the children in the neighborhood can go to get one semi- decent meal a day.) I think that is how the schedule will go. I am trying to brush up on my Spanish and learn some medical terms. Wish me luck! We will be staying in a youth hostel, which from the pictures looks fairly decent, and it is much safer than the area were going to be staying before. I will be using Skype to call from Argentina, since it would cost like $800.00 to make one or two calls a week on my cell phone, because of high roaming charges etc. Good thing they will have internet there! Pretty much everything is set up, and I am starting to pack things. I am planning on blogging if I have time while I am down there; at any rate I will keep a journal, and will fill everyone in when I get back!
That's all for now, folks!

Catch up...

Well, it has been a while since I have posted... or for that matter since either of us posted. We apologize and promise to do better. But we have a good excuse... in fact we have a couple of good excuses. Shortly after Rochelle ran her half marathon, Rhonda and family came into town for their spring break. We really enjoyed having you here Rhonda, Taylor, and Emily. We miss you and think often of you. But before their visit was even over, we also were welcoming Rochelle's family into town. Thankfully, their spring break was a week later than Taylor's and Emily's, but we still had a little bit of crossover on the weekend, where we were doing our best to spend time with both families. And of course, Rochelle still had school, and I still had work. During the week that Rochelle's family was here, we spend much time at family gatherings, dinners, and game nights. In general, the moment Rochelle and I were both free from our normal obligations, we immediately left to go meet up with family for the past two weeks. We wouldn't have it any other way, but it left us with little time for blogging. And although we miss all of you who have now gone home, we are grateful for our time to catch up on the many details in our lives that we have neglected... like buying groceries, doing laundry, blogging, and sleep. ;-) We have many things that we could talk about, Rochelle's run, our visits with family, conference (I got to go up to the conference center for the priesthood session), Rochelle's hectic school life, and her upcoming trip to Argentina. But for now... I think I'll settle for going and taking a shower right now (I think you will all approve), and letting Rochelle blog about what she will. I'll probably post some pictures later.
BJ

They did it!! 13.1 Miles

Smart dummies, water aerobics, and half marathons

Well... I should be in clinical right now, but as we were waiting for our instructor in the lobby of the hospital, a pediatric nurse came down to tell us that our instructor was sick, and we could go home. So! Here I am, trying to think of ways to use my time "wisely". I have so many options!
I have a couple of papers I could work on, or a presentation on ADHD- medications versus behavioral therapy- for next week, a presentation on women's health in two weeks, a pediatrics test starting this week, a religion test ending this week, two online quizzes, cleaning, grocery shopping, reading for my classes, preparation for a pediatric simulation lab tomorrow, and/or go running! But don't worry, I don't have to do all of this today!
(For those who may be wondering, "What is a pediatric simulation lab?" this is a lab where we are given a specific scenario and we practice our skills on Tiny Tim, who is a child- size dummy who actually breathes, has a pulse, reflexes, and blood pressure etc. He is controlled by a computer and he responds to the care we give him/ her. I guess he is a smart dummy.)

Here is an update on my classes and clinical: Last week I spent two days in the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) and border nursery (the feeders and growers- the babies who are almost ready to go home). It was a positive experience. I had to write a short paper on it. I will put part of that paper here:

"I was impressed with how efficient and calm almost everyone was in different situations. Most of the time there wasn’t anything very exciting going on in the nurseries, and we just watched the respiratory therapist and nurses caring for the babies, or, more commonly, we read chart after chart to try to learn about the conditions and treatments the babies were receiving. We also found a couple of nurses who were willing to answer all of the questions we had for them! The alarm to go to assist babies that had just been delivered sounded twice while we were there. The first time we were told we couldn’t come, and we didn’t know what to do, so we just stayed in the NICU. On the second day while we were there, the alarm sounded again, and again we were told that we couldn’t go in because there was already a student there. We really wanted to see the process of admitting, even if we couldn’t watch the respiratory team helping the baby, so we decided to follow them to the room and wait in the hallway. Eventually we were able to accompany them back to the NICU and watch them continue to work on this baby. We watched them insert a UVC (umbilical vein catheter) and UAC (umbilical artery catheter- they put these in instead of a regular IV which could be painful to the baby) and intubate the baby and put it on an oscillating ventilator. Everyone remained very calm, and worked very fast. A large team was there to help the baby.

"Most of the time, I really enjoyed this experience. I was really curious about what went on in the NICU and what it was like for parents who had children there. I feel like it was important for me to see the process, and what the role of the nurse was there. I also realized how frightening it must be for parents to have their child taken there and not know what was happening. It would be so important for the nurse to explain what was happening and realize that the parents have a need to be reassured and to understand what is going on. I think that because of this experience I will be able to understand parents better when they have had a child in the NICU and remember how important it is to treat them with respect and answer their questions."

I have also had the opportunity to shadow a nurse practitioner and a nurse midwife at a midwife clinic. Those were both very neat opportunities, and great learning experiences. Also, for the same class, we had to attend some sort of prenatal class. One of the options was a water aerobics class... which I did with some of my friends yesterday! It was pretty fun, and the pregnant people loved the class and said it was the only way they could get good and safe exercise.

Some other exciting news is that the half marathon is here! I will be running my 13.1 miles this Saturday! I'm a little nervous about it, because I hear it is going to be pretty warm, and I will be running farther than I have run yet! I am taking it pretty easy this week, although I will probably run or jog a little today and tomorrow. My dad will be flying in tomorrow, and will be doing the half marathon with me, Marissa, and two friends from the nursing program. My goal is to just finish and not hurt myself... maybe the next one I do I will try to get a good time or something. I will just be happy to be able to say I've done it!

Well, that's my week; I'm sure I'll be seeing/ talking to many of you soon.

My wife is a GENIUS

I'd like to take a moment to brag about my wife, the genius. She was notified today that she's on the dean's list, and she's too humble to write about it herself, and with a little help from dictionary.com, I'm going to take a moment to brag about her genius. ;-) Please excuse the run on sentence.
My wife has an incredible ability to absorb things she reads, she is full of accomplishment, she has a miraculous acumen in nursing, she observes her patients at the hospital with great acuteness, not to mention how adept she is in her homemaking and taking care of me, she has a great aptitude for reading, in fact, her aptness in reading give way to an astuteness in conversation, she is constantly bent over backwards trying to get everything done, she’s got a brain worth two of mine, and her brilliance can be seen from miles around, she has a great capability for love, she has a wonderful capacity for creativity, she has a discernment for feelings, she has an endowment of beauty, she is an expert in ‘Public Health Nursing’ in which she works with the faculty of nursing in interviewing people with a flair of her own, she’s got a great grasp on all things gustatorial, she’s got a great head on her, she has a wonderful imagination, and an inclination to help everyone around her, she has a great ingenuity for solving problems, and she is always my inspiration, she is full of intelligence and inventiveness, she has a knack for conversation, she is maestro at the flute, a master at crafts, a mastermind in family economics, and she was more mature at 18 than I was at 24 when we met, she has a great originality, her percipience keeps me in awe, and her perspicacity keeps me on my toes, she has a power to lift me in my darkest hours, and her precocity makes my brightest days brighter, listening to her parents talk about how she devoured books, you know she was a prodigy, she has a propensity for crafts, she has a prowess in card making, while she may not be able reach the chocolate on the top shelf, she has the sagacity to know the right moment to ask me to get it, she has a superability to do anything that she sets her mind to, she has a great talent for making every turn a good turn, she has a deep understanding of what is important, she is a virtuoso of all things good, and best of all, she has the wisdom to keep me around. :-D

The new stuff

This has been a pretty good week; busy as usual. Last Saturday I got to go to a ballet (Swan Lake by Ballet West) up in SLC which was very impressive and fun to see. I got to go with BJ's mom and two nieces, and we made a day of it!
This Sunday we got new callings in our ward. We are now on the activities committee. This is a calling that BJ has had several times before, and one that I look forward to and think will be very enjoyable.
On Valentine's Day, I was in clinical all day. I spent the first half of the day in Mother/ Baby and got to take care of some new moms as well as do newborn assessments, which was sooooo much fun. In the afternoon, I went over to the prenatal clinic area, and I followed the ultrasonographers (the people who do ultrasounds) around. I got to see several ultrasounds, and I was amazed at the skill it takes to interpret what you see on the screen. I loved watching the parents' faces as they saw their baby on the screen for the first time, even if you could hardly tell what was being shown, and their reactions to finding out the gender of their baby(s).
After clinical BJ picked me up, and he surprised me with a big beautiful bouquet of flowers and a card! He also made a delicious dinner for us- very nice, just like in my avatar picture! We will continue to celebrate Valentine's Day next weekend, when we are going to a marriage retreat up in the canyon. We have done this around Valentine's Day for the last two years, and it has become a really fun tradition for us. We stay a night and they provide some catered meals for us, a marriage seminar, and cross country skiing. We have enjoyed this every year we have gone.
This week we decided we couldn't stand our television any longer (the speakers have gone out) so we looked online and bought a used television on craigslist for quite a low price. It turned out to be a nicer and bigger TV than we were expecting... we are going to be rearranging the furniture in our living room anyway, so this will be one more thing to take into account. We have a lot of furniture, and very little space in our apartment! It's kind of cozy though!
On Friday night, we went to our stake's Sweetheart Dance. I borrowed a formal dress from my sister, and BJ dressed up too (we were matching- wearing black- very dramatic.) and we danced the night away! It has been such a long time since we went dancing, and I almost forgot how much fun it is! There was a photographer there taking pictures of couples, and our pictures are supposed to be emailed to us. I'll have to post our picture if it comes anytime soon.
This morning BJ played racquetball with some people in our ward, and I studied to take a test which I have no idea how I did on. :( This afternoon we had a "cousin party" with my mom's side of the family. It was nice to see many of my cousins that I have not seen in a long time. We had a talent show and dinner, and visited with family. Most of my cousins have children of their own, some of them the ages of my siblings. It was fun to see how much they have all grown.
I am really looking forward to President's Day... mostly because I get to "skip" my busiest school day and have a chance to catch up! Unfortunately BJ still has to work, so we won't get to spend the day together, but maybe I will be able to do some stuff for school or hang out with my sister Marissa or something. Maybe laundry...
Well, I wrote way more than I thought I would; I guess we did a few things this week!

Not much new

I'd like to say that we have lots to talk about. But we don't. I suppose no news is good news... but it isn't very exciting to blog about. And so here I sit on a Sunday night being grateful for the many blessings I have, and trying to come up with something worthy of telling to all of my fans out there. ;-) And so, whenever I don't have anything to talk about from my life, I have to come up with something from my musings. Please note... unless you are really bored, or are interested in the tech world, read no further... I will be talking about Windows Vista.

It seems to me that Microsoft is the great divider among those in the IT world. IT guys seem to feel in one of three ways... 1) They love Microsoft, 2) They hate Microsoft or 3) They love to hate Microsoft. The coming of Windows Vista will renew the debates among these groups.
There is an article about Windows Vista done by an IT guy that I read parts of the other day. If you are interested, you can read it here: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
Although I didn't read all of it, I read enough to realize that Microsoft has yet again done things I do not like. In the past I haven't had *too* much to complain about regarding their operating system. They have had their quirks, and their problems, etc., but in general, what operating system doesn't? Linux certainly does. Macintosh certainly does. The remaining operating systems are typically small enough and unknown enough that they have niche uses, but aren't very comprehensive. But Microsoft has done things with Vista that will keep me from ever putting it on any computer that I own. It seems Microsoft has decided that they want to stop the pirating of music and videos. A noble cause, to be sure, but in order to do it they have taken some extreme measures. They have developed a layer that goes in between your media player and your hardware that tries to stop illegal music. The problem with this is that Microsoft wants to be sure that whatever it is playing the music on is real hardware, and not virtual hardware (one way that people could illegally copy music). So how do they do this? They make all the hardware vendors pay them to certify their hardware with Microsoft. This increases the cost of hardware, and makes the hardware you and I already have on our computers obsolete (if you decide to buy Vista). What happens if you have obsolete hardware? One of two things happen, and I'm not certain about how they decide what to do, but they either simply will not let you play your music or video, or they will make your music and video sound and look bad so that anybody copying it wouldn't want to distribute it because of the poor quality. And so if you don't have Microsoft approved hardware (including video card, sound card, and monitor) you can say goodbye to your music and videos. Another side effect of this is that because of the regulations Microsoft is putting on its hardware vendors, it is going to be harder to get drivers for your hardware... especially if you aren't using Microsoft. They don't want any of the hardware vendors to put out detailed specs on their products any more, so now the only the companies that make hardware can put out drivers. Oh it is going to be a mess. But the hardware vendors will be fine... they will just pass the price of the increased work on to us. So Microsoft with one sweeping stoke of their brush has increased costs on all of us for many things, and have made listening to music a pain. Not to mention the fact that even when you do have all the right hardware, the extra layer takes a huge chunk of processing time whenever you are listening to music... up to 50% of your cpu time. That's enough to slow down your computer considerably.

So in short, my message to you all is:
Buy a Mac! Our next computer will be a Mac.

Have a good day all!
BJ

The reluctant blogger

Well, I did promise BJ that I would post, but now that it comes to it, I have little to say... As he mentioned, I have been extremely busy with school. I am currently doing my pediatric rotation at the hospital, and I have had some really good/ hard/ interesting experiences. I am learning a lot in all of my classes- I am taking pediatrics, mother/baby, nursing ethics, a culture lab (preparing to go to Argentina) and a religion class- D&C. All of these classes are competing for my time! School started only 2 weeks ago, but we are already in to papers, exams, and other big assignments.
Other than school, I have been running as often as I can for the past couple of weeks. I can feel myself improving as I run consistently- maybe in little steps, but it is exciting for me to be able to do what I thought I couldn't do before.
I don't have too much else going on that is worth mentioning... just trying to keep my head above water in school.

Hi everyone, I'm back

Well, we haven't posted for quite a while, and we are sorry about that... but we are now going to try to post again. Things are going well for Rochelle and I. Rochelle is quite busy. It got to the point that we had to sit down and plan out every minute of her entire week, and we still couldn't get it all in. Her nursing classes keep her quite busy, and she is also trying to prepare for a half marathon in a couple of months. And I do my best to help her out where I can, driving her to school so she doesn't have to park the car miles away and walk, helping keep the house clean, and keeping us both fed. Oh, and I go to work too. ;-) Work for me is interesting. I'm more of an IT guy right now than anything, but an extremely unexperienced IT guy at that. But I can do most of the work without help or supervision. When things come up that I have had no experience with, I have a couple of more experienced IT guys on whom I can call for help. They both charge by the hour, and get paid pretty well for those hours, but we don't ask either of them to do very much for us. I usually stay pretty busy with just helping out people in our office who don't know how to do something, or want something installed, or computer problems, and more recently, I have been helping a lot of customers with outlook. (We host email for many of our customers. By the way... may I suggest to all of you that outlook should be avoided like the plague? Thunderbird is not only free but better.) Right now my boss is in India. We communicate usually around 8 or 9 in the morning for me and at 8 or 9 in the evening for him. He is trying to set up a team of software engineers in India. He has been there for a couple of weeks now, and is planning on spending a fair amount of time over there for the next little while. He will hire his first engineers in a week or two. It's possible that he will want to send me over there at some point to set up a team of testers. I would love to go India. Especially since he told me that I could do it while Rochelle is in Argentina (assuming that I go of course). But these are all distant plans for the time being. We won't know anything certain for a while.
Well, it is 12:29, and church starts in one hour. I think I better get in the shower. ;-)
(I told Rochelle that she had to post sometime today too... so watch for her post.)

¡Feliz Navidad!

I suppose that it is only appropriate that I should wish you all a Merry Christmas en español, as I will be going to Argentina this spring! I will be going with the nursing program at BYU, for six weeks during the spring term. I don't know exact dates yet, or really anything else, but I do know that I will be doing some public health nursing and I will also be working in the maternity hospital in Tucuman. I am very excited, and just slightly apprehensive, as I have never traveled much before! I will keep you all posted as I find out more information.
Other goings-on include finals, a few of which I have finished already. I have an online research final, an oral med- surg. final, and a national standardized pharmacology test to take still, in case you were wondering! I should be done by Wednesday, but I have a lot of studying to do between now and then! One thing that has been hard for me at college is to keep the Christmas spirit and the joy of the season in my heart and mind while the stress of finals looms overhead. But I am trying really hard this year. Although I am not really a huge snow fan, I have appreciated this recent snow because it has made it feel more like Christmas to me (to those from out of state, we have at least 12 inches of snow, all from the past couple of days or so). Another thing that we did that helped me feel the Christmas spirit is watching Charlie Brown's Christmas. I know, it sounds a little silly, but partly, it is tradition, and I also just love the simplicity of the story. Charlie Brown is feeling weighed down by the commercialism of Christmas, and he wants to find out what the true meaning of Christmas is. Linus is the only one able to tell him, and he recites the story of Christ's birth, which helps everyone to see that they need to stop focusing on materialism, and be a little kinder to each other. I think it is a sweet story. Anyway, thanks Danielle and Kirk for letting us borrow that movie from you! That is pretty much the sum of what I have been up to the past few days. I look forward to spending some quality time with all of you or hearing from you soon.

Long time no post...

Thankfully, Rochelle has made up for my lack. We have both been very busy as of late. On the day before Thanksgiving, Rochelle called her mom to ask a question about what to buy one of her siblings. She and Marissa were there together, when they found out that Rochelle's Grandma had passed. Needless to say, they were both very sad, and tears were shed. I met them for lunch just a little while later, and we decided then, that it would be best if the three of us took off and drove to Oregon for the viewing and funeral. I went back to work for a few hours, came home and got the car ready for any emergency, and we took off. We drove into the night, slept for a few hours in a Hotel 8, and took off again in the morning. Weather on the way there was mostly good. There was a little ice on the roads, but not much, and it was mostly safe going. We got there just in time for Thanksgiving dinner. We enjoyed the time we had with her family, and were grateful for the time we had with them. This will be Rochelle's first Christmas away from home, and it will likely be a while before we see her family again. Had we not gone up, it would have nearly been a year without seeing them. So we were happy to be there. We were also glad that we could be there for Rochelle's mom whom was obviously effected by the situation. But everyone seemed to handle it very well. The funeral was nice. I enjoyed hearing the talks about Grandma. I didn't know her very well, and so it was a good time to hear what she was like, and to learn more about the family. I played lots of ping-pong, chess, pool, foosball, cards, and just about any other game we could think of. I enjoy being a big brother. I tease everyone a lot and have fun teaching them how to do things. It is an experience that I have never had before. Well, after the funeral was over, we changed clothes and left for home straight away. The weather home wasn't nearly as good. We hit storms almost immediately, and I was definitely a white knuckle driver that night. Much of the night I was going 30-40 miles per hour feeling like I shouldn't be going over 20, but watching some cars around me go 50-60. It was scary. Several times I could feel the car loose traction and gain it again a moment later. I was grateful that we never lost control. We slept again that night at that same Motel 8, and started again in the morning. The weather on that day was much better... until we got into Salt Lake and Utah valleys. I felt like the last several miles of our freeway drive were as bad as any. Thank-goodness that's all over.

At work, I have become an man with many hats. Lately, I have been wearing the IT hat almost exclusively. We had a small room full of clunky old computers that did a great many things. We bought a bunch of nice new computers that would soon take their places. Oh boy, what a head-ache. As we have redone everything, it has left everyone very stressed and begging for answers, and they usually come to me. With my currently small amount of IT knowledge, I have been trying to fix everything, but everything takes me a lot of time to fix because of the learning curve. There are a lot of things I would do differently if I had to do it all again. Oh well. We are nearing the end of it now, and I may begin to program once again. I have been writing a task management program that is to be integrated in our internal software. It is mostly done, but I have left it alone for a while as we have a been working on these other things.

Oh man, will I sleep well tonight! Anyways, Love you all, and I hope you all have a fantastic night!

BJ

Highlights from our trip to Oregon

BJ and I (and also my sister Marissa) went to Oregon about 2 weeks ago. Although the occasion was sad (we went for my grandmother's funeral) it was good to spend Thanksgiving and that weekend with my family. Here are some of the photos highlighting a few of the things we did:

 
This photo was taken one morning when we didn't have a lot going on. Marissa is doing an Eye Spy book with Anna.

 
This is me, Tayler, and Anna, on the day after Thanks- giving. We went shopping on this day and helped my mom work on some of her choir concert stuff, as well as funeral preparation.

 

Cara grew her hair out to donate it to Locks of Love. She had planned on getting it cut at Christmas time, but I guess it just got too hard to manage! It was an intense moment!






We took some family pictures on Sunday.






"The Girls": Anna, Cara, Marissa, and Rochelle







"The Guys": Tayler, Collin, and BJ








One more family picture. This is in the church after our grandmother's funeral, right before we left for home.