Rivalry.

Last year the BYU vs USU basketball game was a little different than usual. The biggest difference was that BYU head coach Dave Rose refused to bring his team of Cougars (aka cowards) up to Logan to play, and instead insisted on playing on "neutral ground". So all of the students at Utah State who were expecting to see their team play at home, instead had to drive all the way down to Salt Lake and pay for tickets to see their Aggies take on the Cougars at the ESA. There were a lot of frustrated students who just didn't understand why BYU couldn't come up. We were some of them.

This year when we saw that we were playing BYU again, and that this time they finally got the guts to come up to Logan, we were so excited! We couldn't wait to see how loud The Spectrum would get (the arena is ranked as one of the loudest venues in the nation). If you've never been to an Aggie home basketball game, you've got to try it once - it's insane!

X and I decided that we'd have some fun and that we were going to make our own posters for the game. Below is our handiwork:

We ended up going early to wait in line because we knew that the game was going to sell out. I went and stood in line at 10 the morning of the game, and X came to relieve me around 1:30. Then we both waited together the last few hours until the game started. We couldn't believe how many people showed up for the game. The place was packed! HUNDREDS of students were turned away because there weren't enough seats. Needless to say we had a GREAT time at the game. Both teams played hard, it was a struggle until the end, but our Aggies were able to pull through and get us our win that we deserved last year.

We were featured in the school newspaper as one of the top 10 posters at the game, and were even featured on some local newspaper's websites. Check out image 29 here and images 20 and 32 here. But I'd just recommend enjoying all of them.

Finally!

Finals are over!
It's been a long week and it ended today with 2 finals (including one in accounting - yuck!). Now that it is all over, let's take a look back at what happened during the semester, but I was too busy to write about!


Donating Plasma

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That's right. I've joined the ranks of the strung-out junkies selling my body for cash. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, going in my first time not really knowing what to expect. I'd heard all the rumors - "they use the BIGGEST needles you've ever seen!", "It hurts the entire time!", and "It takes like 5 hours!" - but none of them were true. The one thing that did surprise me was the color of the plasma. It looks like pee!



The donation itself wasn't actually even that bad though. Yeah, they stick you with a needle, but aside from the small pinch at the beginning and having to put pressure on your little wound at the end, the whole process is practically painless. It did take me about 3 and 1/2 hours my first time, but that was just because they had to explain to me what was going on and do some tests to make sure I wasn't really a strung-out junkie. Every time since has been less than 2 hours. If I go twice a week I can get $55 for the week. If I can do that every week will earn me an extra $220 a month, and if I can convince X to come with me that often that is $440 a month! Talk about a side-income! With the wedding approaching quickly and looking forward to paying for insurance, rent, and other "fun" aspects of responsibility, we need every dollar we can manage!


GUI Project

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This semester in my GUI (Graphical User Interface) class I was assigned a project to design a functioning traffic-simulation program. I decided to tackle the analysis portion of the program where I had to design the section where someone could analyze difference data sets on multiple graphs. It was a very interesting project, and I really enjoyed the class. I'm so glad that I've found something that I'm good at and that I enjoy doing so much!






Advent Creative

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This is the company that I started working for last September doing web development. I working for them throughout this semester and will start working full-time for them during the summer. Here are some of the websites I have helped build while working for them: Vooray, California Home Trading, Ascend Auto, and Mountain West Anesthesia. It has been great working for them and I've gained a lot of experience!


Planning a Wedding

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This has probably made up the most stressful part of the semester for me. All the planning, looking at options, and talking about the countless options (none of which really interest any guy...) has worn me out. I'm just glad it'll all be over soon. I can't believe this much planning can go into one day! (well, 2 for us. We're having our reception the night before). Hope to see you all at the reception. May 19th from 6 - 8:30!