One Cycle Complete

This time a year ago, I was in a car driving away from Delaware for the last time. I haven't seen it in person since then.

Sort of crazy, huh?

It's been a year now. I haven't seen the place in which I pretty much grew up for a year today.
Sorry, just trying to convince myself it's actually true.

I haven't posted here in a while (obviously) but I figured that if this anniversary didn't deserve an update, nothing did.

Since I moved, here are some of the things I've done or that have happened:

Driving here, my family visited many historical sites important to our church such as Nauvoo, Illinois; Carthage Jail, also in Illinois; and Kirtland, Ohio. Before we spent our first night here, we'd seen license plates for 47 out of 50 states (we were only missing Hawaii, Massachusetts and South Carolina.) At one point on the trip we found the entire alphabet in one go while sitting at one long stoplight.

I met a great deal of family I'd never seen before, second cousins and cousins once removed and such, and saw many more after a long time. (In some cases, it was the first time in five years.) I attended my own grandfather's wedding reception and the funeral of my aunt. For the first time, I was around for the birth of a cousin (all of my other cousins I've met probably a year after they were born at least.) And then I said goodbye to my grandfather when he moved to Taiwan as a missionary for our church.

I started at a new school. I had my Eagle Scout Court of Honor, met a bunch of cool people who are now my friends, got my first smartphone, and made it into the Utah All-State Band. I have a full driver's license.

I visited Arches, Goblin Valley, Capitol Reef, and Zion (national and state parks.) I saw a total solar eclipse in Idaho.

I took the PSAT, ACT and SAT. I started a discussion club at my school. I went to prom. I became the section leader of the trombones in band, which means I'm in charge of running sectionals and making sure they know their music and stuff.

Over the summer, I worked at a cub scout day camp, got a significant tan, made a lot of friends and earned some money. That was a really great experience. I also hiked more than 20 miles in pioneer clothes pulling a handcart over three days in the summer. It was a church youth activity known as trek, and the idea was to walk in the footsteps of pioneers, especially pioneer ancestors if you had them. (I have an ancestor who crossed the plains something like 5 times!)

And then there's the less definable, but perhaps more important, personal growth that's gone on over the past year. I change every year, of course. Everyone does. But it's been especially noticeable to me in the past year - the way my attitudes and tendencies have changed. I'm in a new place, and in some ways I redefined myself. I mean, my math class still knows me as the guy who makes puns, and I still have a tendency to be fascinated by nerdy stuff nobody else cares about. But I've also learned things about myself and developed important skills. I've even gotten used to the mountains.

And of course, all of the things that happen every year happened: I had a birthday, and survived another year of school. We celebrated a (very white) Christmas and Easter and mother's day and veteran's day and all the other anniversaries and dates that occur every year. This Sunday will bring it all full circle - it's the anniversary of our first full day here in Utah. Hence the title of the post.

One year gone. I hope it's been good for all of you!

I'm Still Alive

...But no post today. If nobody's reading them, potentially no posts for a while. Sorry I haven't written these past few weeks.

This blog's increase in your knowledge for today is that before last Thursday the 5th, my Utah school district hadn't delayed or cancelled school for years. Around six of them. But people aren't a ton better at driving in snowy conditions here, as far as I can tell, so I don't know if that's still a plausible reason for the difference in policy.

Man, I'm pretty lame

I was super ready to be pulling out the results of my research project analyzed and the numbers crunched, but I have unfortunately not done that. I offer, as less exciting substitute, some personal news.

I saw Rogue One yesterday night, and it was good! As of Christmas I have my first smartphone. It's quite useful. I've been spending my time off school furiously putting off the work I should be doing, playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends, and watching Doctor Who. And yes, I know the second  two things are just variations of the first.
I've by and large been enjoying the large mass of family in town. There are several cute little kids here at the moment. Our Christmas was very white, the whitest night of the year actually.

That's about it, unfortunately. Has anything interesting happened in your life, dear readers? I feel occasionally on this blog like I'm writing into a vacuum or something. I appreciate any signs of life from people who care about this blog! You don't have to of course. But if you don't there's an alarmingly high chance that I'll reclude in my basement and obsess over something crazy like modifying the genetic code of acorns to produce trees that grow denim instead of leaves. (Now that I think of it, that could be profitable if it worked.) Anyway, you have been warned!

Until next week,
Ian

My Family's Holidays

There was a suggestion made that one of my posts be about Christmas traditions at my house, so I'm going to outline for you today some of the habits we have in our house this holiday season. It surprised me how many we actually had, although some of them are by no means unique. Anyway, here you are. Feel free to comment with your own holiday traditions (Christmas or otherwise)!

1. Every year around September or October we draw names out of a hat. Whoever you draw, you make a present for - a homemade Christmas present that must be under the tree by the evening of the 24th. Theoretically, this gives you enough time to create something nice. I'm afraid that with the move this year, I at least have neglected my duties a bit, but there have been some quite spectacular presents given. Would recommend.

2. On Christmas day there is a family-wide, sometimes extended-family-wide pudding-eating contest, with a twist. By the way, the pudding is called risalamande. It involves cherries and almonds. The competition is not who can eat the most. That's tough to measure and little children would probably never win. Instead, it deals with the almonds. The pudding is full of them, and all but one are chopped. Whoever finds the whole almond wins Toblerone chocolate. Every year we worry that someone has, without noticing, eaten the one whole almond without noticing. It doesn't happen a lot, though.

3. There's a nativity reenactment on Christmas Eve night.

4. Sometimes we try to open presents in an order. When we do it starts with the youngest, who opens one present, then the second youngest, and so on until the oldest, who opens one, and then the youngest opens another one and so forth until all presents are open. This usually doesn't last to the end of the presents, though.

5. That's mostly it. Somehow I was thinking there were more.

Anyway, happy holidays to you all!
Ian

On This Day

I have come to today's blog post prepared with a little research.
I must confess that I had no idea what I was going to write today. For all I know, nobody cares about this website enough to notice that I'm a day late or something, but I wanted to do something. So I got to thinking about today's date and then the modern calendar system.

The system that I assume we all use (I'm somehow not seeing any readers in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran or Afghanistan) is called the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory VIII (yay for roman numerals at the end of names!) This system has been in use since October 1582. That means that we've been keeping track of the date this way for 434 years, and 105 leap years. Astute mathematicians will notice that this isn't exactly one leap year for every four years. Good observation!

You see, the calendar in use before 1582 gave the year an average length of 365.25 days by adding a leap year every four years. Pope Gregory VIII didn't think two decimal places was good enough. The Catholic church, which measures the date of Easter by the spring equinox, was worried that Easter was drifting, so to speak. Considering there wouldn't be any noticeable difference in Easter's season for quite a while after his lifetime, this makes Pope Gregory VIII rather foresighted, in my opinion.

Anyway, he declared that every exact century would be not a leap year, except for the ones that were multiples of 400. So in 1900 there wasn't a leap year, because centuries are the exception. In 2000 there was a leap year, because every four centuries is an exception to the exception. Incidentally, 2000 was only the second time in the Gregorian calendar that this double-exception was necessary.

The average length of the year is now 365.2425 days, and it's anybody's guess how long it will take for the powers that be to refine that number.

Until next week, let's all be grateful for the time we have.
Ian :)

More Reports

Hello all,

I'm writing my blog post on Tuesday this week because Wednesday is going to be very, very busy. I have a bit of free time at the moment - free time, what beautiful words! - so I'm going to deliver a quick update on a bit of my life.

Tomorrow will be busy because it's the night of my band concert, and there's also a dress rehearsal after school, so between getting home, doing homework and getting ready for the concert, I'll have approximately negative one hour to write then. I'm also taking the ACT on Saturday, which adds a whole new layer of urgency to my homework if I want to get sleep for a couple nights in advance. Luckily, my teachers have taken this opportunity to give me more work than usual. Thank you, public education.

My house is temporarily empty of extended family, but as of a few days ago we do have a decorated Christmas tree in our house. There was a bit of trouble finding a space big enough for it, but we managed in the end, and our cat has delighted in chewing on the ornaments, climbing into the branches, and clawing at the few presents underneath. In a few weeks our residence will once again be flooded with relatives.

That's about all I think I have time for today, unfortunately. If you want to talk to me, leave comments, or send emails. Happy Holidays!

Ian

If You're Tired of All That Philosophy and Mushy Nonsense...

...Then it must be time for some different nonsense!

Farmer Duddle had a fiddle,
But he dropped it in a puddle.
When the fiddle wouldn't function,
Farmer Duddle was befuddled.
Now the farmer favors riddles
Over fickle, feeble fiddles
And it happened in the Downy Wood.

Miss Eliza had a lover
With an angry, grumpy mother.
Miss Eliza's love was clever
And escaped across the river.
There he married his Eliza
With what house and goods he gathered,
And it happened in the Downy Wood.

Little Lee was hit by thunder
When the sky was torn asunder.
It made mostly all to wonder
At his loving mother's blunder.
But the child was fine at that,
(And was even rather fat)
And it happened in the Downy Wood.

Farmer Duddle's father Froddle
Wouldn't walk, but only waddle.
Widely wandering, ever talking,
He'd stop by and tell tried twaddle.
Well, the neighbors held a council
And they told him, "listen, scoundrel,
If you hold your mouth the hound will."
Well, it happened in the Downy Wood.