On Track

This image was taken at 10:48AM on Saturday 19 April 2008 at the 9400 South Trax Station in Sandy, UT.

It is an HDRI composed of 7 images with different exposure compensations.

Concrete crushing

About a month ago on 19th February, my materials & construction class had a hands-on lab where we were to make a batch of concrete that would be compression tested. The test was on the 17th of April.

Our mix consisted of:

• 40oz Cement
• 45oz Water
• 45oz Sand
• 40oz Aggregate
• 1ft² sheet of fiber glass cut up
• 1ft² sheet metal mesh cut up
• Concrete dye
• 65 paper clips

Our volume had a 6" diameter and was 9" tall.
The design mix held 197,000 lbs!!

Day 43

I am thankful:
197 I saw Sarah when I tried to go to clean the snow off her car
198 WCA was glad for me to help
199 The new drafter is very good
200 I got an interview scheduled for Friday
201 Doug called to give me a job too!
202 I was behind in my homework, I’m almost caught up now
203 I read a chapter first
204 I gave bagels to my friends at WCA
205 I had a full tank of gas to get to Bountiful
206 Saturday is General Conference
207 I had a candy bar in my backpack
208 I got a call about an extra drafting job
209 I’m not as sick as I was last week, especially the headache
210 Libby was lenient

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on 5 things for which I'm grateful.

Car for sale

My car is now officially for sale. If anyone reads this and they are interested follow this link for more info.

Sonnets by Shakespeare

SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. --William Shakespeare SONNET 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. --William Shakespeare

Karate Kid

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Quotes

This is a list of my favorite quotes:
(it is still a work in progress)

“We must become the change we want to see.”
--Mahatma Gandhi

"When you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your peace and your sleep and your time for it;
If only the desire of it makes your aim strong enough never to tire of it; If life seems all empty and useless without it, and all that you dream and you scheme is about it; If gladly you'll sweat for it, fret for it, plan for it, pray with all your strength for it; If you'll simply go after the thing that you want with all your capacity, Strength and sagacity; faith, hope, and confidence, stern pertinacity; If neither poverty nor cold nor famish nor gaunt Nor sickness of pain to body or brain can turn you away from the aim that you want; If dogged and grim, you besiege and beset it, you'll get it!"
--Author unknown

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?”
--Albert Einstein

"Believe & Succeed"
--Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

"The opposite of courage, in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity."
--Rollo May

"A man’s life is what his thought make of it."
--Marcus Aurelius

“Everything comes if a man will only wait. I have brought myself by long meditation to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment.”
--Disraeli

“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it."
--William James

“If thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth.”
--Mark 9:23

"Truth is never in conflict with truth."
--Brother Greenwall 1-31-2008

"True thanks comes in the form of actions, not words"
--Richard Rupert 1-6-2008

"We can't rely upon light from the past to justify darkness in the present"
--Mike Compton 12-30-2007

"It is impossible to be unhappy & grateful at the same time"

“A hug is like a boomerang – you get it back right away.”
--Bil Keane

"I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
--Maya Angelou

"Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words"
--G. Elliot

"If it is to be it is up to me"
--The 10 most powerful two letter words.

Project #1 Final Model

Project #1 - Final

These are process models and concepts for the design
























This is the set of drawings including:

• Site Plan for position & orientation
• Exterior & Interior Renderings
• (4) Full Building Sections
• (4) Full Building Elevations
• Floor Plan to show layout of interior space

The final layout with the Site model and larger building model

Detail of project #2

This is a sample of one of many "Hammer Chimes" we are going to put in our installation project for studio.

Unconditional Love

I amazed at Sarah’s unconditional love and constant concern for my happiness. She is selfless and trusting. She is pure, intelligent & beautiful.

See more progress on: Marry Sarah Anne Smith on Saturday 7 June 2008 @ 9:10 AM in the Salt Lake Temple

T.o.t.L.P. Spring 2008: Personal Revelation

Recently I decided to reflect on some inspiration/answers to prayers that I received a while back. Tonight I had particular impressions come to my mind and heart during my Institute class. The subject for discussion was Elder Robert D. Hales talk titled Personal Revelation: The Teachings and Examples of the Prophets. -Ensign November 2007 pg 86-89

These thoughts are for me and by witting them down I am holding up my antenna to receive more personal revelation. This is a mixture of a list of my thoughts, statements from class, scriptures and quotes from the talk that we reviewed.

"When we are on the Lord's Errand, we have His blessings to accomplish whatever we are asked to do"

"President Lorenzo Snow had studied the gospel for several years before joining the Church. But he did not receive a witness until two or three weeks after his baptism when he retired in secret prayer."

-doubt & fear are not from the Lord. This is letting myself get in the way. I may have had an impression to do something and then afterward we start to roll it over in my mind and question it saying, "Wellll....I don't know...maybe..." or "Is this really what the Lord wants?" That is when I need stop right then & there and remember that one of the only ways to know I can do something is because He told me to go and do it. I had the confirmation, therefore don't cast away my confidence.

The discussion moved on to: "...prayer provides a firm foundation for personal revelation. But more is required." Also "Revelation comes on the Lord’s timetable, which often means we must move forward in faith, even though we haven’t received all the answers we desire."

-The Lord may not answer right away in order to give us a trial of our faith to make sure we are commited, qualified, and faithful. Do I still read and pray and do the right things for the right reasons-even when it seems that I haven't received an answer right away?

-Later we talked about how if the spirit is pressing upon you it is leading to revelation & inspiration. The example of the prophet Joseph Smith in D&C 128:1 when he wrote "...that subject seems to occupy my mind, and press itself upon my feelings the strongest..."

-What is something 'still' and 'small' and how does one approach heading it? Something small requires attention and focus to look at or listen too. It takes effort to understand. Further, "The more we receive and acknowledge personal revelation, the more our testimonies grow." Laman & Lemuel had become past feeling in 1 Nephi 17:45, notice it is not written 'past hearing' because one of the great indicators a majority of the time is a feeling. Maybe we only get a feeling one time for a short period of time to see if we will act on it and that might be the time when the answer is coming to us.

In 3 Nephi 11:3 I was reminded about what the still small voice was not.
-More of what it is:
"feeling the feather in the windstorm"
"tender, soft, clear, sweet"
"the still small feeling"
-what it does: "whispereth , pierceth" -D&C 85:6

What I can do:
-ask and expect an answer
-"I don't have to be perfect to get an answer, just clean and worthy"
-"Once I know you make my decision to go forward w/ things I know to be right"

a better life

at 8:52 pm on 6 feb 2008 it was:
almost 63,072,000 seconds
or 1,051,200 minutes
or 17,520 hours
or 730 days...
or 104 weeks...
or 24 months...
or 2 years...
...since my life was changed for the better!

BIM Storm

In my ARCH 3051 class, we have been doing some parametric design.
Check out this site model my group & I have been working on.
You will need Google Earth to view the file, you can download it here.

After it is in your 'Temporary Places' you can drag it to your 'My Places'
Later as it is updated, you can right click on 'Group 11 version 2' and select 'Refresh' and any changes I have made will be reflected in the Google Earth Model -- You don't have to re-download it to get an update!

It's a big construction book

I’ve had this book for a few years through a couple different classes but have never completely done all the reading for it. With this new class “Materials and Construction: Making Architecture” it will happen this time.

See more progress on: Read "Fundamentals of Building Construction" in its entirety.

A new Website

Of the 106,875,138 websites reported in use in 2007, there is yet another.

Studio 3011 - project 1 update

So, about two-and-a-half weeks have passed thus far in this new semester and the project we have been working on is to design a ticket booth for Alta Ski Resort. However, this is no ordinary ticket booth. By night it will transform into a nightclub. It will adapt to the climate for year-round use as well as adapt to the varying uses of people.

To accomplish this we began by studying the area and the documented journey to the site.





In addition to the site study/journey documentation, we researched solar patterns, wind and snowfall info. then created presentation boards.


















































To begin understanding transformation we took a sheet of paper and cut and folded it in many ways but didn't remove any portion (if it was unfolded and laid flat it would look like a regular piece of paper). Then we applied a force of either water, fire, plaster, etc. to transform it with a lack of control.

Further iterations progressed to these three and then the final paper creation:


Predictions of the transformations:

The final paper creation altered by 12 quarts of hot water:

Architecture Poem

The Builders

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is or low;

Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show

Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,

Time is with materials filled;

Our todays and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

For the gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house where gods may dwell

Beautiful, entire and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these wall of Time,

Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble, as they seek to climb.

Build today then strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

Shall tomorrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turretts, where the eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky.

Thanks my dear friend!

Click play ....

End of the semester

It is near the end of the semester and this is how I am feeling: