One of the benefits of living in Boston this past year was that Romney's HQ was local. Our home teacher was one of the finance guys on the campaign. We were able to go to several Romney events and get my brother a job on the campaign. Here are the pictures from election night.
Lauren and myself inside the convention center.
The press. There were three stands like this.
More press stands.
We heard from some of our friends that in Romney's meeting with his staff (after the election) he compared his experience to med school. He said that he felt like he'd gone through med school only to be told that he can't graduate. I sympathise with this reaction from a Czech newspaper. Though these are my views, I respect that others have different ones. I also believe you should be actively involved in the issues in your community and country. Also, don't be discouraged from being a participant in your communities because the voting didn't go the way that you thought would best help your situation.
I hope to always be involved in the issues and what is facing our communities. I'll apologize now to our future children... Sorry kids.
I thought that was a funny phrase. So I looked it up... in a couple of places and found that it pretty much means AWESOME! Haha. Well Dane and I are on the hunt for the bee's knees knees. We have both struggled with knee problems lately and visited "the knee guy" for all our local sports teams. I have a new regime of physical therapy and Dane has something going on there as well. We'll see what treatment is needed soon.
In the mean time... We are spending the night with BYU basketball and family members. We have really fallen in love with Google+ hang outs. Dane is having a discussion about players heights and athleticism with his brother and cousin on the other side of the country.
My research project for the summer involved me testing out the microtensile bond strength of various sealant materials on primary molars (baby molars). The hardest part about this project was actually being able to find the baby molars to do the tests on! So, I asked many dental schools, oral surgery clinics and offices and even went to facebook to ask if anyone knew of kids that would be losing their baby molars any time soon. My cousin, Kelly, came through by telling me her son Jake was losing teeth that week. I think this type of study would gross most people out, but it was actually pretty fun to do. After getting Jake's tooth in the mail from Kelly, I decided to take pictures of the process his tooth went through during this project. His was just one of 40 teeth that I used for this study. But it was the tooth that I paid most special attention to.
Here's jake's tooth just in some water with a little preserving chemical in it.
I took the tooth out.
... and sanded down a flat surface to prepare a larger area to build up a bulky amount of sealant material.
I cleaned that surface with pumice (a kind of gritty, sandy/muddy mixture that help to clean debris off of the surface.
I then "etched" the tooth with some phosphoric acid for about 40 seconds. (This is a normal process that dentists do when they are preparing to put in a tooth colored, composite filling onto a persons tooth) This basically just helps scratch or score the area of the tooth, so that a filling material has more surface area to bond to.
Little layer by little layer, I then added the sealant material onto the surface. This particular brand goes on pink as a liquid, and then once it is cured, it comes out white.
The curing process was done with the blue UV curing light. I had to then apply another thin layer of sealant material, and then cure it again for 20 seconds each time. I probably had to repeat those steps 15-20 times for each tooth, until I built up a large enough amount of material to perform the test.
This is what the tooth looked like after putting all of that sealant material onto the one side of the tooth. (left side in this picture)
The samples were then "thermocycled" in this machine for 5000 cycles. It basically just dipped the samples back and forth every 30 seconds from one pool of 5 degree celsius (41 degrees F), and the other pool which was 50 degrees celcius (122 degrees F). This process took about a month to complete.
this is what the tooth looked like after being put through those conditions.
I then mounted the tooth onto an acrylic base with some wax and painted the sealant material with pink nail polish. Then I painted the outside of it with purple nail polish.
The next step of this was to cut the tooth vertically in both directions. to create 1 mm by 1 mm "sticks" where the top half was all sealant material and the bottom half was all tooth structure. From Jake's tooth, I was only able to obtain ONE single stick that I could use to test out the bond strength. It was a lot of time spent for a single test sample. We then took that one stick and used a machine that pulled on both ends of it until it broke on the bond and then it told us the force that it took to break that stick. Pretty cool.
The material used for Jakes tooth was the WEAKEST of the four groups I tested. Thanks Jake, I won't ever buy sealant material from that company, and credit can go to you for making this knowledge available to all dentists in the United States.
On my way home from work today we were cruising along on the Tobin Bridge. Then... Thunk! And I hear glass shattering and tinkling. What the.... I look in the back of the bus, (which is where I typically sit... not today) expecting to see someone that has slumped to the floor having a seizure. The bus driver stops the bus, and I'm wondering if he is going to help out the person that I'm assuming I can't see in the back seat. The driver stands up, and said "he hit my bus!" and walks off the bus to go and see what was happening behind the bus.
It turns out that the 111 bus clipped this truck, and the truck swerved into our bus... no win situation. The truck lost mirrors on both sides tonight. The 111 bus driver continued on and didn't stop. We waited on the top of the Tobin Bridge (a bridge that is 2 miles long) for about 45 minutes. The Tobin currently has construction going on, so it's always a pain getting over it. We had a standing bus in one of the two lanes that were open. I texted Dane and told him that there was going to be a lot of traffic if he tried to come home on the bus. It turns out that shortly after we crippled the Friday evening commute they started diverting other busses from the Tobin, and sending them to the Sumner Tunnel. Our friends were on one of those busses.
We had cops show up. Then MBTA wanted to take the bus and all the passengers to the Chelsea court house. The passengers had a fit with that. It was about then that another bus was driving by. The bus driver and another passenger flagged it down. I found out that it was the last bus going home via the bridge. We hopped on that bus and headed home an hour after we initially boarded the bus. Another lady was talking loudly about how she has been riding the bus for 30 years and this was only the 2nd time that this had happened.
We were glad that no one was hurt, and that we had a bus driver that was looking out for us. He was a "cutie."
We were able to come home, enjoy dinner with friends, and now Dane is kicking off the BYU Basketball season with the team.
Also - Side note - Dane and I got a home computer so I can now update more regularly! It's been a little difficult updating since Dane is always studying on the laptop.
We went to the Topsfield Fair again this year. It was not all that we hoped for. Since we get the "resident" tickets we could only get in on the opening night. Unfortunately, it was a cold rainy night. Which means one thing.... The zipper was closed. What a bust.
We had fun doing other things... like Nikki's favorite ride, spotting the queen bee in the beehives, eating fried dough, and seeing the art and veggie exhibits.
The finale of the evening was when my dad and I decided to hit up one last ride... "Freak out." It was freakin' awesome. I had so much fun. My dad LOVED IT. I'm not sure I've seen him smile so much. He was just giddy! The guy operating the ride gave us another ride when we were about to get off the ride and my dad yelled, "let's go again!" Dane took a video of us... You can hear me screaming several times in it. Oops.
This year Dane's first day of school was much different than last year. Last year I woke up with him to take pictures, see him in a nice shirt and tie, and send him off early to his first class. This year I woke up before him since he didn't want to get up early for class, I stole the last of the milk so he couldn't have any on his breakfast, no pictures taken, came home and waited for Dane to show up. He came home after wearing scrubs all day and we chilled for the rest of the night. I'm the worst wife ever.
I got this email from Dane that afternoon: I regretted not getting milk last night as we were driving home since I had coconut milk on my life cereal. Not a good taste. I don't know how, but the coconut milk managed to suck all the sugar out of the cereal and made it one of the stranger tastes that I have eaten. Won't be repeating that one. Hopefully you didn't need that entire container of coconut milk.
Dane and I have had several fun dates over the past few months. I've
been meaning to share them, so here's the overload... I could have
tricked you to thinking this was all one exciting night, but... I didn't
wear the same thing all of the nights... trick blown!
One night after dinner we went for a drive. We saw a little path that lead to the river so we decided to take a stroll and when we got to the end we saw a huge boat being tugged out into the ocean.
See the tug boat over Dane's left shoulder.
Another fun tradition that we've started is just taking a walk down the beach after our dinner on date night.
This particular occasion we walked up Revere Beach where they had a sand sculpting contest the week previous to our date.
We were just lucky enough to stumble upon these. Between the contest and when we walked by we had a huge rain storm, complete with hail the size of large marbles. These survived amazingly well.
A personal favorite.
This next one was really interesting. The sign indicated that this was named "Everyone has a dark side."
We were thinking they meant that it was just meaning "where the sun don't shine" but then we walked around to the other side.
...and clearly that is not what they intended. It took us by surprise.
For my birthday Dane got us tickets to a Colbie Caillat and Gavin Degraw concert. It. was. fun. Dane is so thoughtful.
I can't get the video to imbed right now, but here's a link to Gavin Degraw's entrance at the concert.
The rest of the time that Brad and Camille were visiting we went up to my
parents cabin, visited North Conway, stopped in on a few historical
sites. Here's the pictures from the trip.
When
we got up to New Hampshire we spent the day enjoying the water, and got
Brad up on ski's.
My dad convinced him to wear his BYU hat while
skiing. (In hopes that it would end up at the bottom of the lake... too
bad for my dad that Brad wore it beautifully, and it is not at the
bottom of the lake.)
My dad enjoying his time trying out the new wake board!
My morning ski!
Dane tried out the wake board as well! He is doing great. Dane has become quite the water sports guy. I have been thoroughly impressed.
Camille got a jet ski ride from our neighbor Barry.
Brad thought he would try his hand at the tube. He was catching air like you wouldn't believe.
We headed up to North Conway and hiked up to Diana's Baths. The place is full of waterfalls and "swimming holes."
The USS Constituation... other wise, fondly known as "Old Iron Sides."
Brad and Dane climbed to the top of Bunker Hill monument.
We had an amazing 4th of July this year. Brad and Camille came out and we had a TON of fun!
We started out the day with a hike at Break Heart State Park. It was a nice stroll on paved trails so it was easy and just a nice way to get out and enjoy nature for a few minutes.
Several months ago I had heard from my neighbor that you can take kayaks
out on the Charles River for the show and fireworks. That got my
wheels turning and I spent the next several months thinking and planning ways
to make this happen. We made it happen after two "not so small" miracles. The first of which helped us find parking in Cambridge and the second - convinced my dad to come join us and 750,000 of his closest friends. Really it was only 500,000 people and my dad was happy to inform the Swensons that they were among the top 100,000 on the list. We walked a few blocks with
our kayaks down to the Cambridge Side Galleria, a mall that has an inlet
to the Charles River. We definitely got some looks from people as we
were walking with our kayaks down the street.
We "put in" with out incident and paddled up the Charles River.
The view was amazing. It was a little hard paddling up river, but we didn't mind that much. It was just fun.
Getting the party started right!
Shortly after the program started then we started watching these thunder storms roll closer and closer to us. We could see the lightning off in the distance and we hoped that it would pass by us. We had been hearing about them on the news earlier, so we were aware that we may get rained on. The police came in on the loud speaker and told everyone that they were going to stop the program because of the "impending doom" that was heading our way. They evacuated thousands of people and told them to head towards the closest bridges and find shelter. They opened up a few sites as emergency evacuation sites, but we were sitting there in kayaks! What are we supposed to do? A police boat went by and let us know that kayaks and canoes could head to the shore. So we did. We paddled close, but what is that supposed to do for us? So we hung out there for a while and debated if we should paddle back down the river to this --> bridge, the longfellow bridge. We decided to wait until the rain started to head to the bridge. Which that ended up being just fine. We were close to shore when they started letting people back to finish up the rest of the program. So we were really close to the Esplanade or "Hatch Shell." We could hear the music really clearly, as well as see all the crowed people on shore. That made us more thankful for our mobility.
Shortly after Dane took this video a police boat came by and the guy on the bow of the boat was going nuts! He started yelling at us that we needed to get back by the yellow buoy. He was yelling, "I'm not going to keep chasing you down the shore line!" I was thinking, goodness! Get a grip officer. This is the first time we've seen you. So I was watching him, and I think that gave him a reality check. So to save face he said, "and you're supposed to have lights on that boat." I said "sorry" and paddled out to the yellow buoy. After that then I was "cracking" a glow stick and it exploded and some of the "juice" shot in my eye. OWE! So I spent the next several minutes pouring Camille's water bottle into my eye. The bad news is that there have been no long lasting effects of the glowing liquid in my eye. I don't have night vision or anything.
The wind started to pick up and just as the fire works started there was an absolute down pour!!! We were SOAKED. I had an umbrella in my bag, so I pulled it out, but then I was getting blown away so I was trying to hold the umbrella with my chin, and use my two hands to paddle so I didn't end up on the other side of the river. That wasn't working out great and everyone else was getting soaked, and I was going to lose my umbrella if I kept trying to hold it with my chin with the strong wind; so I just gave up and put the umbrella away. There was maybe two square inches on each of us that were try... or "less damp."
At this point the fire works are in full swing and this lady in a large boat starts screaming at us, "GET ON THE BOAT! GET ON THE BOAT!! GET OVER HERE NOW!" I was happy where I was so I kept paddling around having this lady scream at me like I was 5. Dane didn't want to get on her boat either so he kept paddling around. Camille wanted to get on their boat, so she did. Which that was a great idea because she got out of the rain for most of the fire work show. However... We did have a slight hang up because this was the start of a "series of unfortunate events." There is Brad, happily getting rained on in the middle of the Charles River. His wife has just boarded a boat of some weird "Mainers" and this lady is continuing to scream at him to get on the boat. What is a man to do. He paddles up the boat with the intention of boarding as well. He sticks out his paddle so he can climb out, and the lady takes it away. Now don't forget that it is still raining hard, and the wind is blowing. Brad immediately starts to drift away from the boat. He reaches out for a hand (or a paddle) and... SPLASH! Brad is swimming in the Charles River with a half submarined kayak. Now this is interesting... the man of the boat then yells at Brad to "leave the boat." It's like Jaws himself was swimming up behind Brad and he had to ditch all worldly possessions and save his life by climbing on their boat. Brad was thinking, "are you kidding me!? This isn't even my boat! I'm not leaving it." So Brad swims the kayak over to the boat, they pull it up onto their swim step, I get away from the lady tying up my kayak, (thank goodness she couldn't tie a good knot) and we enjoy the rest of the fireworks.
It was great! I feel like you get two for the price on one since you see the fireworks in the sky, but also see them reflected off the surface of the water. They always surprise us with something new. You can see some star shaped fireworks in this clip... and those were new to us. We all enjoy ourselves for the rest of the show, (no matter which boat we are on) and once the show is over we head out.
...After we drain the water out of Brad's kayak. :) Getting back down the Charles felt a little like playing frogger. I'm glad we all made it across the river and back down to the galleria. It was such a fun night. My mom is already planning on making that a tradition and Brad was figuring out that next year the 4th would fall on a Thursday and the year after that would be on a Friday. (We're just saying Brad and Camille... One trip a year... What are you going to do?)
