Scott Chester

I was thinking as I was driving home from school today that I hadn’t written in forever. I think what actually prompted it was that President Hinckley talked about this in a devotional at BYU yesterday.

In some ways there isn’t much to say, but in others, so much has changed. I guess I’ll start with the biggest news:

My mom has not been doing so well. A couple months ago she had been hospitalized for some time and eventually we got a call from one of her friends that said we had better get out there. … A few weeks after we were out there, she actually was released from the hospital and sent to another facility and was shortly sent home from there. She has been doing fairly well at home and was actually talking about going to work in January. I need to make another plan to get out there to see her again - maybe for Thanksgiving.

…

Speaking of school, I’m in what I certainly hope is my second to last semester. I say I hope because I have one class - the only one that would slow me down - that I’m not so sure about how well I’m going to do. It’s my Accounting 301B class which I need to complete before I can take my final two accounting classes in the spring. I got a 58 or so on the first test and the teacher is just really weird. He will give you 10 possible choices for a multiple choice question, one of which being a supply your own answer on the back of the scantron option!

In any event, school really hasn’t been all that bad this semester. … I register for next semester on Friday and I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do. Well, I guess I have a clue, but that’s about it. I also ran a degree audit the other day and realized that I still have 2 more upper level GE classes that I need to take. I’m just jumping up and down with excitement, can’t you tell? In any event, I’m thinking about taking my capstone class, Mgmt 449 Tue from 4-7 followed by Government/Non-Profit Accounting from 7-10. Then I would go back Wednesday night for some yet to be determined GE class and “Problems in Taxation.” I’d also be taking Business/Professional Ethics online. For the on campus GE class, I think it will either be a communications class or a philosophy class. Those have been picked solely based on the meeting time of Wed at 4 p.m. The problem I have is that one of the accounting classes is only offered Wednesday night and the only one is either Tue/Thur mid-day or Tuesday night. I REALLY don’t want to go to Fullerton 3 times a week, so night classes here I come. Maybe I’ll do some more thinking about this tomorrow, but if you have any GE class suggestions, let me know!

Now for the really scary news. I am signing a lease on a building for CBC tomorrow! Effective December 1st, we’ll be moving to the only place I said I didn’t want to be - just outside of Murrieta, basically at the intersection of Winchester and Murrieta Hot Springs. It’s right down the street from my buddies at Left Behind Games! It’s not a huge place, but I think it will serve us well for 2-3 years and then maybe we can move onto something bigger and better!

There is all sorts of other stuff to say, but it is way past my bedtime!

So last Saturday I had to go to Fullerton to take this stupid Examination in Writing Proficiency which is required of students who are at least juniors and wish to graduate at some point in their life from Cal State Fullerton. So after wasting the hour plus driving up there, an hour plus waiting on campus and waiting for them to actually administer the test and all that stuff, I finally got to actually write. I wrote  two or three pages (handwritten with big spaces between the lines) on the required subject, requiring community service in high school and college. This took me no more than a half an hour and then I was out the door and driving home again. So after wasting a Saturday morning, and $30 or whatever it costs me in gas to get there and back, I finally found my results this evening:

We are pleased to report that you have passed the Examination in Writing Proficiency (EWP). The Office of Admissions and Records has been notified of your results. No further action is required regarding the examination portion of the University’s upper division writing requirement.

Congratulations on your EWP test results, and best wishes as you continue your studies at Cal State Fullerton!

Now here is the real question I have: Why couldn’t they have pulled one of the bazillion essays I’ve written for classes, either formal papers or essay exams? Why did I have to drive to Fullerton on a Saturday to take this stupid test that you should be able to pass without blinking an eye? What’s even funnier is that you have to take a writing test before you can take an English class. Couldn’t they have this entrance test serve two purposes - if you scored above a certain mark, make it so that you don’t have to take the second exam? Maybe they could put this into the curriculum of some required class - like English or Political Science? At the least they could offer it on a day when one might actually already be on campus!
I really wish I could have written about how stupid schools are, or at least the mass transit prompt.

Oh well, at least I can check one more thing off my list of things to do so that I can get the heck out of that stupid school!

I got this email from one of my professors yesterday:

Final Grades are posted on BB. The following were the “Running Totals” necessary for the respective grades:

87.2+ = A
77.2-87.1 = B
66.4-77.1 = C
56.4-66.3 = D
<56.4 = F.

I am sorry if you missed a grade by .1.  I actually made the curve more generous than originally determined, and I will not be changing it any further to accommodate sob stories.  I will not be around during the summer, nor will I be checking my CSUF e-mail on a regular basis. Have a great summer.

I thought it was awesome, so I figured I had to share it. Fortunately, I got an A in this class, but only by 0.8 points!

School has been going. I had midterms in Operational Behavior and Intermediate Accounting last week. I got a 94 on the OB exam, but I haven’t heard yet about the accounting test.

I did a wedding this weekend. I have another three this weekend. It looks like I’ll have a couple more quiet wedding weekends and then we start picking up full force, especially when you consider in Arbor Terrace. Richie won’t commit to doing any weddings now because he seems to think he will be coming home briefly and then going back out to the Ukraine! (See the pictures on his website for a hint.) Keep your eyes open for some new staff possibilities.

We did a sound check at the tent last weekend and found that we can actually get it fairly loud (85) in the tent without causing too much trouble around, and we can keep it pleasant and make it barely noticeable when necessary. I was glad to hear that; and it may even get better as more plants fill in.

This week I finally decided to try school without a lunch break. So far, I’m really liking it. I went to my accounting class at 11:30 instead of 2:30, so that meant I could leave at 2:15 instead of 3:45! After school, I got gas, drove to Fudds for my last free lunch and then made it home before 4:30 and I didn’t have to sit through much traffic at all! I think I can suffer through a couple hours without lunch to save me all that time.

It was raining this morning, which I personally love, but it made the morning commute just that much worse. I barely made it to class on time - I walked in the door at 7 practically on the dot, whereas I’m normally the first one there at just after 6:30 (and I normally stop to get gas on the way in).

Happy Birthday to Batch today… We’ll have to go throw a big birthday party for all the birthdays coming up…

Good night!

Ok, this cold is officially trying to kill me. I hate not being able to breathe, and it seems that I keep trying to loose my voice as well. Not having a voice makes it really hard to get class participation points!

We broke up into groups this morning in Operational Behavior. Our group didn’t seem to interested in doing much, so as soon as we got the required stuff done, it was head out, see you later.

In Operations Management, we all learned a very important life lesson: Apparently pretty much all milk is created equal brand-wise. Our professor used to work at a dairy and he said that they get milk from so many different places that there is no substantial difference between any of the dairies, except for Altadena. According to him, Altadena only takes milk from their cows (or cows somehow under their control) that are basically more organic than the rest of the bunch. The moral of the story: Buy whatever is cheapest, unless you want the Altadena organic milk.

We had a quiz in Statistics which I know I didn’t do so well on. After I finished the test, I started second guessing myself and somehow convinced myself that I should have used the z table instead of the t table. Fortunately, I only got about half of my answers changed before time ran out. Moral of this story: Don’t second guess yourself!

I decided to venture off campus for lunch today. I almost convinced myself to give Carl’s Jr. a try, but Fudds was just calling my name, and I had $5 in Fudd Bucks to use before the end of the month. (I still have one card left.) My burger was a little overcooked, but other than that everything was great. I really enjoyed by cream cheese brownie. I made it back to campus with plenty of time to spare, but I still couldn’t find a spot. After going through all the lots, I went back to my normal spot and waited for class to get out. Surprisingly, I was even able to make it to class close enough to not consider myself late.

Here, I saved you a piece of my brownie:

Now it is time for my stupid question of the day. Why is it than whenever you get out of a lane, behind a car, to pass them, they suddenly decide it is time to speed up? Then, as soon as you get back in line behind them, they slow back down. What’s up with that? I had this BMW that I had been following for miles that I finally decided it was time to pass around Murrieta, but as soon as I moved to the #2 lane, he sped up (at least 80) so that I couldn’t get around him. I moved back to the #1 lane and he slowed back down to 70! I tried again, and got the same treatment. Finally I decided I wasn’t going to stand for that, and I decided to put my engine to good use. Pedal to the medal and a quick trip to the #3 lane and then back again to the #1 lane and he was toast.

I got off at Mission Road in Fallbrook and found a long line of cars waiting to turn. By this time I was really getting fed up with traffic, so I decided I’d take Live Oak Park to Reche. Well, there was a Jaguar in line in front of me to turn. Let’s just say that I tried to keep up, but it just wasn’t a fair race… Ryan: I don’t know how you handle driving to LA as often as you do. I don’t think I could take it!

I watched episode 8 of 24 tonight, the one where the terrorists try to set off the gas in a mall. It was good, but I think it is time to stop watching and wait for the DVDs. I can tell that I’m loosing interest with the long delays between episodes. There was a scene which I thought looked like Pasadena, but when I called Susan in for further inspection, she thought she recognized it from downtown. Either way, it looked familiar.

After 24, I switched over to an episode of Roswell (Season 1, Episode 10). The show seems to be getting a little weird on me now, but I’ll keep watching to see where it take me. I was thinking while watching it that it is interesting how they seem to keep relating the aliens to how everyone feels different. I am interested to see where the story-line eventually takes us.

North Coast went well on Sunday, at least there were no major problems to report. We did kind of discover an interesting way of possibly adding another eight channels to the MH2 audio console at the Bob though. It looks like you can use the Group/Aux sends as inputs as well as outputs. Some of our high quality patch cables don’t seem to break the normals on the patch bays so we were feeding the send from Aux 7 back into Aux 1 because Aux 7 was patched to Aux Amp 1 (which is normalled to Aux 1). Even though both patch points were connected, audio was coming across and feeding the effects unit and back feeding the console. It took Batch and I a while to figure that one out! (We never actually tried assigning the group to the mains to see if you could actually use them as inputs, but it would certainly seem possible.)

After NCC I had a wedding at the GT. It was on the warm side out there, but I made it through. After the wedding I got back into my reading for school before calling it quits and watching The Polar Express. I wasn’t all that impressed with the movie. I would say that the book was better, but I can’t honestly remember reading the book. I would say that the movie was good for kids and such, but I think I went into it expecting more from it.

Monday morning I took Matthew to school and then was just about to sit down to do some reading at the Bob before I got a call from GT. They wanted to talk about the new mix rack. Scott didn’t seem too happy about it’s overly large size and was curious what our options were for making it smaller. I later sent him about four options of what could be done, and I think he has decided to try what we have for now, and maybe buy another rack for the tent if we use it a lot over there.

Then I went back to the school to edit music for performance dance. It was an easy one this time, which is always nice.

Yesterday school went fine. I’m starting to think that this could actually be a good semester. I’m actually enjoying some of my reading material for class and getting some good ideas to hopefully implement a couple years from now when I am running a big enough company to actually implement them!

On campus dining is getting old. I wasn’t really feeling the pasta, but pizza sounded good. Fortunately, we have a Round Table Pizza on campus, but of course those personal pan pizzas just aren’t quite enough to cut it for a long day at school. So, I decided I would get two of them. My total was like $9 something out the door with a water. That’s like a half pound burger at Fudds, a salad, a brownie and a couple cookies! Yeah, needless to say that I am seriously thinking about venturing off campus again tomorrow.

I’m hoping now that we are past the drop deadline that there are less people on campus and therefore I will be able to find a parking spot when i come back from lunch. I don’t really mind walking if that’s what has to happen, I just want to be able to park easily. I did notice as I was leaving on Tuesday that it looked like there were quite a few open parking spots, and the campus actually felt really barren on Tuesday as well. Maybe everyone was just sick.

Speaking of being sick, I am fairly certain that Matthew got me, and the rest of the family as well, sick. I think it is just a cold, but I hate being sick!

Today I tried to get a lot of homework done, but it just didn’t seem to be working out very well for me. I started the day with a meeting with the Football Boosters who want me to take care of their website this year. I told them sure, so now I’ve got to get someone going on some graphic design or something…

Then I was supposed to edit some dance music, but the girl said she was missing one of the required CDs. Oh well! I did end up meeting with Josh about renting ASB’s PA for some upcoming shows and he sounded very interested.

When I finally got home I tried to take care of the urgent emails/phone calls quickly, but it was after lunch before I finally got around to actually doing some school work. Fortunately, I was able to get through all of the reading that I had to get done and I got the written assignments done as well. Now I’m only about a day behind in all of my classes… I’m trying to keep up, but it only looks like it is going to be harder and harder with the schedules I have in the upcoming weeks.

Speaking of upcoming schedules: Install at GT on Monday if anyone is interested in helping out. Batch and I will be there; we’ll welcome any other help we can get. (CBC employees who actually work will of course be paid.)

While my brother is already starting to enjoy his five day weekend, I’m looking ahead and wondering when I’m going to get to sleep… We have Rainbow Connection, North Coast, GT Install and then wham it’s Tuesday and I’m back in school. I need a secretary! Oh yeah, and Alison is supposed to be “home” this weekend…

I’ve been watching a lot of Roswell lately. I think I just watched episode 1-09, “heat wave.” This episode was a little wacky, but I have enjoyed the rest. It’s no 24 though.

Speaking of 24, I downloaded this weeks episode this afternoon, but I think I am going to call it quits after this one. I think I might be able to hold off until the DVD comes out and then watch the rest of the season back to back.