Dental School Update Map

View Larger Map

Google is so handy! In just a few minutes I was able to make a map of all the places I have heard back from, just so you guys can be in the know about how things stand with my applications for dental schools. I'll update after each interview with my impressions about the school, city, people, etc.

My first interview is next week at University of Florida!!!

I feel lame for posting this

I saw this on post secret. It's definitely a scary thought. And I love the infinity symbol, oh so nerdy, no wonder this poor chap feels this way.

Summer Fair Entries

So, every year I enter some photos in the Davis County fair. I'm not going to lie, I have a love/hate relationship with the judges. They really make me angry. Last year, I entered one of my favorite photos ever, but someone gave me the wrong ribbon (first place was clearly circled on the paper). A few years ago, I didn't have a single photo place, but I somehow managed to win the special prize for the best macro photograph of the entire fair. The prize was given out by an independent judge from the Nikon corporation. For the record, one of the judges told me that he didn't like my use of depth of field in the photo. I think I'll dig around on the hard drive and find a copy of it...


In any case, that's all in the past. This year, I'm pretty proud of my entries. Here we go!

The final result for this photo was a third place. The judges said they liked my execution of the image, but that the cropping wasn't tight enough. They wished I had cut and inch or so off the right side so that the half leaf wasn't there to detract from the composition of the picture. Very sound advice, if you ask me.


This photo did not place. I was told that the focus wasn't sharp enough, and that the lighting was too flat. Also, it might have been too much of a close up.



This photo received a second place. As I predicted, the judges wanted to see a longer depth of field. One judge told me that the photo was "heavily unbalanced" with the left side of the bottle out of focus like it was. He suggested showing both sides of the bottle to add more balance to the image. I was also told, even though I think it is a cop out, that images are judged on subject recognition, and that it was difficult to determine what this photo was. What does it look like, fool?

Seriously, have you seen this!?!

Okay. I'm officially creeped out by the people at Google. I'm beginning to believe the rumor that they are trying to take over the world. If you don't believe me, try the following:

1) Click Here.

2) Type in your address.

3) Click the "Street View" button up at the top of the window.

4) Clean up the wet spot where you were sitting.

Things I've Learned in Four Years of College

This list is by no means comprehensive, and I hope to keep adding to it. I hope you find it enlightening!

1. Googling your professors can sometimes yield scary results.

2. Construction on the Marriott Library will never, ever be finished.

3. The second class of the day is always the easiest one to fall asleep in.

4. Three slices of the Mountain of Meat pizza from The Pi will make you sick. There is just no getting around it...

5. The best time to get a spot in the stadium parking lot is at 9:32 am.

6. You can paint a wall with a hammer, but it will take you a long time, and it will look like crap.

7. Always park close to a light post so you can easily find your car. (When this fails, keyless entry can be of help, but you have to walk up and down the lanes. If that doesn't work, start smacking the panic button for all you are worth.)

8. Physical chemistry is of the devil, and Schrödinger was possessed.

9. Boogers are a fact of life.

10. A textbook will always be required if the professor wrote it.

11. If your professor wrote your textbook, get on amazon and buy a different one.

12. Carbon only makes four bonds, but a Texas Carbon is special and can make five...

13. If at all possible, don't use any of the restrooms in any of the physics buildings, as it must be department policy to never flush.

14. Math is easy when there are more letters than numbers. When there are more Greek letters than Roman letters it starts not being so much fun. You can completely ignore anything that comes past delta, except maybe pie.

15. To keep the universe balanced, any professors that you enjoy during class lecture time you will hate outside of class when doing homework and during exams.

I don't need a song like this right now...

I heard this song the other night at about 2 AM as I was driving home from the library. I can't even begin to tell you how much it is exactly how I feel right now. So incredibly frustrating... ugh.

I'd just post the video here, but the formatting looks really crappy because the YouTube box is like 3 pixels too wide, and I cant figure out how to make it smaller...

I'm Not Over - Carolina Liar

It only look 4 months...

Yeah, so I just applied to take the DAT. The application itself isn't very difficult, but the hard part is deciding what schools you want your scores sent to. It's the first step in a long journey. Here are the schools I picked, based on admission requirements, last year's acceptances of U of U students, and of course geographical location (yeah, I guess you can tell that I'm not a big fan of the south).

Arizona School of Dentistry
Boston University
Case Western Reserve University
Indiana University
Loma Linda University
Marquette University
Ohio State University
Temple University
Tufts University
University of Connecticut
University of Florida
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
University of Pacific
University of Pittsburgh
Virginia Commonwealth University

Girls w/Guitars are Hot!!!

If you know me, then you probably know of my seemingly undying love for chicks who sing and play the guitar. Let's just say it's a weakness of mine... A couple of weeks ago one of my favorite artists stopped in Salt Lake City for a show. Kate Voegele is an amazing musician, that I have really come to appreciate. I'm really disappointed with artists that don't write their own music (just about any pop singer), or that don't actually play the guitar as they would have you believe (ahem, Colbie Caillat). In any case, I had an amazing time at Kate's show. The first opening guy, Kelley James, played a few songs. At first, I wasn't sure if there was going to be enough room for his ego and all of the dreamy eyed teenage girls. It turns out there was, but just barely. Kelley had a style that reminded me of Jack Johnson's music, mixed with Jason Mraz's quick witted lyrics. For one of his songs threw down a verse completely improv (based on a sorority and peanut butter, which were just randomly thrown out by the audience), that I enjoyed. I really liked his song "In Between," and would recommend taking a listen to it.

The second band, was completely forgettable in my opinion... I think their name was "The Whitest Light" but I can't be sure. In my opinion, they were a bit too loud for the kind of concert. I'm fairly certain that had they been playing with bands more similar to their style I would have payed more attention. Not that it really matters, because as they played, I was having a Corona in the bar.

I don't really want to harp on how much I enjoyed Kate's music, so all I'm going to say is that my favorite songs were "I Won't Disagree" and "Devil In Me" although I really do like all of her music. Honestly, her CD is just ones of those that I can listen to it all the way through and not get bored. It's fantastic!

I hung around after the show and got Kate to sign her CD for me. Her concert manager (or whatever his official title happened to be) was kind enough to take our picture. Actually, he was kind enough, to take three photos: one of his finger, one of Kate looking the other way, and the following one. I look like an idiot, because I'm in the middle of saying, "No, you just have to push the button down harder!" Isn't that always how it works!?! But, hey, I figure that Kate more than makes up for how bad I look.

Old photo, new tricks

So, I took this photo about three years ago. However, at the time I was completely clueless about all things having to do with photoshop and photo editing. It doesn't matter how hard you try to take *amazing* pictures straight out of the camera, because in reality no matter how good your photo is, you can always make it look better in photoshop. I decided to revisit my old photo, and use some of the tricks I've learned to see what I could come up with.

Happy Presidents' Day!!!

I'm very glad to have a long weekend (even though it isn't until next week), courtesy of Washington and Lincoln. Kudos to those dudes, I appreciate the extra day of sleep. In light of this wonderful holiday, I'm uploading a photo that I took this afternoon while working on an assignment for my photo class. I'm not really sure how it happened, but somehow I got this amazing photo. For me, I think the coloring makes this one fantastic.

Back to Business

My original intention for this blog was a place to showcase some of my photos. I haven't really done as much of that as I'd have liked to... but today's a new day, and I'm going to post a couple of photos.

This semester I'm taking a digital photography class so I can fulfill the fine art general education requirement, otherwise I wouldn't be able to graduate this May. Our first assignment was due on wednesday, and we'll have a critique on everyones' photos tomorrow. I'm really excited for this, and I'm not exactly sure why. I definitely got out of my comfort zone for this project. We were supposed to use depth of field to help portray the emotions of disdain, distrust, and resistance. Emotions are hard to portray, whether you do it abstractly, or have your friends come over and make faces for you to take pictures of. Usually, I take photos of things that are pretty, don't move around a whole lot, and most assuredly don't express emotion. (Not to say that you can't use an object to illicit an emotion from someone.) Nevertheless, I think my photos turned out pretty well. Please post a comment and tell me your favorite one, and why.