Sleep cycles

During my time at college I have learned many things. Not many of them do I use everyday, but there are a few that I do.

A few months back I was reading an article online about sleeping. The article was talking about REM cycles and how they last on average about 1.5 hrs. The article said that when woken up during the middle of a cycle a person is usually more tired during the day than a person that wakes up at the end of a cycle. They also said that the average person needs 4-5 cycles per night to be considered "well rested".

When I found this out I decided that I would plan my sleeping times in 1.5 hr increments. So each night before would go to sleep I would quickly do the math and decide when I should get up. If it didn't fit the 1.5 hr increment I would stay up the extra 15- 50 min , so that I too could be well rested.

To my surprise I found myself more alert in class and work and it was also slightly easier to wake up in the mornings.

Since I got an iPhone the sleep cycles have been better because like the commercials say "there's an app for that". This application measures your movements in bed with the accelerometer in the phone determining when you are in the deepest sleep. (when in a deep sleep you move very little if at all).

To anyone that desires to have better sleep, wake up easier, be more alert during the day, or is just interested to see if it's true, I recommend that you give this 1.5 hr sleep cycle theory a try.

Yo Quiero Taco Bell

Late nights or early mornings, what ever is your preferred term, is the time when a college kid like myself usually gets hungry. Living in a college town where there are not too many choices for dinner or any sort of food after 10pm, finding something that doesn't get old is sometimes tough. With choices like McDonalds, burger king, taco bell, subway and betos you would think that the food would get old, but I found one that doesn't. Taco bell has become my fast food joint of choice.i don't really care if you think its gross, I DONT. I usually enjoy a Beefy 5 and a potato soft taco. A few months ago taco bell added a few new flavors to their sauces, but I am going to stick with the FIRE flavor.
So if you decide to ask me where I would like to eat you probably won't be surprised if you hear me say "yo quiero taco bell"

iPhone

Today I got an iPhone. It's a really good day. Haha. I think that its a super good investment. But... I lost all of my contacts so it's going to be an adventure getting them back into my phone. The most upsetting part is that I lost Jacqueline Marie Whiting's number. Hers is the most important to get back and I need to do it ASAP.

I am back with more blogging power than ever since I can do it straight from my phone. Cheers

Care Free Livin'

The other day as I was 'stumbling' I found this diagram that I feel represents the way I try to live my life.

You know what? Life often throws problems our way and challenges in our faces. One thing that I have learned and tried to do is not worry about it. We are oft times stressed to the MAX over things we don't have any control over, and we let that govern our lives. 

CHICKENS

A little while back I mentioned to my grandfather Ralph Wyatt that I would like to raise some chickens that I could get some eggs from, and that I could eat, and then he found some for me and brought them home.

I never really thought that I would ever kill a chicken, because it is a lot easier to run down to the local grocery store and pick one up. I am glad to say that I have helped raise, killed, and eaten a chicken. None of the sissy crap of going to Smiths or Wal Mart. 

I demonstrated how to be a man by cutting off the chicken's head, plucking its feathers, slicing n' dicing, and then finally shaking n' baking. I think I even threw in a little bit of dancing. It was a lifetime opportunity and I am glad I did it.

  

The 'Real' Chicken Dance

I bet this tastes DELICIOUS.

Ashley Howell helping out and looking good

MY JOB / INTERNSHIP

This summer has been tons of fun so far, and we are just getting into the best months.  For me, summer is the best because there is NO SCHOOL, and I just work. I think I am going to love being graduated and not having to do homework. Just work.

I thought I would let people know a little bit about what I do at work. This summer I am working at the Forage and Range Research Laboratory (FRRL). This lab is part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Agricultural Research Science (ARS). Yeah, thats right, Obama signs my paychecks. We do plant research. I work for a scientist named Doug Johnson, and a plant physiologist Kevin Connors. Its all pretty official business. 

Right now we have about a billion projects and studies going on, so there is never a dull moment, or time to take a nap..... oh wait maybe there is. (Dont tell, but I usually get a nap at least once a week at work). We have plants all across the state but my crew gets to chill around Logan most of the time.  We have plots that we frequent in Hyde Park, North Logan, Logan, Providence, Millville. Once a week we get to go to our plot down in Kaysville to keep up on the weeds and take pictures of the grass.

We are studying two different types of plants, Grasses and Legumes. The grasses that we study come from places such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and China. We are trying to find a drought tolerant plant that can be used as a turf grass, similar to the kentucky blue grass found in most landscapes but that uses less water. The legumes that we are studying come from places a lot closer to here such as the Great Basin, Nevada, and Arizona. These legumes we hope will one day be used in Ornamental Horticulture because as of today there are only two commercially sold ornamental legumes. 

SO.....Now that you have kinda the background story of the stuff I do I can tell you about a day in the life of me. Nevermind, that might be a little boring, I mean sometimes I fall asleep at work...because we are driving somewhere and I am just kickin' it in the back seat.

At the start of the year, even before school got out, I got a call from Kevin and he told me he needed help planting a few seeds and that he would rather have me come do it that hiring someone else for a few days. I took a few hours out of my day and helped do some of the planting. We took some germinated seeds with a pair of tweezers and but two in each cone-tainer.

After we did a few I found out that we needed to do only about 27,000 cone-tainers for all of the projects we needed to start this year. 

this picture is about a third of what we did. After we had them all planted we needed to nurture and care for them so the would grow big and strong. 

After they grew to about a height of about 4 inches we felt it was time to release them back into their natural habitat. They needed to be free.

We built them a great place to live that would be free from weeds and just a more happy environment for them. After Kyle and I laid the weed barrier and burned a bunch of holes we started planting the different studies. We have a bunch of these barriers in each of our plot locations. Some have as few as 200 plants, while others have 2500+ plants. Planting them sure was time consuming. The first 2000 went by pretty quick, and then I felt it just drug on forever.

But one day they will be beautiful plants?

And sometimes I get to practice my mountain man skills.

ouch! that probably hurts.

My Uniform

(This is just for viewing pleasure.)

LOVE MY LIFE, LOVE MY JOB

SUMMER KICK OFF / GOING AWAY PARTY

Friday Friday gotta get down on Friday. This weekend we had our 2nd Annual Summer Kick Off / Going Away Party for Thomas. Like last year, we gathered as a group of friends from USU, enjoyed laughs, smiles, burgers, and also mourned the moving away of one of our beloved friends Thomas (not pictured). Friends came from Logan and Salt Lake and met in the middle (Perry) for this lovely occasion.
Chef Tyler made some delicious burgers and franks, while everyone else brought a treat to share. Friends have been my favorite part of my college experience at USU, without these peeps and a bunch more life would suck. I have spent many wonderful hours with them, had many laughs, a few tears, and deep conversations. Thanks for being there. I am going to miss the ones that are graduating and moving on with life, GOOD LUCK! I hope maybe one day I will also be able to move on, but may we keep the friendships alive. #FF #loveyouguys