Cars and Brett

Brett and Jethro went to Geneva on Saturday to an auto show. So here are some of the pictures he took. I also promised you an interview with Brett. Well the other night he was working on something for work on his laptop on the couch and I was playing on my laptop at the desk about three feet away from him. But then he started instant messaging me, so we were having a good time talking to each other. (I love technology. But not as much as I love you. But I still love technology.) So then I started giving him his interview, and here it is for your viewing pleasure. Just know that we were a little silly that night, and this is unedited. Okay, it is edited. I totally took out the part where Brett mocked me about my huge zit. Because that was rude and uncalled for and shouldn't be shared with the world. So. Here you go:
Here's your interview. The Merrills want to hear your comments on your new job, what you think now about what you want to do next, and how you are feeding his hands-on hobby urges at your new place. {Thank you Merrills, for this most excellent question}
Hmmm, my new job makes me feel wonderfully inadequate because I know nothing about Denavit-Hartenberg transformations. I did make a little shelf/storage system for the kids out of scraps collected from the side of the road though. I think that I will have to make do with hiking and biking and such since I have no tools.

What about what you want to do next?

Robotics is pretty cool, not sure if I want to stick with it. There's something good about being able to go home and forget about all the woes of the day. Not sure where to find that outside of manual labor?

What do you mean? Explain something good about being able to go home and forget.

Uhhh, it's nice to be able to not think about work at home. If you go turn a wrench at some garage all day, or machine some part, you get to just forget about it when you go home. It's not hanging over your head like a deadline or some such nonsense. I guess you have to make a tradeoff between ulcers and money...
Favorite childhood t.v. show?

What's going on here?

Your interview.

Mmmm, A-team and Macgyver.
Has there been anything about being in Switzerland NOW that has disappointed you? Or surpassed your expectations?

Yes, skinny jeans. I guess they are popular in the US too, but I doubt to the same proportions one experiences here. I think my expectations of everything being expensive have been exceeded. Though I must admit that the used car market is quite deflated.
Skinny jeans disappointed you?

Well, I'm disappointed at seeing so many skinny jeans around.
Why are you looking at how other people fit into their jeans?

I simply don't like them.
And that wasn't what I meant by exceeded expectations. I mean, is anything BETTER--as in, more good--than you expected. And noted. No skinny jeans. I can't anyway - I am very bowlegged and would look ridiculous.

Well nothing is coming to mind.

How rude. I thought showing things to your wife and family would be wonderful.

That has nothing to do with exceeding expectations...
Anyway, moving on. If you could have any superpower for a week, what would it be?

I wouldn't have a superpower for a week, that's simply too short a time.

You're loony. And greedy. You should be grateful to get to experience your superpower for a week.

How about 10 days, can we work with that?

All right Greedyhead, 10 days.

You can't decide, can you.
In that case I would decide to be like that one guy in that movie where he can jump really high and his wife makes him weak.

What are you talking about?

I don't know. Let's move on.
Psycho. Alrightey. What do you think about before you fall asleep?

Usually nothing. I think this is why I fall asleep, it's so boring.

Okay then, what are your first thoughts upon waking up?

Muesli sounds good. If I've got something exciting planned for the day, I usually can't wait to get started on it.
List 3 of your best personality traits:

By the way, I must ask, is this diatribe going to be published in some way?

Really must you ask? By the way I just looked up diatribe and this is definitely NOT a bitter written attack on somebody.
Dependable, zuverlaessig, acreditado

English please, for those readers who have not brushed up on their German recently.

Well you didn't say it was going to be published. Besides, the last one is Spanish.
What in the world. ENGLISH POR FAVOR!

5

4

3

2

1

Sure, you don't have to yell. A little manners will go a long way with me. And what's with this 5 4 3 2 1 business.

Please, honey, would you be so kind as to answer the question?

What question are you talking about? I answered all your questions so far. I'm going to bed now.

We're not finished yet.

Goodnight.

Ruffff!

I thought we were sticking to English.

Please just stay for a little while longer?

Two more questions.
5 4 3 2 1
Too late.
How in the world did you ever get such an incredibly brilliant and gorgeous woman as myself to marry you?

I have no idea, it must have intrigued you that I would have the audacity to ask you to a junkyard on our first real date. Or maybe you were astounded by my intellectual prowess and amazing wit. Or, maybe it's just because you were so young and didn't know any better.
Next question. List 3 goals on your life's to-do list.

Build a plane. Race in a Baja 1000. Learn to swim better.

Goodnight.

Wait!!!

A few more!!

No.

Come on!

Ok, lets go.
Tell me something you miss about being a kid.
Playing with my brothers.

What do you love most about being married to me.
Having fun and just being my strange self.

And canoodling?

We've only been canoeing together once. We should go to Boundary Waters sometime. 5 4 3 2 1 Too late.

If you knew you were going to die tonight, what would you have for dinner?

I don't know. It's not that important. Maybe some homemade bread. My battery is dead I'm going to bed.



And that's the end of the interview. Although, I did get him to tell me tonight what he does at work. (This little entry makes him sound very smart, doesn't it? Good thing you have the above interview to set you straight.)

I work on surgical robotics for the ear. Deafness is sometimes caused by otosclerosis which can be a pathology of any of the three middle ear bones which transfer vibrations from the tympanic membrane to the oval window of the cochlea. This necessitates the removal of one of more of the bones. A stapidectomy is performed when only the incudostapedial joint is compromised. For this process, a surgeon uses a microforceps to crimp a prosthesis on the incus, which is then inserted into the oval window. This process often compromises the incus and we hypothesize that the reduction of the crimp force may improve the outcome. Therefore we are instrumenting forceps with force transducers to measure the crimp forces, in hopes that this will reduce incus necrosis.

If all of these bones are compromised, an electromechanical device is sometimes used to replace their functionality. Currently, surgeons must excise a large portion of the temporal bone to implant this prosthesis which amplifies sounds from the environment and localizes them on the cochlea. In order to reduce the morbidity of such an operation, we are seeking to implant the device in a single drill pass. The proximity of two important cranial nerves in the temporal bone prevent the surgeon from performing this procedure using a free hand drilling technique. Therefore, we are combining advanced imaging and surgical planning techniques with a robotic manipulator to perform this drilling process.

P.S. My little sister Lindsay HAD osteosclerosis and had to have some of her ossicles removed and replaced--can't remember which. And I was sooooo excited because she had her surgery right when I was in my Anatomy of the Ear class and I totally told them all about her, and she was such an anomoly because usually it doesn't happen to young people. And then when she came to visit I had her come into the class and show people how the tragus--the little flap thingee--was cut off where they went in. Pretty sweet.

about joy

I just came across this by Lynn A. Mickelson- love it:

While teaching at BYU in 1978, Brother Dennis Rasmussen applied and was selected to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. In the opening session, as he gave his name and university, Rabbi Muffs boomed, “You’re the Mormon! … Do you pay your tithing?” “Yes,” he answered. “Do you pay it with a joyful heart? I believe,” the rabbi said, “that joy is the essence of religion. There is nothing more fundamental to religious living than joy. … I am working on a book about joy.” Brother Rasmussen responded, “There’s a passage in the Book of Mormon … , ‘Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.’ ” 2 Ne. 2:25 Rabbi Muffs was profoundly touched and exclaimed, “I’ve found the text I’ve searched for all my life … in the Book of Mormon.” Turning to Brother Rasmussen he said, “Say it again, but not so fast.” As he repeated the familiar words, the rabbi’s eyes glowed in appreciation of this great truth he understood but had not heard so succinctly expressed.

How important it is to know the purpose of our existence. Man is that he might have joy, and that joy will come to us as we keep God’s commandments!

I have CUTE children.

        Talmage is so cute.  And mean.  He likes to hit the kids with things, often heavy things like Schliech toys, but also with his hands.  And today when he and Ethne were in the stroller together, he leaned back and stuck his finger up Ethne’s nose and made her cry.  Then he wouldn’t stop trying to do it again.  Rascal.  But OH so cute. I love him.  Looking at this picture just makes me want to SQUEEZE him! Ethne will squeeze him too.  Speaking of cute kids (I know, I always do), Ethne is adorable too.  I love how her piggy-tails stick out so much.  And I love her funny faces.  Funny faces for a funny girl.And her happy face is sooooo happy!  And cute.

Silly. Crazy.  (I told her that if she looked really hard she could see Dora in the camera –she was looking VERY hard.)

My personal favorite—oh how I LOVE this girl!  I LOVE this picture—her expression is perfect.  Just so sweet and cute and Ethne.  LOOOOOOOOVE it.  It’s going on my wall.

Okay, now I’ll talk about other things than how cute my children are.

I think my sister Kami is having her baby either right now or has already had it, or will shortly have it.  All I know is she went to the hospital this morning.  I’ll let you know.

So today was …well, let me just say that sometimes going on outings is fun and great, and other times you wonder if it’s worth the hassle.  Last night my friend Kathrin invited me to meet her and her daughter at the Museum of Natural History, to which I eagerly agreed.  However, I was racked by torment with trying to decide whether I should drive the van (driving to the neighborhood grocery store is quite a different thing than driving in the city) or take the bus.  Finally after Brett said I could just take Bus 10 all the way there right from our house, I decided to just do that.

So next day, meaning today, I get the children all rounded up, fed lunch, looking half-ways decent, out the door and onto the bus.  (Why do you always have to wait such a long time for a bus if you don’t need to buy a ticket (already have a pass) but when you have to buy a ticket, the bus comes right away?)  Anyhow, made it onto the bus by the skin of my teeth, locked the little stroller locks, sat down on the seat right behind the spot where the stroller was, except behind a little railing and sighed a little sigh of relief that I could now just sit and relax for awhile.  And then the bus went around a turn and then braked hard and the stroller containing Talmage and Ethne tipped over and crashed very hard against the floor.  Much screaming and crying ensued.  The poor kids – Talmage had a bloody lip, Ethne had a hurt foot and a goose egg on her noggin.  I gave Talmage a sippy cup of water to drink, and he still kept crying for quite some time.  Poor poor kids.

After a while I started wondering why it seemed like it was taking so long to get to the right place.  Then I thought that we were definitely not going towards the right place.  So I asked a lady behind me where the Museum was, and she said we’d passed it.  RUFF.  So I unloaded kids on the next stop, looked at the map for a second, then laughed at myself for even looking at it, called Brett and said “Tell me the name of the stop where I was supposed to get off!”  and he said, “Ooops, I was wrong about it being on our bus route—you have to get on the tram.”  So I said, “Okay, which tram?”  “X, or X, or X…” and I said, “Stop giving me choices and TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!”  Then he told me that he was actually in Bern right then so we could just meet at the Bahnhof (he had gone to the hospital to take measurements of  a surgery bed).  So I got on the bus and went to the Bahnhof (that’s the train station). 

I got off and walked just a tiny little ways and I saw Brett.  He didn’t see me yet, and I thought how good-looking he was and it was kindof cool to see him like that-- unexpected and in a different environment.  And I love him.  Especially when he happens to fly in to save me and put me on the right tram like some sort of super hero. 

So anyhow.  We made it to the museum and it was a good time and the kids got cranky after a while and then we went home and there was no supper made, but the kids were STARVING. TO. DEATH. so there was certainly no time to make anything, so we ate some leftovers, but there wasn’t much so by the time Brett got home he had nothing to eat because we didn’t even have any bread left.  But then we put Talmage to bed because he had missed his nap and was very cranky, and then we were all happy and were laughing because the kids were being super-duper silly, like saying, “Daddy!!  You’re pants are on fire!!!”  And then laughing their heads off when he acted surprised and yelled and hit his pants.  Good times.

Now I’m tired and must go and cuddle with my honey.  Tschuss.

I'm so proud

This is not actually a picture of our van, it's just a picture I got online. But it's what our van looks like.I'm so very proud of myself. I actually DROVE the van to the store to get groceries today. Now, this may not seem like such a feat, but when you realize how very wimpy I can be when it comes to driving sometimes (Kami told me I should go to counseling after I drove with her in Chicago once), it's a great feat indeed--I mean, a vehicle I've never driven in, in a COUNTRY I've never driven in. That's awesome. AND I only called Brett twice. The first time was, I admit, just a little silly.

Kayli: How do you turn on the van?

Brett: How do you turn it on?
Kayli: Uh, yeah.
Brett: You push in the clutch and turn the key...
Kayli: Clutch! -Right. Bye.

That pushing in the clutch step is tricky sometimes. Yes, I have driven manuals before.

The second call was not as silly, because I didn't know there is a button on the steering column you have to push to be able to take the keys out.

Anyhow. I drove down the street, speeding through those roundabouts like I'm a native, parked in the parking garage with scary-skinny parking spots, grocery shopped (though I forgot to bring a 2-frank coin, so I couldn't get a cart (though I did figure out that you can use one of the ones with a baby seat on them for free), and I forgot my bags), and went back home successfully. And how very very NICE it was not to push a grocery-laden stroller and two whiny children in the cold from the bus stop all the way (and it is a long way) to my house. Ahhhhhh, the sweetness of a vehicle in my life.

Also, I just thought I'd let you know that soon I will be interviewing Brett J Bell for this very blog, and so you're welcomed, nay, encouraged, to leave any questions for him in the comments. Anything at all--trivial or deep, whatever you've always wondered about the man. Such as, why he ever conceded to marrying a crazy redhead. (I'm sure it was a weak moment, but we all must pay for our weak moments.) ;) On that note, here is a little video of an interview that is sure to make you smile (Monty Python usually will).

Tell's Day

Early on, Talmage got started with a nice big breakfast. He evidently believes we starve him, and he had to take matters into his own hands.Then he had a nap.
When he woke up, he discovered his wonderful big sister Hazel had gotten home from school. So he had to go give her a huge push/hug, and she was laughing and playing, but then he thought--I'd better make sure she knows who's boss, so he bit on the back hard enough to draw a little blood. When he was reprimanded for this, he stuck his cute little bottom lip out and cried a few o'ffended' tears. Then he gave Hazel hugs and kisses (with a perfect little kiss noises).

Then he got into mischief of varied kinds, such as emptying the toilet paper roll onto the floor, dragging pots and pans to random places in the house, and other routine things.

Then he was dressed up as a girl. (What a PRETTY little girl!)
Still later, he almost got squashed to death in an unfortunate dresser-tipping-over-on-top-of-him incident, made possible by his partner-in-crime Ethne, who was climbing up the dresser in order to find her swimming suit. (I used my super-mom strength to lift the dresser up off of him. And he was fine by the way.)

Then he got to eat some more, take a bath, and get put to bed early. A good day indeed.

Some sights

Jethro and Hazel built this out of blocks and they called it the Kingdom of God and played for a long time battling Satan’s army and things like that. It was intense.

Since we actually found TWO desks on the side of the road (I think I said one, but there were actually two identical ones), and we only needed one, Brett borrowed a saw from a guy in the ward and remade one of them into a toy shelf thingee for the kids. It’s pretty awesome and Talmage had a great time helping Daddy drill holes.

Ethne had a bit of a fever the past few days, and she took a nap those few days. One day I peeked in to see her with her little piggy-braid standing straight up. So Brett picked up our van on Thursday and we bought some carseats and on Sunday afternoon we went for a drive (we also drove to church in the morning, and despite having lots of extra time because we didn’t have to walk to the bus and then from the bus to the church, we ended up being five minutes late—why does that always happen?). It was awesome. We felt FREEEEEEEE! And we saw some beautiful Swiss countryside and views of the Alps. We parked at a little place where there was a very short walk up to an overlook and this was the view (picture the next five pictures panoramic-style in your head):

Gorgeous, isn’t it.

And then we drove around some more, taking in the beauty.

While going home, we got on the wrong road for a little while, so we stopped at this old monastery and looked around and Brett looked at the map. The girls were asleep by this time, so they aren’t in the pictures. I thought it was a quite cool.

And the view of a mountain from that spot. Beautiful. I love having a vehicle!! I love Sunday drives!!! I love seeing more of Switzerland! I love my family. :)