Soooooo, blogging....

Its been quite awhile (to say the least) since I've blogged.  Let me give you the quick run-down of all that's happened (and there's been a LOT):

23 May - Graduated! Met the Prez, left the Springs

8 June - MARRIED

9 June - honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, week at the time-share courtesy of Gramma and Grampa Lavity (spelled how i say it, not how i write it: G&G Hlavaty)

End of June - Beginning of July - SPAIN vacay with the Mrs  --  Rota, Madrid, Barcelona, Cordova

11 July - get 1st dog!  "Welcome to the family, Cooper"

22 July - leave Cache Valley

23 July - arrive in Albuquerque at Kirtland AFB for 1st Duty Station
26 July - move into 1st House (on-base)
24-26 Sept - 1st TDY! (Temporary Duty, aka Business Trip or Training Trip) to MIT (Boston!)
19-28 Nov - 3rd Thanksgiving out of the country (first 2 were spent in Taiwan) - Mexico with the Fam!

5 Dec - 1st major contribution at work: an Innovative-Research-Programs Fair
8 Dec - 2nd major contribution at work: ran/planned/MC'd the office holiday party

Now, I might try and go back and blog about some of these events in more depth (like maybe, the wedding?) and I didn't get to ALL the happenings (like the numerous camp-outs, adventures, great meals, cute-puppy-moments, etc that deserve blogging) but I will summarize and say that life has been amazing: amazingly exciting, rewarding, challenging, frustrating, fun, and memorable.  

I will also say, if you haven't checked out my wife's new blog about our lives (curtisandkyliehansen.blogspot.com) (click it!) its a must, and I would recommend that you visit it both immediately and frequently (respectively) as she is awesome.

I'm going to try and blog more (probably) so look forward to retro-active posts on big events, daily life posts, and maybe even in-depth posts on all the laser physics I've been learning/attempting to learn.

Until then, much love from the land of enchantment!

T40

Geeeeeeeez -- got done with my last day of classes, and am 1 final away from being done with my undergrad!!!!!!

Let me bring you into my world for a second so you can understand what T40 is.  You see, the Academy is run by Congress (read: they pay the bills) and the taxpayer needs to get his dollar's worth out of us, so our academic year runs a bit longer than most colleges.  With 160 days of class, this academic year began on August 4th, and ran all the way til today (ok, we had a 3 week Christmas break, and a 1 week Spring Break, but who's counting?) (also, to whomever is counting, please also count the two Saturdays my school held class this year as well -- thanks!)
So essentially, its been a long 4 years.  Our schedule is split up into a two-day schedule (so a set of classes on 'M' days and a set of classes on 'T' days, and the days rotate)  With 40 lessons per each day of classes, the lessons are all numbered, starting with M1, then T1, etc etc.  So today was T40 -- and life feels good.

So a few more days til my last final, and a plane trip home :)  then a few weeks until graduation, then another few weeks and I'm marrieddddddddddd!  what?  the wedding website (LINK!) says we're down to 34 days now, so life is exciting and moving fast!

love you all, can't wait to see you soon!

Spring Break 2012: CHINAAAAAAAAAAAA

You lucky peeps got a preview of this trip in a previous post, but guess what -- IT REALLY HAPPENED!

Grape & Peach Flavor Oreos

Thats right, they tasted like Oreos dunked in FunDip.  yum?

This was our crew, me and the four students on the right (all seniors, all adventurers) plus our fearless professor (not his best picture, sorry 博老师）

We visited a lot of different places over in/near LiJiang (super south-western China)

Lake Lugu 泸沽湖

Canyon to Lake Lugu

玉龙雪山 Jade Dragon Mountain -- western edge of Himalayan Mts 

Ate great foooooooood

we ate these all the time -- 串 "Chuar".  This one is wild mountain pig :)

Chinese Snickers Ad

Mom would have loved this fresh yogurt with strawberries, or the chocolate bread :) SOOOO good.

This was just a crepe.  Banana.

And met all sorts of awesome people/cute kids

Little dude next to where I bought that mountain pig kabob.

This looked like something my bro would paint, snapped on the fly from the van!

Little dudette in traditional MoSuo clothing -- she was cool

Not a person.  Dog at our main guest house.

Funny little old man that carved this sign for our house.  It says "Hansen Residence"

So we had a great time, ate delicious food, bought cool stuff, and met fun people.  We had some pretty hilarious stories too, and I'll just share one :)

Traveling back was pretty adventurous, our flight from LiJiang to Kunming (first leg of the flight home) was delayed a few hours, so we got to the airport after midnight -- which meant the taxi's doubled their prices.  Our hotel was super close to the airport so we decided to walk.  We walked out of the airport with our bags still on the airport cart and walked down the side of the road.  Hopping curbs with baggage carts isn't easy, but we managed.

walking in the dark, the cart is on the left of the screen

We showed up to the hotel, and the people acted mostly casual, until the bellhop guy was leading us to our rooms and muttered to himself, "...a baggage cart??".  We took a taxi back the next morning, so had no choice but to leave it in our room.

It fit perfect in that little corner.

So that was a basic overview of the trip.  If you want to hear more stories, corner me and I'll talk your ear off, ok?  Deal.  Going home in a few days, so you might just get a chance then :)

再见！

Kingdom Rush -- hours and hours of my hours

http://armorgames.com/play/12141/kingdom-rush

Tower defense games are all about strategy -- and that explains why I have spent 528 minutes playing this game in the last few days... haha, you build towers (barracks, archer tower, mage tower, or artillery tower) and upgrade them as you earn da money (from killing the bad guys) the guys are sent in waves and all have different characteristics (some are slow and have a ton of armor, some are resistant to magic, etc).  You win by surviving all the waves without letting more guys through the ending point (blue flags in the pic) than you have lives (number of hearts, in this case - 13).  If you have free time to blow and/or love strategy, give this game a shot!!!!!!  You'll love it :)

life is life is life :)

Life is about learning, and working, and growing.  Its not always easy, but it gets easier when you keep the right mindset and when you step back and look at the big picture and can just feel how good you've got it.

Other things that make life awesome, despite the suck:

• Good music!
• Checking list stuff off
• Jumping out of planes :)
• Sharing a laugh -- like a DANG GOOD laugh
• hearing about people you care about's successes
• puppies (hint hint)
• tender mercies
• cookies (another hint)
• surprises
• etc

So never let yourself get too focused on the suck, because there's just so much other stuff to enjoy :)

"人的心里不好受，就得哭 -- 哭完了，你还得上路".             

-Fearless      

Spring Break Plans: Ethnic China

Leaving on the afternoon of Wednesday 21 March, I will depart USAFA with 4 fellow students and our trusty Chinese teacher Mr. Boyd headed for the rural parts of China to research ethnic minorities existing in China.  

The trip is still pretty skeletal, meaning full of zombies, but all we know is that we're leaving on the 21st and returning on Sunday, the first of April.  So far we have 2 destinations, both in the YunNan Province:  (read: next to Burma)

Th first stop is LiJiang's "Old City" Area -- an 800yr old city, that is now kind of an asian-take on a "hipster town."  We're focused more on China's 'official' and promoted images of their ethnic minority groups, even watching a cultural production made by Zhang YiMou (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) see some highlight clips of the production here: link.  

Next we'll be visiting the geo-thermic region of TengChong, peopled by the LiSu minorty group (link).  I don't know much about this area, or this people, but it looks pretty epic.

Other possible destinations include to the MoSuo tribe, one of the last matriarchal societies still in existence (cool article here: link).  There has also been chat about hiking in to a more remote village and staying the night among the people (trying to not hold my breath for this one, sounds too cool to be true)

So I'll let you know more as the plans get more concrete!  加油！！

hypocrite/hypochondriac

I follow a few blogs.  And I realize that the slight let-down slash frustration I feel when they still haven't updated their blog isn't really justified because I haven't done so myself.  So this is my way of trying to gain back that right to whine :)

Also, I've been battling a 'hall of fame' sore throat for a few days, even spending 16 hours in bed on Tuesday (it was awesome).  I don't get sick that often (knock on wood) so when I do I usually look waaaaaaaaaay too far in to it.  I mean, I usually can conclude, based on symptoms I've half-convinced myself that I really have, that:

A) That I'm Dying   

B) Have Cancer

C) Both A & B

So, yeah.  haha, but don't worry -- I'm making a miraculous recovery!