Lab Staffers

Jensen Baby #2

2007-03-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that we had another daughter a couple weeks ago. McKenna Bonita Jensen was born on March 15th, was 8 lb. 6 oz., 19 1/2 in. long, and everyone is doing great!

We bought a house last year in Provo, west of Geneva...so we'll be around here for awhile....

I'd love to hear from you guys - I miss the good old days in the lab.
My email is: jensen1018@gmail.com

Hope you all are doing well!

Relocated Lab

2007-02-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

The TNRB 360 lab has been relocated to the newly remodeled portion of the JKB which is across the street from the tanner building. Here are a couple pictures of the new lab.

If you look at the picture above, you can see that the far wall is dividers. Originally the lab was supposed to be all one long large room, however, in a last minute change they decided to keep the other half of that room to be used as a classroom and made us split the lab into two rooms that are down the hall from each other.

We have some nice new equipment and are still working on tweaking parts of the new image, but we're getting there.

(Top) Half of the new lab, (Left Bottom) The new large front desk area, (Right Bottom) Other half of the lab

Computer Lab - 1989

2006-11-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

Here's the good old lab back in the day! Notice Gabe and me (Tres) in the front, and I think that's Bob in the back on the right side. Those are some sweet machines.

Wheatley Summer Fun 2006

2006-11-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

We haven't had too many new posts for a while, so I thought I'd update what we've been up to. We'd love to hear how everyone else is doing, so keep those posts coming.

We had a great summer. We purchased a National Parks Pass and went crazy visiting National Parks this summer. To make it worth the cost, you need to visit a couple National Parks within a year. We started visiting the parks and couldn't stop! We loved it!

Below are some highlights from the parks we visited. Consider it a very short sideshow. (Be thankful you didn't have to sit through the whole show of pictures like I made the extended family sit through.)

Autumn at the Grand Canyon

Zion National Park

Yosemite
(Hopefully, my head will never be as bare as Half Dome)

Yellowstone

Sequoia National Park
(There's a bear in the meadow to the right of Autumn's hand)

KPMG - Silicon Valley

2006-09-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

Sad to say... but my days at the lab are done. I just started work at KPMG in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, I won't be paid to surf the internet. This job requires skills!

http://candidbyu.blogspot.com

2005-11-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

http://candidbyu.blogspot.com My other blog for my candid opinions on how I feel about some really weird issues at BYU and other things.

Never Lose Another Document

2005-10-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang,

You all probably know about this, but I thought I'd make mention of it anyway. I came across a word processor called Writely (https://www.writely.com). It has the functionality of a word processor, but you can share your documents with others. So if a group is working on a paper, you can have one location for the document, track changes made by your collaborators, save as a Word document, and print all from the web.

You can also publish your documents to the Internet or to those whom you choose within Writely. You can also post to various blogs, and it's FireFox friendly!

Another plus is that it has spell check similar to Gmail's spell check. If you enter the site through https instead of http, your editing and saving will be encrypted.

Anyway, thought that might be useful for those of you still in school and working on group projects. Although I'm sure that none of you have ever had a group member forget to print the paper, or have their computer crash on them when they had most recent copy, right?

What's the deal with KPMG?

2005-10-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

Alright Team Labstaffers:

Thomas has consistantly peppered my email box with blog invites so I'll give in and give a shout out. Since leaving the labstaff, I've relocated back out in my hometown Naperville (right outside Chicago) working for KPMG (like everyone else it seems). Amazingly, I found a beautiful girl to say "sure" to marriage about a year ago and we're just enjoying our time out here....eg...seeing the Cubs return to their lovable losing ways and enduring below O temps in the winter.....but seriously, things are good. Miss all you guys....Drop me a line sometime.....Oh yea...my wife's brother in law is brothers with John Brown...So I guess we're related? Sick.

Who'd Have Thought?

2005-09-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

Who'd have thought that yours truly would ever visit Microsoft? I've been up in Seattle working on a project, and Mike Arnesen took me on the grand tour of the area. You might think it weird to visit Microsoft, but hey, why not? I thought I might stop by and ask someone a question about why Word was acting funny on my computer. You know, go straight to the source.

http://www.wheatleyfamily.net

Jammin' to the Oldies

2005-08-31T17:06:00.000-07:00

"And the band began to play..."

As you know, Mike and I work for an accounting firm. We were out on assignment auditing the reliability of the video games in an arcade when low, our eyes beheld the legendary three-button stratocaster guitars. We had to fulfill our auditing assignment and test every game in the whole place, but once we found the guitars, we were on the stairway to heaven. Okay, so maybe not. We did however have a training in Seattle and had a group activity afterwards at an arcade. Believe it or not, Ripley, but the guitar game was really cool!

Rock on!

Future Lab Staffers

2005-08-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

Check out my own blog at http://king-family.us for exciting news!!

2005-08-05T07:40:00.000-07:00

Hey, so Kelly and I are getting married next week :-) on the 11th of august. The reception is at thanksgiving point in the hidden falls from 7 to 9 pm for all those of you who would like to attend.

New Way to Post Pictures

2005-08-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! You can now post pictures more easily through the site instead of having to download two different programs to do it.Here's how to quickly post pictures to your news updates:

Log into blogger.
Select this blog.
Select to create a new post under the "Posting" tab (or edit an old post).
Once in editing view, click on the "Add Image" icon (looks like a little picture).
Browse to your picture location on your hard drive.
Select your picture(s) one at a time.
Upload your pictures.
Click "Done" in the upload window you were using. It's that easy!

Tres & Mike in San Francisco

2005-07-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, it's me Tres. I am currently living in San Jose doing an internship this summer for KPMG. A few days ago I was at a Giants Baseball game in San Fransisco. While at the game, I decided to walk to the top of the stadium to see the view of the bay. When I got to the top I couldn't believe who I ran into...

I first noticed some guy standing at the very top of the stadium wearing a shirt just like the one Mike Arnesen used to wear nearly every day. For those of you who don't know, Mike only has two shirts--an orange one, and the seattle mariners shirt that I saw on this man. Seeing that Mike lives in Seattle, I figured it wasn't him and I started up the stairs to the top. As I got closer I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, standing before me, in the exact spot I was headed for, stood the devil himself--Mike Arnesen. In the spirit of San Fran, we both stood in a silent embrace as we contemplated the power of MSM 360 TNRB—ok, it was more like a silent slap on the shoulder, ok we didn’t touch each other at all and there wasn’t a moment of silence. But boy were we surprised to happen to run into each other. We kept trying to figure the statistical chance of us meeting but we couldn’t make any sense of it. Dumbfounded, we sat and watched the game.

Wedding Announcement --The Carolyn Version

2005-07-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

I am forced to wonder why Bethany, being the last of the three labstaffers to tie the knot, is the first to have her announcement on the blog. I suspect that Jason and I are just slackers, but I should only speak for myself. I'm a slacker. But anyway, here's the blessed announcement. :-)

Bethany and Matt's Wedding Announcement

2005-07-09T11:14:00.001-07:00

KPMG Labstaff

2005-07-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

Tres, Dan, and Mike at the KPMG Training/Service event in Seattle. We counted 8 Labstaff (that we know of) now working at KPMG:

Dan King - Orange County
Greg Barton - Chicago
John Brooks - Orange County
Mike Arnesen - Seattle
Taylor Hall - Portland
Thomas Wheatley - Salt Lake City
Tim Richards - San Francisco
Tres Larsen - Silicon Valley

So if you want to continue to work with great labstaff people, go to KPMG!

Tony's Blonde Moment

2005-06-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

So, I came into work today, excited for another day at the lab. I helped a student send his LISP project to print. It never ends, does it? I don't even know how many times I've done that assignment...moving on.
The funny thing was, everytime we sent this student's job to print, only blank pages printed. Curious, no? So I thought for a sec and thought I'd check the toner. Not to be confused with the Tony..... moving on. And lo and behold, Tony, when replacing the toner, had not removed the clear strip that keeps the toner from turning all around it black. Unfortunately, that also causes the printer to print blank pages. So, lesson to all: don't let Tony change the toner.
Joking!!!! :-P I'm quite sure it was Muke, anyway. He's still bitter....

The Return of the Mac

2005-06-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

Christian, Jason, Bethany, and the Mac Mini

Long has the lab waited in darkness. Desperate were the times and dark was the hour, but at the time of our greatest need, the one true OS returned.

It was not an easy road back. The journey was difficult, yet during the dark times, there emerged a new hope, Muke.

Muke set the chess board pieces into motion. Yes, his story is long and filled with deep horrors, the telling of which we must save for another day. Nevertheless, it is perhaps neveragain that we will see the likes of Muke in the lab, but we know that he has tried relentlessly to get our attention and to bring balance back to the lab. Oh, if only his shoes could talk!

Photoshop Pyramid Picture

2005-05-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hey previous labstaff (notice I didn't say "old" labstaff)! I found this while cleaning a drawer out and thought you might enjoy a trip down memory lane...

Happy Star Wars Day!

2005-05-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

Happy Star Wars Day! Yes, the wait is over; the movie is finally here. Now, I know you're all as excited about film. You have been visiting the Star Wars website and TheForce.net to get updates on the film. You've been practicing your lightsaber techniques and watching the Star Wars movies in a movie marathon.

Now that you are well versed in Star Wars lore, below are links to a few articles that might be of interest as you prepare to see the new movie. You can also test your Star Wars knowledge here on a CNN quiz. See if you are a Jedi Master.

Entertainment Weekly has an article showing the timeline of events in the evolution of the films that is quite interesting. The site also has an article (with a few spoilers) that shows among other things the help Steven Spielberg gave for the film. You also might like to know that a Star Wars television series is in the works from another article.

Happy movie going!

Oh, bytheway, Darth Vader thinks he can read your mind.

Hello from Hong Kong

2005-05-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

Ni hao. The picture shows my dad and I in front of the Hong Kong Temple. We're in Taiwan right now and are at the end of the trip. We visited mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as part of a business trip. We saw a number of factories and attended two gigantic trade shows.

The people here are so wonderful. When at church, one brother explained how he and his wife were out and he had to step away from his wife for a minute to load the car or something like that. A woman came up to his wife and said, "welcome to our country." We met a few people from Thailand. One of them invited us to visit Thailand sometime and called it the "land of smiles."

--- Labstaff from 2000-2005 ---

Bird Update

2005-04-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hello labstaffers!

I worked in the lab before my mission. The end of '97-'98 and then again when I returned home; '00-'02. It's good to hear your doing so well Johnny B!

After graduation--April 2002, we moved to Chicago (Lisle) for five months and I worked at a quilting shop learning the lost art of our grandmothers. We returned to Orem in the fall and I worked as a nanny while my husband worked on his schooling. In Feb. '03 our son Packer was born and I retired from working to be a stay at home mom. In April '03 we moved to New York (Hauppauge) and lived there for five months while my husband managed a office selling home security systems. Once again in the fall we returned to Orem and Rich finished his degree in Technology Management. After gradtuation in December of '03 we moved to Oceanside, California for yet another season of home security sales. After finishing that season we moved back to Utah and Rich began looking for work. In July 2004 he was hired by Interwest Contruction as a Project Manager. We have been living in Salt Lake City for the last year and have just purchased our first home in Riverton. We're excited to be in our own place. Rich loves his job and we love that he's home by 5:00pm each night for dinner. In November of 2004 we were blessed with another addition to our family and we had a little girl, Hanna.

The kids are great and I enjoy being home with them. That degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development has paid off over and over again!

Hope life is treating you all well!

Calling all Old Farts (pre-'95)

2005-04-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

Where are you? I just read these postings from young guns who I don't know. When you post, it would be great if you'd mention the year you will or did graduate and what your connections are to the lab. See, I am Tres' oldest sister. I started in the lab in 1988--most of you were in diapers and Bob was a young Dad with a full head of hair (kidding). We had Macs in the lab and the back room was the "Print Room." We had a sign to keep all MBAs from getting behind the desk where the paper and cash register were. They thought they owned the place and we ALWAYS made fun of them. Back then there were 2 separate jobs, TAs and Monitors. Our check-in system was not even compurterized. We had colored tags for each computer. Those were the days.

I graduated in Humanities in '92. I have since lived in Chicago, Dallas, and now Denver. Amazingly, everywhere I have lived I have found people I knew from the lab. Mostly users whose faces were familiar. I have always been grateful for my experience there and for the friends who made life great.

Where are you--Kenny Fong from Hong Kong, Milton Maldenado, Leslie Merkely, Sam and older Bro Katzenback, multi-colored hair Bob Peterson, Adam O., Russ Smith, Kurtis Williams, Steve and Troy, and many more...

There are many people I would love to be in touch with from those times. Bob probably has emails for many of the old farts. Has someone emailed them?

This is a fun idea. Thanks for making it happen.
Kristen

What The Labstaff Blog Can't Do Without

2005-04-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I feel the labstaff blog would be somewhat lacking if it didn't include a link to my fire website. I know this isn't part of the current labstaff lore, or of that before me, but still, this is sorely needed.

http://www.christianfarmer.net/fire.html

That being said, I just quit my job at nuskin, mass emailed the whole company to say 'goodbye' including all of the presidents, which I assume has never been done by a lowly tech support rep before, and man oh man did it feel SO GOOD! Never has there been a happier moment in my life that I can recall.

Greetings from ‘The OC’

2005-04-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

The journey from MSM Labstaff to OC resident has been a long and joyous experience. I never thought that life post-BYU could ever be as fulfilling or as rewarding, but as I soon learned, life outside of P-Town is okay. First, for those of you who do not know me, I served in the Lab from 1998 – 2002. Those years I look back on fondly; where else can you get paid to watch reruns of Matlock while helping students format their word documents and figure out those tricky page numbers? Where else can you purchase caffeinated drinks on BYU campus? Nowhere else but 360 Tanner Building. For those who currently work as labstaffers, enjoy your tour of duty!

For me, my tour of duty ended late April 2002. I left Provo (married for four years and childless) and my wife and I headed towards California, with a short detour in Austin, Texas. While visiting relatives in Austin, I was enlightened by my brother in law’s experiences with the Peace Corps, and decided to put on hold my job offer with KPMG in Orange County CA to join the Peace Corps for a year. After gentle persuasion, my wife agreed and we left our families and all belongings to spend a year in Africa. I want to say that we had a great spiritual experience, but it was not in our cards. Upon reaching Africa we found that our luggage had been destroyed in what the airlines called a ‘freak conveyor belt accident’. Unfortunately, things did not get better over the course of the year—illness, temporary blindness, amputation, and the birth of our son in what could only be described as a tent in the jungle—but, alas we pushed on and finished our service.

Returning to the states, I joined my firm and we bought a place to live in Aliso Viejo, CA. We thought we had finally realized the American Dream and were being blessed for a tough first year post-graduation. However, one year into our first home, we were informed that the reason why my son and my wife had been sick for so long was due to the mold infestation within the walls of our new home. After a fruitless plight to ABC Extreme Home-Makeover and several phone calls to Ty Pennington, we sold our house and moved to Irvine, CA. I still work for KPMG as a Senior Information Systems Auditor and have a second job working the nightshift at the local Del Taco (I had to take the second job to pay for the new house and the hospital bills incurred due to the mold).

Regardless of our past trials, Laurie, Clayton and I are living the American Dream. Life in the OC is truly as it is depicted on TV, and despite what my marriage counselor says, I think things are bound to get better. Hope that things are going well for all of you “labstaffers” past and present.

2005-04-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

Here we are in Los Angeles...we live in Marina del Rey (the city you see in the background). We are loving it down here and hope all is well in P-town. . .

Labstaff BBQ

2005-04-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

We recently held the end of semester labstaff party. Tres cooked up some tasty grub! Among the labstaff that attended, we had two junior labstaffers (babies) present with another on the way. This year has the most babies and expecting mothers we've had in a long time--Two expecting mothers (one staff and one spouse of a staff) and two babies.

It seems like the labstaff move together in phases: most of the lab staff are single, then we have a wave of engagements and marriages, and then once the babies start coming, most of the staff graduate, and it starts all over again.

Lab Blog RSS Feed

2005-04-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

Add an RSS feed to your My Yahoo page or My MSN page, so you can easily see if new posts are made to the lab blog from your Yahoo or MSN page.

Yahoo Directions:

click "Add Content"
click the "Add RSS by URL" link in the Search for Content box, just to the right of the find button.
Enter http://labstaffers.blogspot.com/atom.xml and click "Add"
Click the "+Add" Button
Enjoy

MSN Directions:

click "Add Content"
Enter http://labstaffers.blogspot.com/atom.xml in the search for Content box and click the green arrow
Check the box and click the "OK" button
Enjoy

Wheatley's at Easter

2005-04-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

Thomas, Angie, and baby Autumn at Easter '05. Thomas will graduate with his Masters of Information Systems Management in April, and will be starting work for the KPMG Salt Lake office in the summer.

Autumn has started to rollover and eat solid foods (they don't look that solid to me though).

Our family website is http://www.wheatleyfamily.net

--- Labstaff from 2000-2005 ---

What's new at the lab?

2005-04-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

A lot has changed at the lab in the last little while. There are now only a few machines that have zip disks. Most all the machines are the small form factor with a DVD player, CD Burner and USB ports.

It's also so nice to have flat screens! There's more open space on the tables now.

The lab has had an interesting ride the past few years. For many years, the lab was on its own account system. Then the lab was forced to switch over to the campus wide computer system in the '01/'02 school year (if I'm not mistaken). When campus wanted to start charging for using the system, the lab broke off and went back to its own new system.

After enough colleges within the university started going to their own systems, campus became a little more understanding and a group project was created where each college could have input on the campus system. The new system can function with the lab system that was put into place after the first fallout with the campus system.

Three labstaff now work on the clock during the busy hours instead of four, and there are two computer stations at the front desk for labstaff. The lab has also expanded the number of computers in operation. Room 370 is now called room 360D and has about 20 computers in it. With 360D the 360 lab has almost 100 computers.

Instead of posting hours that labstaff want to give up for vacations and such, we have a system at http://tannerlab.byu.edu that allows labstaff to log in through the web and post their hours, and other staff can sign up for those hours.

Students in the lab now get 200MB worth of personal storage space on what's called the M drive. They can access their files from the web. Students don't need to check in to use the computers like in the past.

Site Feed

2005-04-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

The Lab Staffers blog is enabled with an atom site feed.

With this feed, you can get updates (new posts) from the site into your own news reader. Many email client programs also function and news readers. Many people use this function to link to their favorite news websites and can thus check the news headlines when they check their mail.

The news feed for Lab Staffers can be found at http://labstaffers.blogspot.com/atom.xml

More information can be found by visiting http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=697

How to Post

2005-04-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

To post to the labstaffers blog, you must first be invited to the blog and then create a free account with http://blogger.com

Email labstaffers AT gmail.com to be invited to the blog. Specify the years you were involved with the lab in your email. You must agree to the terms of use for this blog in order to post.

You will then be sent an invitation link by email. Click the link to join the blog. If you have not already created a blogger.com account, you will be asked to do so.

Once your account is created, log into http://blogger.com and select the blog to be able to post. Or you can click on the blogger icon in the top right of the blog and you will be prompted to log in.

With a blogger.com account created, you can create your own personal blog as well.

Posting Pictures

2005-04-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

Post pictures to the blog by following the steps below:

Log into blogger.
Select this blog.
Select to create a new post under the "Posting" tab.
Click on the "Add Image" icon (looks like a little picture).
Browse to your picture location on your hard drive.
Select your picture(s) one at a time.
Upload your pictures.
Click "Done" in the upload window you were using. It's that easy!

-- OR --

Download and install Picasa http://picasa.com
Create a free Hello account http://hello.com
Open Picasa and let it scan your computer for pictures. When it is finished select the picture you want to post and click the Blogger button. You will then be asked to log into Hello and Blogger.
Click the blogger bot to send pictures to blogger.
In your Hello settings, set the picture size to be 400 pixels.
Set the Attribution option to "Nothing"
You can then create a comment for your picture and upload it to the blog.
You can log into the blog later and edit your comments and title for the blog entry.

Staff Websites

2005-04-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

Lab staff personal websites:

Christian Farmer	http://www.christianfarmer.net
Dan King	http://www.danking.us http://king-family.us
Max Gruber	http://www.maxgruber.com
Thomas Wheatley	http://www.wheatleyfamily.net http://www.familyhistoryquickstart.com
Tony Familia	http://www.familiafamily.com
Tres Larsen	http://www.treslarsen.com

Email labstaffers AT gmail.com to add your site to the list. You must be a registered member of this blog to have your site posted.

Terms of Use

2005-04-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

This web log (blog) is for the purpose of displaying information and news from msm labstaff both past and present.

Members of the blog are responsible for their posts and comments. In conjunction with the Blogger.com terms of service, Members of the blog agree not to post profane or otherwise inappropriate material in their posts. If such content is posted, the blog administration reserves the right to delete the post or remove the member from the labstaffers blog membership.

Members of the blog agree not to excessively post to the blog within a short period of time thus allowing the other members of the blog space to display their entries on the front page of the blog.

Site administration reserves the right to remove members of the blog at anytime without notice.

Site administration reserves the right to offer notice without notice.

Site administration will not be held liable for any insult and or injury incurred in connection with this blog including but not limited to injury incurred by operating heavy machinery when viewing the blog.

The site administrators reserve the right to change the terms of use without notice as necessity dictates.