2000: Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago, I was a Junior in High school. In a typical day, I would wake up really early, drive around and deliver newspapers. I might drive to Layton High, or I might bike. I was in my second year of French class, relearning stuff since people coming from Jr. High didn't learn as far as we did. I took introduction to computer programming (a C++ class). People tried to steal my floppy disk with my programs, but the teacher could tell my code apart. (It did what it was supposed to.) I got my first 4.0. That summer, was that when we went on our second Tennessee trip? I can't remember.

Ten years ago, 10 GB was a good size for a hard drive. The iMac had recently come out. Windows came out with Windows 2000 and Windows ME, replacing Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 respectively. Fears of Y2K were calmed. The dot-com bubble was still growing, and I sold my stock at it's height before the crash. I hardly used the internet then. Most internet users were still on dial-up. Google wasn't yet popular, but was growing. Nupedia, predecessor to Wikipedia was created.

Ten years ago, I hadn't yet read the Bible, nor the Missionary Library. I had read the Book of Mormon, and I knew that Jesus Christ was my Savior. I had read the Doctorine and Covanents, and I knew The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was Christ's Church.

Ten years ago, Bill Clinton was still president. September 11th was just another date, and Enron was just another company. The Layton Super-Walmart was just a regular Walmart. The Hill Field interchange hadn't been improved, it was much worse. Salt Lake Olympics hadn't arrived yet, and the freeway was somewhat narrower.

Ten years ago, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter were still just books. Superman and Batman were the only movie superheroes. X-Men came out ten years ago. Survivor began 10 years ago, and with it, reality TV as we know it. Star Trek: Voyager and Touched by an Angel were still on the air 10 years ago. 10 years ago Sabrina the Teenage Witch graduated High School.

Ten years ago Peanuts ended and Charles Schultz died. Ten years ago Jim Varney (Ernest P. Worrell) died. In 1999, Spencer Workman, one of my good friends, died.

Ten years ago, I created the concept of Senior Who and began writing Senior Who comics. (Which I didn't keep up with after graduation. I lost them for a long time and only recently [last year] found.) I began the tradition of going as my character for Halloween each year.

Ten years ago, I was at that time just learning how to be friendly, so there were a lot of people that liked me, but I've always only had a few close friends. Thanks for the memories.

2009 -- A Year in Brief

Quite the interesting year. A lot happened and I learned a lot. As this year comes to an end, something I always do is look back on the year, and list a few of the events that I felt are significant to me this year.

Roughly, but not necessarily in Chronological order:

• I bought a house.
• I got a raise.
• I joined a new ward.
• I went on a second and third date for the first time.
• In fact I've dated more this year than any other.
• I saw a grumpy guy smile. I wondered if he ever would. Yay!
• June was really wet, huh?
• I went on furlough for three months.
• I went camping more this year than any other (in my memory, we probably camped more when I was really young)
• I hiked to Delicate Arch (among others) for the first time.
• I went to Yellowstone twice.
• I used a wave-runner for the first time.
• I did more biking this year than I have since my mission.
• In theaters, I saw Star Trek, Up, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3-D.
• I learned that when a girl texts you "Happy <insert holiday>" it is really secret woman code for, "Are you going to ask me out or what?" Oops.
• Oh, and turns out they want a second date in less than two months. Actually, in like a week or some kind of ridiculously short amount of time like that. Oops.
• I got hired by the Federal Government, with another pay increase.
• I rented a Tux for the second time in my life, and got to dance with several beautiful women.
• I played Cities and Knights for the first time. Same goes for the Trader and Barbarian scenarios. And all those other non-Catan fun games.
• The Senior regenerated.
• I bought a computer. It's the first computer I built for myself.
• Lot's of "firsts" this year, just because I own a house now.

I did fairly well on meeting my goals for the year. Hopefully I have at least as much success on my new goals.

Sonic's 168,894 Drinks

If you are not aware, Sonic advertises that it has 168,894 drink combinations. Those of you that know about prime factorization and the fundamental counting principle might be raising your eyebrows at this number. Here is how this value is calculated.

First, take one of 13 drink bases. I can only assume from working there that the choice is probably between Coke, Diet Coke, Root Beer, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Diet Sprite, Diet Dr. Pepper, Slush, Lemonade, Limeade, Cranberry Juice, Powerade, or Hi-C.

Then, add in between 0-6 of the 16 flavor add-ins. Note that one of the choices is already made for the last five drink bases, since that is required to make that drink. The flavor add-ins are: Chocolate, Cherry, Strawberry, Diet Cherry, Pineapple, Lemon, Lime, Blue Coconut, Grape, Orange, Powerade, Cranberry, Apple Juice, Vanilla, Hi-C, and Watermelon.

After taking all these combinations, we must subtract one, because nobody would want a Slush base with no add-in flavor. Nobody normal. But then, we add six for the drinks that don't get add-ins. I'm not sure which are the six, but Orange Juice, Apple Juice, Milk, Chocolate Milk are probably four. Maybe the other two are Hot Chocolate and Coffee. I'm just doing the math.

Anyway, this gives us our final result:

16C0 = 1
16C1 = 16
16C2 = 120
16C3 = 560
16C4 = 1820
16C5 = 4368
16C6 = 8008

= 14893*8 = 119144

15C0 = 1
15C1 = 15
15C2 = 105
15C3 = 455
15C4 = 1365
15C5 = 3003
15C6 = 5005

= 9949*5 = 49745

= 168889 + 6 - 1 =

= 168,894 drink combinations.