My sister Sharee, her husband and son, Kyle and Hayden, and I went to Alta Ski Resort in Salt Lake City, UT to ski. It was my first time! Kyle (who used to be a ski instructor) taught me how. He’s a great instructor. Hayden, 5 years old, attended ski school and went from a level 1 skier to a level 2 skier. Kyle said I went from a level 1 to at least a level 3. I never fell down. It was so much fun! I can’t wait to do it again.

You can view photos of this event below:

My first time skiing

I recently went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NV. It’s always on or around my birthday.

The show in the past has gone from Monday through Sunday. Because of this I was planning on going Friday and Saturday and made all my plans accordingly. But, for some reason this year, and every year from now, they decided to run it only from Monday through Thursday. As a result, I had to change my plans and only go on Thursday this year. I was very upset.

My brother Steven goes with me every year, but couldn’t this year. I would’ve liked him to but it was OK because my brother Rick and my dad came with me this year! The show wasn’t as exciting this year as it has been in the past. I think it was because there wasn’t any “WOW, I gotta see that” stuff this year. Mostly a bunch of TVs and more about the Blu-ray and HD-DVD technologies. LG had a really cool Blu-ray, HD-DVD and DVD player all in one.

I also spent some time in St. George with my family and friends for a few days. They gave me late birthday presents, which was nice!

Well I hope next year’s CES is better as I always look forward to going.

Check out the pictures from this year below:

CES 2007

Well…Christmas has came and gone. I went home for Christmas to St. George, UT to spend it with my family and friends. It was nice. I took my Wii and Playstation 3 with me. Everyone was having so much fun with the Wii. It’s a great game console!

I spent Christmas Eve with my best friend Ian and his family. We had dinner and opened presents…and played lots of video games!

I then spent Christmas morning with my parents opening presents. They gave me a titanium watch I’ve been wanting! We then went over to my brother Rick’s house to watch them open their presents (a tradition of ours.) Later that afternoon we all went back to my parents’ house to have dinner; after-which my brother Steven and his family came over to spend Christmas evening with us. My brother Brandon called to talk to everyone because he couldn’t be there. It was great to spend time with everyone.

Well, the holiday season is here! I love this time of year. Everyone seems a little nicer and I get to see more of my family!

I spent Thanksgiving in St. George, UT with my family and friends. It was great! I have a tradition every year of going clay-pigeon shooting with my best friend, Ian, and his family. Last year I bought my own shotgun, so I don’t have to borrow someone else’s. I seem to always tear up my shoulder though. It stays bruised for a few days, but it’s worth it.

My family ate Thanksgiving dinner at my brother Rick’s house. I’ve been on a diet so I couldn’t eat a ton, but I had my filling that’s for sure. The food was excellent and it was great to visit with my family.

Next up, Christmas!

The last weekend of September I went on a trip to California with my dad and two of my brothers Rick and Steven. It would’ve been nice to have my little brother Brandon there as well, but he is currently incarcerated. Hopefully next time he can come too!

My dad had never been to Disneyland before and it’d been years since he’d been to California, so my brothers and I thought it’d be fun to take him. We stayed in a really nice hotel near Disneyland for two nights. The rooms were very nice, each having two rooms; one for a living area with a tv, couch and a computer desk; and one with the two beds and a tv as well. The bathroom was shared by both rooms. We got a good deal on them through a friend of my mother’s.

The first day there we woke up early and ate a nice breakfast at Denny’s. We then went to Disneyland and waited until it opened. We had previously bought our tickets the day before so we didn’t have to the day we were going. Once Disneyland opened we ran to the new Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was re-done to include characters from the movies. We then spent the rest of the morning going to every big ride in Disneyland, and some small ones too.

Once we had our fun at Disneyland we went across the way to California Adventures. We spent the afternoon going on ride after ride. I think we all liked the Hollywood Tower ride the best. It was the only ride we went on twice. Once we all got tired and worn out, we decided to go to dinner away from the park. We agreed to find an Olive Garden to eat at. I decided to look for one on my phone’s internet. I found one that I thought was the closest one. When we followed the directions on the internet we couldn’t find it. We called them and found out that they were located in a near-by mall. I’d never seen an Olive Garden in a mall before.

That evening we went back to Disneyland to go to the Haunted Mansion. The park had the Halloween theme so we felt we had to go to the this ride. We got there and had to wait in line for an hour. It was the longest we had to wait in a line all day, but I thought it was worth it. After that ride we went back to the hotel for the night, spending some well deserved time in the jacuzzi.

The next day we got up and had another nice breakfast, this time at IHOP. We were returning home this day, but decided to visit the ocean before leaving. The closest beach to us was Newport Beach, so we headed there. We had a nice visit to the ocean, walking a pier and going in the shops there.

We hit the road home. On our way, we wanted to have one more thrill and decided to stop at State-line to ride the roller-coaster there. This ride was the hightest and fastest in the world in 1996. I had previously rode this ride, but had forgotten how crazy it really was. I don’t think I’ll be riding it again any time soon, at least not until I forget how it is.

I had a blast and I know my dad and brothers did too! I couldn’t believe how much fun my dad was having, being over 65 and all. But he rode every ride and loved it. I look forward to going on another trip like this some day.

To view the pictures from this trip visit my website at www.jasonruesch.com

August was a some-what eventful month. My friend from school, Bernd, got married to his fiance Jodi. I attended their wedding dinner and reception.

I recently moved to a new apartment. I moved from a 1 bedroom apartment with a swamp cooler to a 2 bedroom apartment with central air conditioning and washer and dryer hook-ups! There’s a few things I already don’t like about the area and apartments, but I believe it to be still better than where I was.

I’m looking forward to a trip with my two older brothers and my dad to California. I wish my younger brother could come along, but he’s currently incarcerated. Maybe we can make another trip after he is released.

Well, until next time…

I figure I should post at least once a month, so here is my post for July 2006!

This month is an exciting one. I am going to Canada! Not sure how exciting it will be, but I look forward to any opportunity to visit another country.
I am going to Ottawa, Canada for a week to attend the Linux Symposium. A few months back, I helped write a White Paper on ‘Automated Regression Hunting’ which got published. So now we get to go present it to a bunch of other geeks!

Oh, I’m also moving next month. More on that in next month’s post! ‘Til next month.

I recently graduated from Neumont University with my Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. What a relief it is to be done with school. Now I step into the ‘real world’ and go to work. I don’t mind it though. I love what I do and am very happy with my chosen profession. Check out pictures of me graduating here.

After graduating school, I had to return the laptop they provided while attending there. I decided I needed a new laptop and really liked the IBM Thinkpads, which is what we used at Neumont. So I ordered me a Thinkpad T60P, the best laptop they have (they being Lenovo after buying the laptop market from IBM.) The T60s were on back-order and I was told I’d have to wait two months before it shipped. I was okay with that because I really wanted this particular laptop. Two weeks after I ordered mine two of my friends each ordered one as well, them getting estimated ship dates after mine (which I expected.) Not long after they order theirs, they receive them, early. Well, I was completely shocked and immediately got on the phone and called up Lenovo asking where mine is. They said it was still scheduled to ship on the original date. I wasn’t okay with this, so I kept calling trying to get answers of why my friends got theirs and I didn’t. Well, I never got an answer, but I did end up waiting until it shipped (which was actually a week later than the original ship date.) After receiving it, I was finally okay with everything and was just happy to have it and to start enjoying it, but the troubles didn’t stop there. After I started using it and installing the software I need to work with on it, I ran into problems with installing my software. It wasn’t the software ’cause I’ve installed it on multiple other computers with no problems. It also wasn’t just the software, but the the Windows Update and other various software kept freezing and just not working right. I called Lenovo, once again and complained about the new problems with my BRAND NEW laptop. They sent me out the restore discs to restore the computer to its original factory state. This didn’t help. Well, I was fed up, for them to replace it I’d have to wait at least 10 more days (probably more.) I wasn’t willing to do this, since I had already waited almost three months for this one. So, the happy ending is I sent the Thinkpad back and bought me an Apple MacBook Pro. Now that they are intel based I can have the sleek design and great graphics of the Mac and still be able to run Windows on it to do my work. I love it and am finally happy with my new laptop.

This is my first post on my blog. I’m not sure what to talk about. I’ve had a busy month, graduating from school and working a ton. Things are going well though. Ok, enough about me. I just wanted something posted on my blog so it wasn’t blank. That’s all for now.