Where Are They Now? — Chris Krieger

As most of you won't recall, I transfered to PHS right before our junior year. I'm a naturally quiet person and I maintained a fairly low profile. That's a polite way of saying my role model was that kid from "Cipher in the Snow." It didn't help that I lived in TimpView's boundaries, with my ward, neighbors, and even my own sister attending TimpView (I caught her on three separate occasions trying to sneak my PHS uniforms to TimpView for who-knows-what hideous desecration). I actually went through my two years at PHS without learning most of your names. No offense, but if you weren't in three or more classes with me, on the soccer team, seminary council, or running cross country, I most likely couldn't match your name with your face. I can remember people signing my yearbook senior year, and then looking at the signature thinking, "Oh, so you're ..." Half way through junior year, Andrus Madsen had to explain to me that he and Andy Andrus weren't the same person. He was polite about it and accompanied the entire conversation with a piece of Baroque music he extemporaneously composed for the occasion. (I had been developing this theory that "Andy" was short for "Andrus", so the one person was Andrus "Andy" Madsen. Really, what are the odds that Andrus would be both a first and a last name?)

Despite my social ineptitude, many of you reached out to me. I truly appreciate that now (though not always back then). Thanks to your efforts, I participated in just enough high school activities (one basketball game, one football game, one dance, one individual sport, one team sport, one misdemeanor) that I can force my kids to be active without technically being a complete hypocrite. I'd thank each of you by name, if I knew it, but you know who you are.

After PHS graduation, I went to BYU for a year, then served a mission in Haïti with our fellow Bulldog Patrick Lindsay. We served under President Andrus (no relation to either Andrus). The French I learned in Mr. Burnah's class came in handy, making me almost feel bad I nearly broke his leg. Remember when he was on crutches? Yep, that was me. It's a long story, but he had it coming. When I got back from my mission, I finished up a degree in electrical engineering at BYU. During my last year I started working for a little start-up company whose offices were right next to PHS (above Dr. Pinegar's dental office). I worked there full time for about a year after graduation. I then decided to go back to school part time at the U of U and commute from Provo. So I was attending the U while living in a BYU approved apartment complex surrounded by Cougars. Somehow, the feeling was oddly familiar. Fortunately, I had no Ute uniforms to keep locked up. Having attended both schools, I guess it makes sense that sometimes my blood is red, and sometimes it is blue.

A girl in my apartment complex (King Henry off of 9th East) had written me off as boring (she should have stuck with her first impression) until she heard I was a closet Ute. This enhanced my "dangerous" rating enough that she asked me out. And yes, she did ask to see my U of U Student ID under some flimsy pretext. Lockey and I were eventually married, she finished up at BYU in dietetics, and we moved to Salt Lake. I finally graduated from the U and we moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to work for Hewlett-Packard. I wrote computer programs that helped design microprocessors. About 7 years later, the entire division of around 400 people was transfered to Intel. We still live in Fort Collins, but I now do performance analysis of microprocessors for Intel.

In 2005, apparently to fulfill some subconscious blood pact with the cross country team, I ran a marathon. It was in the wastelands of Wyoming (the "Run with the Horses Marathon") at about 7500 feet. Instead of cheering supporters, all I got was the local search and rescue team riding up on four wheelers, looking at me, and saying, "Dude, you don't look so good." Despite their enthusiastic support, I finished but sadly missed the Boston Marathon qualifying time by a couple hours or so. I did get to watch the 2004 Boston Marathon in person with Lance Benzley, though, but that's as close as I'll get.

Over the past 7 years, my wife Lockey and I have had three boys. Ian is 7 and is freakishly like his dad in every way, so he has my pity. Thomas is 5, is innately cool, and will likely play football and be popular. Our nearly 2 year old, Jacob, is just starting to talk, so it's a bit early to tell. And our obligatory fourth child will arrive this December.

Last year I considered going back to school for a degree in Computer Science. When I approached my wife about it, she sighed and said, "I knew this day would come." So with her support, I'm now doing doctoral work at Colorado State University while working full time for Intel and raising kids. My life can only be described with a run-on sentence. During semesters, I don't get much sleep. I think I've learned more about sleep deprivation and physiology than I have about computers. In a month I'll start working on a project to take computer technology used for simulating molecular dynamics on supercomputers and modify it to do simulations for high school science classes. I remember how jealous I was of Slade Spencer with his fruit fly experiments because they seemed like real science. It's satisfying now to help kids do state of the art science in high school. We'll have to see if I actually finish my degree (I'm one year into a 7 year plan), but it's been good so far.

I'm sitting this reunion out, but if you need to reach me, I'm at chris@kriegers.org.